Let It Bleed – PowerPop… An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture

Rolling Stones – Honky Tonk Women

Of all the Rolling Stones songs I have posted…B sides and album cuts…I’m astonished that I haven’t posted this one. This is one of the Stones’ best 60s singles. It’s B side was You Can’t Always Get What You Want. I consider Jumping Jack Flash, Honky Tonk Women, and Brown Sugar their best rock singles. A case could be made for Satisfaction and Start Me Up as well.

When the Stones finished this recording on June 8, 1969…they drove to Brian Jones’s house to fire him. By this time he was trying to get himself clean of drugs and actually was getting better. He also had an arrest on his record that would stop the Stones from touring at the time. He started to record demos on his own and other people have said that it sounded like Creedence Clearwater Revival and that style. He would die on July 3, 1969, from drowning in his pool under a lot of controversy that still is questioned to this day. The song was released on July 4, 1969

This song was also the track that introduced Stones fans to guitarist Mick Taylor. The former member of John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers was brought in to replace founding member Brian Jones. Taylor, only 20 at the time, provided the glue for the song, helping the transition from verse to chorus. Guitarist Ry Cooder also was an inspiration for the song.

The song started on a trip that Richards and Mick Jagger took to Brazil. Inspired by the cowboys working the ranch where they were vacationing, the two started knocking together a Hank Williams/Jimmie Rodgers-inspired tune, with Jagger using the countrified tone of the music as inspiration for his lyrical ode to the working women of the Old West. That version you can hear in Country Honk on the Let It Bleed album. Honky Tonk Women was released as a non-album single.

The song peaked at #1 on the Billboard 100, in the UK, in New Zealand, and #2 in Canada in 1969.

Keith Richards: ‘Honky Tonk Women’ started in Brazil. Mick and I, Marianne Faithfull and Anita Pallenberg who was pregnant with my son at the time. Which didn’t stop us going off to the Mato Grasso and living on this ranch. It’s all cowboys. It’s all horses and spurs. And Mick and I were sitting on the porch of this ranch house and I started to play, basically fooling around with an old Hank Williams idea. ‘Cause we really thought we were like real cowboys. Honky tonk women. And we were sitting in the middle of nowhere with all these horses, in a place where if you flush the john all these black frogs would fly out. It was great. The chicks loved it. Anyway, it started out a real country honk put on, a hokey thing. And then couple of months later we were writing songs and recording. And somehow by some metamorphosis it suddenly went into this little swampy, black thing, a Blues thing. Really, I can’t give you a credible reason of how it turned around from that to that. Except there’s not really a lot of difference between white country music and black country music. It’s just a matter of nuance and style. I think it has to do with the fact that we were playing a lot around with open tunings at the time. So we were trying songs out just to see if they could be played in open tuning. And that one just sunk in.”

Honky Tonk Women

I met a gin-soaked, bar-room queen in Memphis
She tried to take me upstairs for a ride
She had to heave me right across her shoulder
‘Cause I just can’t seem to drink you off my mind

It’s the honky tonk women
Gimme, gimme, gimme the honky tonk blues

I laid a divorcée in New York City
I had to put up some kind of a fight
The lady then she covered me with roses
She blew my nose and then she blew my mind

It’s the honky tonk women
Gimme, gimme, gimme the honky tonk blues
It’s the honky tonk women
Gimme, gimme, gimme the honky tonk blues

It’s the honky tonk women
Gimme, gimme, gimme the honky tonk blues

Rolling Stones – You Got The Silver

I posted the song Happy a while back and I was commenting on Keith Richards lead vocals. He always would sing songs that reflected him and his voice. I heard this song in the 80s and fell in love with it.

This is one of the times that Keith Richards sang the entire lead vocal. They did record a version with Jagger singing lead but decided to release the one with Richards singing.

Supersession man Nicky Hopkins played piano and organ on this. He played with The Stones on albums from Between The Buttons through Black And Blue. Along with Ian Stewart and Billy Preston, Hopkins was one of the three major contributors on keyboards for The Stones. Hopkins also played with The Beatles, Who, Kinks, and Jeff Beck.

The song was included in the Michaelangelo Antonioni 1970 film Zabriskie Point…but it wasn’t on the soundtrack. This song was the B side to the Let It Bleed single…also it was featured on the album Let It Bleed.

Supposedly Keith Richards wrote this about his then-girlfriend, Anita Pallenberg. She was with his bandmate Brian Jones before leaving Brian for Richards. This didn’t help Brian’s mental state at the time.

Brian Jones played the autoharp on this track. Jones played many unusual instruments for The Stones, and this was one of the last songs he contributed to. To be fair he rarely showed up to the Let It Bleed sessions and was not always functional when he did.

Personally, I’m a Brian Jones fan. When they got rid of him they lost their ultimate utility knife. He flavored the music with different instruments and they never sounded the same again. As much as Mick Taylor made so much of their sound from here on…that variety that Brian provided was missed.

I do understand why Mick and Keith did what they did but…it’s no secret that they dominated the songwriting and did not want songs from anyone else in the band. Taylor had to sue to get credits for songs he helped write years later after he left the band.

George Harrison and Brian Jones were close because they were in a similar situation with their respective bands. George at least got some songs on albums, unlike Brian. I would recommend any Stones fan to read Brian Jones: The Making of the Rolling Stones by Paul Trynka. Brian could be nasty and also a good guy…in other words, he was human. Sometimes it gets overlooked that Brian started The Rolling Stones.

The Stones didn’t play this live until 1999, but then it became a regular part of their otherwise hit-packed setlists. Richards was surprised how well it went over with fans.

You Got The Silver

Hey babe, what’s in your eyes?
I saw them flashing like airplane lights
You fill my cup, babe, that’s for sure
I must come back for a little more

You got my heart you got my soul
You got the silver you got the gold
You got the diamonds from the mine
Well that’s all right, it’ll buy some time

Tell me, honey, what will I do
When I’m hungry and thirsty too
Feeling foolish (and that’s for sure)
Just waiting here at your kitchen door?

Hey baby, what’s in your eyes?
Is that the diamonds from the mine?
What’s that laughing in your smile?
I don’t care, no, I don’t care

Oh babe, you got my soul
You got the silver you got the gold
If that’s your love, just leave me blind
I don’t care, no, that’s no big surprise

…

My top 10 Favorite Stones Albums

This is an almost impossible task. It is of course subjective. How do you compare Between the Buttons to Some Girls… Steel Wheels to Goats Head Soup? There was such a difference in eras…and in the Stones case decades apart.

When making these lists the question always comes to mind…do I make the list of my favorite albums or what I think artistically their best albums are in history. I’ve just gone with my personal favorite.

1: Beggars Banquet 1968 – This was the second Stones album I ever owned and with songs like Prodigal Son, Jigsaw Puzzle, and the filthy Stray Cat Blues it’s hard to resist. Their rock/blues peak started with this album into a stretch of 5 great albums in a row. The common dominator was producer Jimmy Miller in all 5. This album was the last one to feature Brian Jones.

Favorite song – Stray Cat Blues

2: Sticky Fingers 1971 – Is this the best Stones album artistically? I would have to say yes. There is not a weak track on this album. After reviewing it and comparing it to Exile on Main Street…I have to give it to Sticky Fingers as artistically the best Stones album…but it’s my second. They had a lot of competition that year with The Who Who’s Next and Led Zeppelin IV.

Favorite song – Dead Flowers

3: Let It Bleed 1969 – The first album with Mick Taylor. This was the second album into their gold stretch of 5 great albums. The Mick Taylor years are said by some to be their best albums. I do miss Brian Jones’s coloring of the musical pictures though. They were more flexible with Jones than anyone else but it’s hard to beat Mick Taylor’s fat guitar sound.

Favorite song – Monkey Man

4: Exile On Mainstreet 1972 – This was my favorite Stones album at one time. It was mostly recorded in the Nellcôte in France in a damp basement. It’s one of the greatest double albums ever. Not much I can say about this album that hasn’t already been said.

Favorite Song – tied… Happy and All Down The Line

5: Some Girls 1978 – What a filthy-sounding title track and I mean that in the best way. This album was great…personally, I think it’s their last great album…but the next one on the list is close.

Favorite Song – Before They Make Me Run

6: Tattoo You 1981 – Over the hill… Geritol-drinking old geezers…those are some of the comments I heard about the Stones while they were 39 and 40! This album was a hodgepodge of outtakes and older songs put together for an album. For me…this was their last brush with greatness. Not that some of the later albums weren’t good…they were but not at this level of good.

Favorite Song – Worried About You

7: Between The Buttons (American Version) 1967 – This was the first Stones album I owned. I had to add a Brian Jones-era album. This period gets overlooked too much. They were adventurous during this period and tried new things…I wish that would have carried over more later on instead of the blues/rock on and on….but they did touch a little funk and reggae later on.

Favorite song – Ruby Tuesday

8: Goats Head Soup 1973 – The new deluxe mix has moved this one up. It was a drop-off from Sticky Fingers and Exile on Mainstreet but they were hard to compete with.

Favorite song – 100 Years Ago

9: Black and Blue 1976- This was not known as a great album and it’s not. You would need a scorecard to see what guitar player they were auditioning on each track. It contains my all-time favorite Rolling Stones song…Memory Motel. They do mix it up with different styles with this one.

Favorite song – Memory Motel

10: It’s Only Rock and Roll 1974 – This was a drop from the previous 5 albums and the last album featuring Mick Taylor. It does contain some good songs like the title track, Ain’t Too Proud To Beg, If You Can’t Rock Me, and others.

Favorite Song – If You Can’t Rock Me

Honorable Mention

Get Your Ya Ya’s Out 1970 – I didn’t include any live albums but if I did this one would be in there. I also liked Still Life but this one to me is their best by far.

Favorite Song – Jumping Jack Flash

Their Satanic Majesties Request 1967 – I know Stones fans who either hate this album or love it. I like it because they showed some more range in this one. They tried something different after Sgt Pepper was released and some of it works.

Favorite Song – She’s A Rainbow

Steel Wheels 1989 – My favorite album after Tattoo You would be Steel Wheels by far. It contained the songs Mixed Emotions and Rock in a Hard Place. I missed this tour and the last one with Bill Wyman playing bass.

Favorite Song – Sad, Sad, Sad

Below is Happy from the 1972 tour…for my money, they never sounded better. One big reason was Mick Taylor and his Les Paul. Also, I like hearing Keith sing lead and backup…no it’s not perfect but it’s the Stones…no professional backup singers, please.

Rolling Stones – Monkey Man

This song is a great album cut. It was used well in Goodfellas, the 1990 movie in a scene where the gangsters are trafficking cocaine. One of my favorite Stone songs.

This song was on Let It Bleed and it was recorded after Brian Jones was fired and before Mick Taylor replaced him. On Monkey Man, Keith Richards played electric and slide electric guitar, Bill Wyman played bass, and producer Jimmy Miller assisted drummer Charlie Watts on tambourine.

Mick Jagger and Keith Richards wrote “Monkey Man” as a tribute to Italian pop artist Mario Schifano, whom they met on the set of his movie Umano Non Umano! (Human, Not Human!).

From Songfacts

The lyrics don’t seem to make much sense, but they are probably about heroin or a bad acid trip. You can certainly draw this conclusion from the opening lines:

I’m a fleabit peanut monkey
And all my friends are junkies

Nicky Hopkins was featured on piano. He and Ian Stewart made significant contributions to The Stones on keyboards, but were never credited with being official members of the group. Hopkins and Stewart both toured with the band as well.

Most of the album was recorded after the death of Brian Jones but before his replacement, Mick Taylor, joined the band. >>

The Stones performed this on their 1994-1995 Voodoo Lounge tour.

This song was used in the 1990 movie Goodfellas in a scene where the gangsters are trafficking cocaine. The film was directed by Martin Scorsese, who directed the 2008 Rolling Stones documentary Shine a Light.

Monkey Man

I’m a fleabit peanut monkey
And all my friends are junkies
That’s not really true

I’m a cold Italian pizza
I could use a lemon squeezer
What you do?

But I’ve been bit and I’ve been tossed around
By every she-rat in this town
Have you babe?

But I am just a monkey man
I’m glad you are a monkey woman too

I was bitten by a boar
I was gouged and I was gored
But I pulled on through

Yeah, I’m a sack of broken eggs
I always have an unmade bed
Don’t you?

Well I hope we’re not too messianic
Or a trifle too satanic
But we love to play the blues

But well I am just a monkey man
I’m glad you are a monkey woman too
Monkey woman too babe

I’m a monkey man
I’m a monkey man
I’m a monkey man
I’m a monkey man
I’m a monkey
I’m a monkey
I’m a monkey
I’m a monkey
Monkey, monkey
Monkey

Monkey
I’m a monkey

Rolling Stones – Let It Bleed

This song is why I first bought this album. I heard it and it’s country/blues/rock style stayed with me. The song sounds low down, dirty, and sleazy…that only the Stones can deliver.

Keith Richards’ fingers began to bleed as he played acoustic guitar for hours while Mick Jagger worked with an engineer on the drum track. The title came from Keith’s desire to record his track. At least that’s the story the Mick and Keith tells. The phrase “Let It Bleed” is an intravenous drug user slang for successfully finding a vein. The syringe plunger is pulled back and if blood appears, it is called letting it bleed.

This was recorded around the same time as The Beatles Let It Be, but the similar titles were just a supposed coincidence.

The Stones recorded this after the death of Brian Jones but before Mick Taylor joined the band as his replacement. As a result, Keith Richards played both acoustic and slide electric guitar, and Bill Wyman played bass and autoharp.

The song wasn’t a single but the album (also named Let It Bleed) peaked at #3 in the Billboard Album Chart in 1969.

From Songfacts

This was the first Stones song to also be the album title.

Ian Stewart, often considered “The sixth Stone,” played the piano. This was his only appearance on Let It Bleed.

There are many references to sex and drugs in the lyrics to this track – an example of the Stones writing about what they knew.

Autoharp is a string instrument with a series of chord bars attached to dampers which, when pressed, mute all but the desired chord. An autoharp is not really a harp – it’s a zither.

The English TV cook and author Delia Smith baked the cake on the album sleeve before she became famous. She got the gig through being a friend of the photographer, Don McAllester. In 1971, two years after the release of Let It Bleed, Delia Smith’s first cookery book, How To Cheat at Cooking, was launched and by the end of the decade she’d become the UK’s best known TV cook.

Let It Bleed

Well, we all need someone we can lean on
And if you want it, you can lean on me
Yeah, we all need someone we can lean on
And if you want it, you can lean on me

She said, my breasts, they will always be open
Baby, you can rest your weary head right on me
And there will always be a space in my parking lot
When you need a little coke and sympathy

Yeah we all need someone we can dream on
And if you want it baby, you can dream on me
Yeah, we all need someone we can cream on
Yeah and if you want to, you can cream on me

I was dreaming of a steel guitar engagement
When you drunk my health in scented jasmine tea
But you knifed me in my dirty filthy basement
With that jaded, faded, junky nurse oh what pleasant company, ha

Though, we all need someone we can feel on
Yeah and if you want it, you can feel on me, hey
Take my arm, take my leg
Oh baby don’t you take my head
Hoo

Yeah, we all need someone we can bleed on
Yeah but if you want it, well you can bleed on me
Yeah, we all need someone we can bleed on
Yeah yeah and if you want it baby why don’t ya
You can bleed on me
All over, hoo

Ah, get it on rider, hoo
Get it on rider
Get it on rider
You can bleed all over me, yeah
Get it on rider, hoo
Get it on rider, yeah
You can cream all over, you can come all over me, ah
Get it on rider ey
Let it out rider
Let it out rider
You can come all over me

Get it on rider
You can come all over me, yeah

Get it on rider