Hear The Replacements cover The Rolling Stones’ song ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’
One of the most famous bands on the planet, and most certainly one of the longest-running, The Rolling Stones have gathered up quite an array of admirers over the years. While the fans are in the millions, the musical admirers are just as vast. But one band you might not expect to pay tribute to the group is the beer-stained reprobates known as The Replacements.
The group arrived in the post-punk generation but embodied the spirit of rebellion that Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and the rest of The Rolling Stones had first flung in the faces of the music establishment in the 1960s. While punk largely rejected the music of the past, The Replacements saw fit to pay tribute to the Stones back in 1985 with a powerhouse cover of ‘Jumpin Jack Flash.’
Following flirtations with psychedelia and being led down the acid path by a certain band, The Rolling Stones came back to rock with a thunderous punch to the gut in the imperious riff on ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’. Famously written about Richards’ gardener, it is the archetypal Stones song. “We’d been up all night [he and Jagger]; the sky was just beginning to go grey. It was pissing down raining, if I remember rightly.
“Mick and I were sitting there, and suddenly Mick starts up,” continues Richards. “He hears these great footsteps, these great rubber boots – slosh, slosh, slosh – going by the window. He said. ‘What’s that?’ And I said, ‘Oh, that’s Jack. That’s jumpin’ Jack.’
“We had my guitar in open tuning, and I started to fool around with that. [singing] ‘Jumpin’ Jack…’ and Mick says, ‘Flash’. He’d just woken up. And suddenly, we had this wonderful alliterative phrase. So he woke up and we knocked it together.” Richards said of the riff, “It just floats there, baby.”
Nearly 20 years after the release of that song, The Replacements would return to give a slightly different take on the track. Naturally, with their aversion to sickly sweet melodies, the band uses their attitude to carry the cover along the airwaves. The band grind out their desired result and it stands among some of the best covers of The Rolling Stones around.
The Replacements have shared plenty of covers over the years, including a perfect cover of Led Zeppelin’s ‘Heartbreaker,’ Slade, Black Sabbath, Lynyrd Skynyrd and countless more. But, perhaps owing to the two group’s affinity for danger, this one feels all the more potent.
Listen to The Replacements covering The Rolling Stones song ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash.’
