Did Keith Richards write ‘All About You’ about Mick Jagger’s ego?
The relationships between members of The Rolling Stones have endured intense stretches of turmoil through the decades. It’s only natural for this to have occurred when you consider how long they’ve been an outfit, and at one point, Keith Richards used songwriting to channel his frustrations at Mick Jagger.
The song in question is ‘All About You’, which appeared on The Stones’ Emotional Rescue in 1980. Despite the songwriting being credited to both Richards and Jagger, the deeply personal track is entirely a Keith Richards creation. At the time, Richards was unsure whether the song was completely original and believed he’d accidentally committed plagiarism. He later said: “That song was hanging around for three years. After researching to make sure it wasn’t somebody else who wrote it, I finally decided that it must have been me”.
Thankfully, it was finally aired for public consumption, and Richards no longer had to agonisingly sit on his song for any longer. As soon as ‘All About You’ was released, fans of The Rolling Stones began speculating upon the meaning of the track and analysing Richards’ lyrical content.
At first, it was presumed ‘All About You’ was written about his relationship with Anita Pallenberg, which ended in 1979. Due to the vitriolic nature of the lyrics, which were filled with angst, and time-wise, it made sense to assume Pallenberg was the inspiration behind the song.
On the anger-filled track, Keith sings: “That’s just cause the joke’s about you/ I’m so sick and tired hanging around with dogs like you/ You’re the first to get blamed/ Always the last bitch to get paid/ Oh, tell me those lies/ Let me think they’re true/ I heard one or two/ They weren’t about me, they weren’t about her/ They were all about you, I may miss you.”
In reality, Richards didn’t enter the studio with the plan of venting his resentment at Jagger, and it all naturally splurted out of his pen. Their relationship was in a tricky predicament after Jagger took ownership of the band while Richards lost himself to heroin which caused damage to their friendship.
In 2019, Richards finally revealed the truth behind ‘All About You’ and told MOJO (via SongFacts): “It was a song of love, discarded love. I never really thought about it in terms of how it was going to be interpreted – ‘oh, that’s obviously him writing about him!’ I’m just writing another film noir love song… I know that when I was singing ‘All About You’ I was certainly not thinking about Mick.”
Richards continued: “But relationships in the band being the way they were at the time, these feelings are transferable. And once it was pointed out to me, I said, ‘Yeah! Maybe I do mean that!’ We are not in control of our unconscious.”
Despite the title’s suggestion, ‘All About You’ isn’t exclusively about one person. Instead, it was a ball of frustration as Richards fought back from life on the brink and kicked out against those he felt were trying to hold him down. While Jagger certainly inspired ‘All About You’, it was an unknowing influence, and it took Richards years to realise this.
