Revisit Blondie’s classic cover of ‘Start Me Up’ by The Rolling Stones
Like so many of their contemporaries, The members of Blondie were raised on the sound of the British invasion. Groups like The Beatles, The Who, Cream and, of course, The Rolling Stones were a common sight on American TV in the 1960s, inspiring countless young people to go out and create a new world for themselves. Of course, it was the plethora of musical cultures in New York City that defined the sound of Blondie. Still, that didn’t stop the band from paying tribute to The Rolling Stones numerous times throughout their career.
Featured on The Stones’ 1981 album Tattoo You, ‘Start Me Up’ dates back to the Some Girls sessions of Paris 1977, with Mick Jagger and company recording a live version of the jam shortly after they’d recorded ‘Miss You’. The band felt the track was missing something, so after the second take, they decided to reimagine the track as a reggae number and tried it that way. Again, ‘Start Me Up’ failed to move anyone sufficiently, so the boys put it on the back burner. It wasn’t until 1981, when they were looking for another track for Tattoo You, that they happened upon a previously ignored take from that initial session
“The story here is the miracle that we ever found that track,” Richards explained years later. “I was convinced – and I think Mick was – that it was definitely a reggae song. And we did it in 38 takes – ‘Start me up. Yeah, man, cool. You know, you know, Jah Rastafari.’ And it didn’t make it. And somewhere in the middle of a break, just to break the tension, Charlie and I hit the rock and roll version. And right after that we went straight back to reggae”.
He added: “And we forgot totally about this one little burst in the middle, until about five years later when somebody sifted all the way through these reggae takes. After doing about 70 takes of ‘Start Me Up’ he found that one in the middle. It was just buried in there. Suddenly I had it. Nobody remembered cutting it. But we leapt on it again. We did a few overdubs on it, and it was like a gift, you know?”
By 1977, Blondie had experienced their first taste of commercial success after the Australian music program Countdown accidentally played their video for ‘In The Flesh’ instead of the single ‘X-Offender’. Jimmy Destri always maintained that the mistake helped bring Blondie to a mainstream audience, ‘X-Offender’ being far too aggressive and nihilistic to make any impact on the music charts. ‘In The Flesh’, on the other hand, was both accessible, melodic and punky, giving it widespread appeal. This cover of ‘Start Me Up’ from 1982 shows Blondie treading that same line between commercial accessibility and punkish defiance.
See the cover in full, below.
