Rolling Stones – Going To A Go-Go

Tattoo You was released in 1981 and they did a massive tour that didn’t come near Nashville. Back then no big band like The Who or Stones would come here. Vanderbilt was the only place big enough and they went through a period where they didn’t allow concerts. In 1972 they did come to Nashville to the Municipal Auditorium and Stevie Wonder opened up for them. I still tell my sister…you could have seen Stevie Wonder and The Stones but you picked the Osmonds and David Cassidy! It doesn’t phase her.

In 1982 they released this single off of their live album Still Life. It was a good album and entry to point to a lot of people…the problem was the live album I knew was Get Your Ya Ya’s Out…which ranks among the best live albums ever. I did like the album though and bought two singles from it before I got the album. I think it has the definitive version of Time Is On My Side and this song…Going To A Go-Go. It was a feel-good live album and the joke was going around on how incredibly old they were…hmmm if only we knew!

This was the last tour you could actually see JUST The Stones and not a stage full of other musicians. They always carried a keyboard player which is cool but after this, they carried backup singers and a huge entourage of players on stage. I never liked that…I would rather hear Keith’s thin backup vocals than professional singers.

I remember watching Friday Night Videos and seeing a clip of Keith Richards clubbing a guy over the head with his guitar. The guy deserved it…remember this was 1981, a year after their good friend John Lennon was murdered. Intruders on stage were not welcomed. Here is a small clip of it.

Going to a Go-Go peaked at #25 on the Billboard 100, #4 in Canada, #24 in New Zealand, and #26 in the UK in 1982. Jagger and Richards didn’t write this one. It was written by Smokey Robinson, Pete Moore, Bobby Rogers, and Marvin Tarplin.  Smokey Robinson and The Miracles released in the song in 1965 and it peaked at #11 on the Billboard 100.

The two singles from the album were  Time Is On My Side and  Going to a Go Go. Time Is On My Side hit the top 10.

Going To A Go Go

Going to a go go, everybody
Going to a go go, c’mon now
Going to a go go, everybody
Going to a go go, c’mon now

Well there’s a brand new place I found
People coming from miles around
They come from everywhere
If you drop in there
You see everyone in town

Going to a go go, everybody
Going to a go go, c’mon now
Don’t you wanna go
And that’s alright tell me

Going to a go go, everybody
Going to a go go

It doesn’t matter if you’re black
It doesn’t matter if you’re white
Take a dollar fifty
A six pack of beer
And we goin’ dance all night

Going to a go go, everybody
Going to a go go, c’mon now
Don’t you wanna go
And that’s alright, tell me

…

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

33 thoughts on “Rolling Stones – Going To A Go-Go”

  2. I think that I was 1 years old when the original version came out from Smokey Robinson & the Miracles which still is a great groove to listen to today. The Rolling Stones the greatest rock band of all-time did that the original justice with their remake.

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  5. I didn’t know ‘Going to a Go-go’ was a Smokey song, figured it was an original of theirs from the early days. It was a good single though. I don’t remember ‘Time is on your side’ being released from it though, I think Toronto radio skipped over that one. Of course, the original got played regularly on FM stations.
    Odd that Vanderbilt wouldn’t allow concerts for awhile. Was Nashville a big stop on most rock tours back then or was it assumed the city was too ‘country’ to take to other types of music?

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    1. For about a decade they would not allow concerts…we couldnt’ get the massive bands. No…we had a lot of hair metal bands and hard rock bands but in the Auditorium that holds around 10,000

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  6. Richard’s stock just went up with me. The Flyers should sign him up. You just never know about people. He straps the guitar back on and starts cookin. Fantastic! Oh yeah I like the cut by both. Something about Smokey’s that does it for me.

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    1. Yea he didn’t miss a beat did he? He did a duet with George Jones that was pretty special when you get the time…he has done some cool stuff.

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    1. I have one…yes I’ve been hit in the head with it before…it hurts and I was barely a hit…while a friend played it I was turning his amp up.

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  8. “you could have seen Stevie Wonder and The Stones but you picked the Osmonds and David Cassidy” – ouch! 🙂

    “Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out” perhaps is impossible to beat. To me, The Stones sound really nasty on it, and I obviously mean that in a good way. A close second to me is “Sticky Fingers Live at the Fonda Theatre.”

    From “Still Life”, I best remember “Under My Thumb.” That version received airtime on my favorite pop radio station in Germany at the time. I loved it then and still think it’s a pretty good version.

    I don’t recall having heard “Going to a Go-Go” before – not bad either! The version of “Start Me Up” is pretty good as well – just a great song, as simple as it is!

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    1. Oh this one is NO comparison to Get Yer Ya-Yas Out…or Ladies and Gentlemen The Rolling Stones. That was their best period.
      My favorite Under My Thumb (and the way we played it) was at Altamont…the bass took the riff.
      Oh Going To A Go-Go and Time Is On My Side were two fairly good sized hits.

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  9. Keith don’t play. He grew up rough and knows how to take care of himself. He was ready and waiting for the guy and he did it so smoothly, it makes me wonder how many times they’ve been accosted by people over the years. I love the video clips in the Time is on my side video. Not real keen on going to the go-go one, kind of repetitious.

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    2. Lisa…it’s hard to get back in the groove…I’ll be going through my day and I notice…Hey….I need to get on WP….I’m still getting used to it.

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  10. Aren’t you supposed to re-tune after you hit someone a few times with your guitar?

    When I was young, Keith was known as Keith Richard. Somewhere along the line, his last name became Richards (which it was when he was born). Checking just now I found sources saying he changed back in 1977. The video of “Time is on my Side” shows a childhood photo at the 33 second mark identifying him as Keith Richard. He was definitely not Richard as a child and I didn’t think he was in 1981. Maybe this is like “and here’s another clue for you all/the walrus was Paul”, just something to mess with us.

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    1. Yea you should retune but with that song…on guitar all you need is one string for that riff.
      Yea I don’t know why he changed it for…I read his autobigraphy but I don’t remember it. Wiki says this but who knows?
      After the Rolling Stones signed to Decca Records in 1963, the band’s manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, dropped the s from Richards’s surname, believing that Keith Richard, in his words, “looked more pop”, and that it would echo the name of the British rock and roll singer Cliff Richard.

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  13. Pingback: Rolling Stones – Going To A Go-Go – MobsterTiger

  15. I completely forgot about this version! I was never a huge Stones fan, but Tattoo You was the first album that grabbed my attention – I was in 7th or 8th grade at the time. After being introduced to that record I went backwards and found I knew a lot more of their songs than I realized from being an obsessive radio listener growing up. In the end, I wound up liking the Stones, I just didn’t love ’em like I did the Who and the Kinks. And to this day, they stand out as one of the worst live shows I’ve ever seen! That was in the late 90’s or maybe early 00’s, on their 6th or 7th ‘retirement’ tour… Wish I’d seen them a decade earlier when they still had some fire in ’em!

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    1. I’m with you Jay…they are not in the Who or Kinks league for me. I saw them in the late 90s and 2006 in Kentucky at Church Hill Downs… Alice Cooper opened up and he was better!

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