“That little arrow”: Keith Richards picks out The Rolling Stones’ best ballad
We don’t often associate Keith Richards with a deep sense of sentimentality. The glimmer in his eye is barely visible, for in his younger years, it was hidden underneath a perpetually furrowed brow, and in the later years, well, it’s hard to truly tell if an acknowledgement of reality is even there. He’s been the poster boy of rock and roll hedonism, playing raucous blues licks to wanting crowds and saving much of his spare time for consuming anything within arms’ length.
Ultimately, there are artists who do dewy-eyed sentimentalism well and others who probably can, but you don’t want to know. Admittedly, I’ve spent most of my music-loving life feeling that way about Keith Richards. Every rebellious fibre in my body is tickled by living vicariously through his anecdotes, and his guitar licks have been a soundtrack for me to access those feelings.
But this attitude leads to an oversight of some of Richards’ and the band’s finest moments. This is because it’s easy to forget that underneath the hedonistic exterior is a guitarist firmly in the category of virtuoso, a technical great with a deep understanding of rock and roll melody. Moreover, he is a guitarist who has a deep understanding of how to craft a melody purpose, built for his ride-or-die counterpart Mick Jagger.
So, of course, when Richards was given a 12-string guitar, it’s not surprising to think that somewhere, a mild-mannered but deeply emotive melody existed, just waiting to be drawn out. On their 1973 record Goats Head Soup, the band slowed down for just a moment on the tender ballad ‘Angie’. Written by Richards and performed with the appropriate drama from Jagger, it mused on what is a much-speculated subject of failed romance.
“I suppose you don’t get a lot of chance to explore that area with the Stones,” Richards explained in an interview with Mojo. “But when we have, we’ve done some great songs—yes, ‘Angie’, for one. There’s that streak in me which is always, ‘I’m very sorry I’ve just pissed off the most beautiful woman in the world.’ I’ll get on my knees and beg, y’know, ‘Come on back!'”
It speaks to something many people overlook: Somewhere inside Richards, there exists some introspective self-awareness and emotional availability that undoes his hardy reputation as the ‘prince of rock carnage’. But more than that, there exists an artist who understands not only his own emotive response but also that of the commercial masses.
“But also that kind of writing strikes a chord in other people,” he adds. “That’s probably why I like country music—I like the melancholy, the yearning bit when they get it right. Like The Everly Brothers—that beautifully crafted broken heart. (Chuckles) That’s what it’s about, that little arrow fired by Cupid.”
While melodically, Richard is keen to tap into something innately sentimental, Jagger’s lyrics provide a more focused take on the song. Between David Bowie’s wife Angela, Richard’s daughter Dandelion Angela, and the more legitimate rumour of it being about Jagger’s former partner Marianne Faithfull, much of the song’s musical brilliance has been swept up in the salacious rumour mill. Regardless of who it is in reference to, it’s undoubtedly one of Richards’ finest melodic takes.
