Keith Richards and The Rolling Stones riff that “suggested itself”
Some songs are a tough beast to tame. Getting everything just right and aligning all the instrumental parts can feel like solving a complex puzzle. But then there are those magical moments when everything falls into place effortlessly as if guided by a higher force. For Keith Richards, one Rolling Stones song was a perfect example of the latter—a beautiful instance where the right sound seemed to descend from the heavens directly into his hands.
No one can deny that being a musician takes work. In the case of Richards and his band, it has been decades upon decades of seemingly tireless work as the group still makes new music and goes out on the road, just as they were back in the 1960s. Especially at the height of their success, where their fans were desperate for more, the task of being a constant font of rock and roll creativity must have been tough. A person can have only so many ideas before exhaustion sets in. There are only so many songwriting sessions they can sit through, trying out different things and battling with bandmates over who should play what and when.
But when it came to making ‘Miss You’, it was really no work at all. Richards seemed able to sit back and let the gods of music take on the task and simply drop the finished product right into his iconic musical hands.
“The guitar riff basically suggested itself from the melody Mick was singing,” Richards said. With no real effort, no stress and no arguments, given that he said the track was “basically Mick’s song” written after “he’d been to too many nightclubs”, the guitarist’s part was an easy one.
But still, Richards’ guitar line in ‘Miss You’ is iconic. Even now, decades on, fans go crazy at their shows when that opening riff rings out. It’s one of their most instantly recognisable pieces and a perfect example of not only the guitarist’s ability to make an anthem with ease but also the power of his philosophy.
“Solos come and go but riffs last forever,” Richards famously said. That’s his rule for writing a great track. He isn’t interested in big, flashy solos where the spotlight is on him, disrupting the flow of a track for a moment at the centre of the stage. Instead, he believed in the power of great, catchy riffs and the way that little repeated detail not only makes a good track but makes a track people remember.
That’s certainly true of ‘Miss You’ as Richards’ part follows Jagger’s lead tightly rather than trying to stand out or overpower it. But as the catchy riff is repeated over and over, it made a song that has been stuck in heads worldwide for decades now.
