Moving away from clichés: Mick Jagger on the first The Rolling Stones song to address class
When discussing the greats of the 1960s, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones are often pitted against one another. It makes sense somewhat, but despite both being huge forerunners in the rock sphere at the same time, their styles and sounds differed exponentially. For starters, The Beatles appeared accomplished and refined, while The Rolling Stones more readily celebrated rawness.
In fact, the distinguishable aspects between the two can be spotted right at their outset—while The Beatles entered the scene with hooks firmly placed in rock ‘n’ roll, The Rolling Stones turned up with roots in blues, rhythm, and rock. The Beatles were indisputably catchy in the way they crafted their melodies, while The Rolling Stones had a strong emphasis on riffs with a harder edge.
The content that the Stones tackled in their songs could be considered much more authentic and reflective of society at large. While The Beatles wrote simple songs about love and romance, at least to begin with, the Stones were more concerned with rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle themes, alongside rebellion, sexuality, and promiscuity as a means of appearing more provocative.
This was often the result of the collaboration between Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, who together penned some of the greatest rock songs of all time. Obvious examples aside, one such song was ‘Play With Fire’ from 1965’s Out of Our Heads. Jagger described the song as an “in-your-face” tune about a man who isn’t intimidated by another woman’s riches, achieving something that wasn’t necessarily as commonplace at the time: addressing societal class.
“It’s a very in-your-face kind of sound and very clearly done,” Jagger said. Aside from the beauty of the vocal layer, the musician also noted the power of how it all came together, alongside its inherent criticism. He said: “It just came out. It was just kind of rich girls’ families – society as you saw it. It’s painted in this naive way in these songs. I don’t know if it was daring. It just hadn’t been done.”
In his view, ‘Play With Fire’ was innovative before they even realised it, more than others like The Beatles were doing at the time. “The Beatles were doing it, though they weren’t really doing it at this period as much as they did later,” Jagger explained, adding that it was the same situation with outfits like The Kinks. “I didn’t even realise I was doing it at the time,” he continued, “but it became an interesting source for material.”
Although, as he has done on many occasions, Jagger gained a new perspective with hindsight, the creativity came from something deep within, a unique talent that drew from personal experience and embellished it to make it have wider appeal. In his own words: “These songs were really more from experience and then embroidered to make them more interesting.”
