It's now time for us to look at some of the songs from that period recorded during

1970 and then coming out at the beginning of 1971 as part of the as part

of the sticky fingers project those songs are Brown Sugar,

Wild Horses, Bitch, and Dead Flowers we start with Brown Sugar.

Here's a track brought out in April in the UK and

May in the US which the lyrics for

this song are just about as intentionally shocking I suppose.

Well we've talked about Stones lyric that really tried to shock.

We talked about the case of the song CS Blues, which was submitted to Decca.

It was, they knew how to shock, so shocking that the song wouldn't get.

Or a release, but in this case, the lyrics seem

to refer to slavery, and to slave traders sort of getting together with

the female slaves while the wife back home is getting together with the house boy,.

It's just, you know, the kind of thing that's, especially during this period of,

you know, racial strife and

various kinds of things like that, just guaranteed to get a negative reaction.

Now Brown Sugar, the title of the song, may be a reference to heroin.

But it may also come, or additionally come, from a Sam and Dave single called

Soul Sister, Brown Sugar in any case the lyrics are about sex they're not really

about drugs whatever the relationship to Brown Sugar and heroin may be.

And it's a kind of an exploitative kind of sex deeply exploitative kind of sex,

that drove Jesse Jackson a civil rights leader in the United States to

accuse the song of being racist.

Prompting Mick Jaegger, Mick Jagger to later remark that he really

don't know, he didn't know what possessed him, to put so

much really nasty stuff together in a song.

But of course, we've been watching this Rolling Stones thing unfold now for

the past couple weeks.

And watching some of the singles that have come out and an idea of then doing a song.

With lyrics that, you know,

are designed to offend, is really not a new thing for us.

And so, from that point of view, it's, it's almost a point of a continuity and

not a point of departure.

This is one of those songs they recorded during those

Muscle Shoals sessions in December of 69.

It really is a riff-driven rocker what a great riff.

It is too following on the heels of Honky Tonk Room,

which is also kind of a guitar upfront riff driven rocker.

Ian Stewart on the Piano here sax solo by Bobby Keys.

Maybe his first big debut at Sax solo.

With the group he was soon to become a regular on future Stones albums.

He and trumpeter Jim Price actually being part of the,

really with Nicky Hopkins sort of really part of the band for all intents and

purposes during the recording of Exile on Main Street they would

record horn parts without anybody else being in the room to check them on it.

They'd come back, the would come back and say oh yeah that's fine.

So I mean they really did end up having a lot of creative input.

This is the beginning of all that with Bobby Keys during that solo.

And again.

Note the percussion.

Remembering that Jimmy Miller continually produced the group here as we mentioned,

note the percussion.

This time the percussion instrument is the castanets.

If you've never listened for

the castanets in Brown Sugar, I advise you to, to, to listen for that.

It really, these percussion things really add the extra

production touches that make these songs really sparkle.

The form is a contrasting verse-chorus.

Starts with an intro then you've got a verse and a chorus and

this little interlude thing that happens that's that's drawn from the intro.

Then you get the verse and the chorus, and the second time when that interlude comes,

comes back, it's extended, and that's what the sax solo plays over top of.

And then when they come back in with the chorus,

notice how the cowbell enters at that point of the song.

Really sort of stokes the energy of the song up, with just the cow bell there.

Unless you're listening for it, you might not even notice it.

But it really sort of brings the level of energy up, and

stays with the song through a following verse, a chorus and a codo a coda, here.

So again, a song that in many ways brings together a lot of things that,

that we've talked about.

again, a sax solo by Bobby Keys, the emphasis sort of on virtuosity,

virtuoso solo, we haven't really seen a whole lot of that now with Nick Taylor and

Bobby Keys in the group.

So, another instance of that and, of course, the Jimmy Miller percussion thing.

The Mick Jagger sort of shocking lyrics thing.

A, a lot of this that comes back is,

is is familiar to us, but of course the song itself again like

woman that we talked about this week a true Rolling Stones classic.

Again if there are five Rolling Stones songs a person knows

brown sugars probably one of those.

We move on now to a second song that was recorded during those

Muscle Shoals sessions.

And that is the song, WIld Horses, recorded initially during December of 69,

then worked on again February and August of 1970.

When you listen to the instrumentation, here, you'll hear a strummed acoustic

guitar, six string guitar, then a strummed acoustic 12 string guitar,

then electric guitar on top of that, bass, and drums.

So again, the emphasis being on look at how much acoustic guitar not only

just a six string guitar, but also an acoustic 12 string guitar.

It's another Stones acoustic ballad, sort of in the singer,

songwriter, kind of, kind of thing.

Related may be no expectations as we should go have back in

their direction the form as a contrasting verse chorus with an interlude so

you get the Intro, then Verse, Chorus first Chorus then you

get this Interlude which is kind of got the Guitar Melody.

It's not sung, but it's a guitar melody that really is the important part of

the Interlude and then a Verse a Chorus and Instrumental Verse and a chorus.

Now the lyrics begin as a song that Keith wrote,

about having to leave his son to go on tour.

So that part of the song had to do really not with any kind of

romantic relationship, but really just had to do with the fact that he had to leave.

this, this young kid at home while he went on tour for a sustained period and

he felt bad about that.

Well Mick rewrote the lyrics, but decided to keep that chorus,

because he thought there was, the, the line was a great one.

But the song ended up, being about a troubled relationship.

Relationship that seemed to be on the verge of collapse.

And again, it seems to me, it's another Mary Anne, faithful tune.

During this period that relationship was collapsing.

And people around Mick Jagger, said that he took it very, very hard.

Well it won't be long, as we get in to next week.

Mick's romantic troubles will be remedied by Bianca, later to become Bianca Jagger.

But for now things are looking pretty bad.

And Wild Horses seems to capture that.

again, this kind of singer songwriter thing that we're going to get again with

tracks like Angie coming forward.

Let's talk about the song Bitch, recorded now at Olympic with overdubs on

the Rolling Stones mobile unit at Stargroves, October, November of 1970.

Another rock-driven rocker, much like Brown Sugar,

this one with more focus on Mick Taylor on guitar.

He gets a lot of opportunity to play, you know, great sort of guitar fills and

that kind of thing.

Features brass by Bobby Keys and Jim Price.

Remember the sax and

trumpet player who are now going to become more and more part of the group.

And it's kind of a broken AABA form.

By which I mean it starts out with an AABA form and

then it brings back the A and the B sections in an irregular kind of way.

In this case there's an intro.

Then an A-verse, A-verse, B-bridge, A-verse.

So far, so good, but then what it brings back by way of reprieve is the A-verse and

the B-bridge, which is kind of not the usual way that stuff comes back and

then a coda.

So I call it a broken AAB, but it's based on an AABA form.

The lyrics to this tune were misunderstood as, as if

Mick Jagger was saying that the particular woman in the, in the lyrics is a bitch.

And that would seem you know sort of aggressive and

maybe a little bit now improper.

Certainly impolite and a little bit misogynist, and it's not like we have to

look very far to find certain kind of misogynist lyrics in Rolling Stones music.

Under my thumb for example is a is a good example that we talked about earlier but

in that case that's not really what's going on the lyrics when he says when he

says the word bitch is talking something being

a difficult situation a situation with a significant downside or you know?

Amidst the many pros of a relationship there are these cons and

so it's a bitch and it's a situation where the narrator is driven a little bit

crazy by this relationship that he nevertheless wants and needs.

So it's one of those kinds of songs where he's talking about the pluses and

minuses of a relationship and emphasizing the negative end.

Again, a guitar driven tune with the, with the sort of fairly typical lyric.

it, it, from that point of view romantic relationship kind of thing.

Let's turn now to the song Dead Flowers.

This is unmistakably the Rolling Stones doing a country number.

In fact the story is, and you might say, well, you know, when they did

the country numbers, they weren't really taking country music very seriously.

But, some cases they were having fun with country music, but

they were never making fun, really, of country music.

At least, not in a way that,

that, that they would have thought of as anything but, but kind of friendly, and

from an admiring point of view.

And just to give you an idea, there are stories that.

The lead vocal on this song,

Mick Jagger rehearsed 100 times [LAUGH] before he actually recorded it.

Now, you got to care about what a vocal on a tune is going to sound like to

sing it 100 times before you actually commit it to tape, or

get it the way you want it to on tape.

So, I would say that the,

the Stones dedication to country music was pretty serious.

Recorded at Olymp, at Olympic in December of 69,

just after they got back from the tour.

And then worked on again in April of 1970.

We've got Ian Stewart on piano, on this,

guitar, we've got an acoustic guitar strummed behind it.

You'd expect that with a kind of a country tune, of course, bass and

drums, but you've got two electric guitars, and

if you've got the stereo version of the recording, listen in each ear.

You'll hear electric guitar going,

different electric guitar licks going in each ear,

as the two electric guitars sort of trade country licks sort of back and forth.

The form of the song.

There's a con, there's a contrasting verse chorus with something called a pre-chorus.

That is, there's an intro to the song and then a verse, and

it's then I'll call a pre-chorus, which is a section that sits between a verse and

a chorus, and sometimes called a ramp up section that takes you

from the verse into the chorus and often has the,

has the same lyrics each time it returns, but it's not actually the chorus itself.

So just to give you an idea without violating copyright, we get the intro,

the verse, the pre-chorus is the part of the song that makes reference to Suzie.

The chorus is the one that uses the song title in it, so listening to it

you can tell what I'm saying without me having to quote the lyrics and

get sued by, Mick and Keith here.

So verse, pre-chorus, chorus and then again verse, pre-chorus, chorus and

then an instrumental verse, a pre-chorus, and a chorus sort of make this song go.

The lyrics tell the story of a guy who feels rejected or

neglected by a woman who spends time with people of higher social standing.

Rather than turn to whiskey, as you might in a typical country tune or,

or drinking the narrator seems to turn to drugs.

Probably heroin, maybe these are the dead flowers, but

I don't think that's exactly, that's too easy, I mean.

You can say every song to a certain extent is about drugs if

you're really bent on interpreting it that way.

There's more going on here.

The dead flowers can also be sign,

seen as a sign of affection that is obviously false.

So if somebody seems to be saying nice things to or doing nice things for you.

But you know behind it, there is really no respect in it.

There is, they really don't hold you in very high esteem.

You would give somebody flowers, but

if you gave somebody dead flowers it would be the gesture of giving somebody flowers,

but with the flowers themselves being lifeless.

And so it's like an inauthentic gesture.

So the idea of, of sending somebody dead flowers is, is a kind of

being inauthentic in terms of what you seem to make me think you're doing, but

what you're really doing is, is not that at all.

Now it may be that they got the idea of flowers on

the grave from an old blues song by Blind Willie McTell.

There's a song called Lay some Flowers on my Grave.

You might say, well, would they have known of Willie McTell?

Well, actually a lot of people were knew those records.

The song Statesboro Blues is actually a Willie McTell song that was

made famous by the Allman Brothers.

And other people had Ry Cooder, for

example, had, had covered some Blind Willie McTell stuff.

So it's certainly possible they got the idea about the flowers on the grave

from the Willie McTell tune.

But the tune itself doesn't sound very much like the Willie McTell sound at all.

And as I said before,

this is a tune that Mick Jagger reportedly practiced 100 times.

I can't get over that.

Practiced it 100 times before he laid it down as his, as his final vocal.

Well, we come now to the end of this week, Week 5, and

let's just summarize what we've talked about over the course of this week.

The week has covered two albums and

the singles around it Let It Bleed and Sticky Fingers.

Remember that 1969 and 1970 bring important changes for the group.

In 69 Brian Jones leaves the group.

Mick Taylor joins the band, first as a side man then as a touring musician,

then as a more integral part of the group.

We bring in a whole coterie of, of, of musicians, or

bring together a whole coterie of mus, musicians.

Mick Taylor, Bobby Keys, Jim Price and Nicki Hopkins on piano.

Allen Klein is out and the Decca deal expires causing the group to

find new representation and to launch their own record label, take more control.

By 1971 it turns out the band has to leave the country for tax purposes.

We'll get to that next week.

Musically the band continues to be in,

in the more blues-based style that they developed during Beggars Banquet.

But the elements of musical ambition continue creating a real

continuity back into the psychedelic era and before taking us all the way back to

aftermath with virtuosity now added to the mix.

So as I said before you get Mick Taylor, Nicky Hopkins, Jim Price, Bobby Keys,

Jack Nietzsche's involved here you really get a lot of.

Really talented musicians together they kind of take the music in a different

place than somebody like Brian Jones was able to do in spite of his gifted his,

his gifts and his versatility.

So, with next week, we'll talk about a single album.

It's a big double album, and by some people's standards Exile on Main Street

is the culmination, the high point,

of everything the Rolling Stones were about, at least during this period.

Did not, it was not initially received critically positively.

Some people thought it was too much, it was excess.

Double albums often get this kind of reception, but as time wore on,

people came to think of it as one of the classic Rolling Stones record.

So let's pick up with the rest of 1971 and 1972 next week, and

talk about exile on mainstreet.

SCU: “Brown Sugar”, “Wild Horses”, “Bitch”, “Dead Flowers”

The Music of the Rolling Stones, 1962-1974

Meet the Instructors