How many number ones did Mick Jagger write with The Rolling Stones?
It’s about time everyone drops the pretensions surrounding The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Although the Fab Four may have come first and even introduced Mick Jagger and Keith Richards to the idea of writing original material, ‘The Glimmer Twins’ adapted to the medium like seasoned veterans, making some of the greatest blues rock of their era. Then again, how does their track record stack up compared to the songwriting machine from Liverpool?
When going through Mick Jagger’s list of vocal accolades on number one tunes, he has managed to notch up eight songs on the hit parade that have hit the top of the charts. It all started with the early days of the British Invasion on ‘Satisfaction’. Inspired by a Keith Richards guitar lick, Jagger wrote lyrics about teenage dysfunction as he waxed poetic about not getting any relief from the man he hears on the TV and radio.
Although the model for a Stones hit stayed the same on tracks like ‘Get Off Of My Cloud’, things started to get slightly more vulnerable as the decade passed. As the band started to embrace changes in musical structure, songs like ‘Paint It Black’ became some of their unofficial anthems, as Jagger tells a story of all the parts of his day that quickly turn as black as night.
While the songs managed to get help from multi-instrumentalist Brian Jones, behind the scenes, it was always Jagger’s delivery that landed the killing blow. As things shifted towards more sophisticated musical arrangements, Jagger sang the one song that might be the sugariest answer to The Beatles they could muster, ‘Ruby Tuesday’. Compared to the usual sounds of Beatles songs like ‘Hey Jude’, Jagger could easily keep up with his pals in writing emotional songs.
The band’s talents were always in the blues, though, and some of their greatest achievements came when they were interpreting old blues licks through Keef’s open-tuned guitar. When Jagger wasn’t singing about the pleasures that he would get from willing women on songs like ‘Honky Tonk Women’, he was also dancing a little close to the fire at times when playing into racial tension on ‘Brown Sugar’.
No matter how much down and dirty blues licks they laid down, though, Jagger was always born to sing ballads, turning Richards’s ‘Angie’ into one of the most tearjerking songs in the Stones canon, especially towards the end of the song when he talks about persevering through the tough times. Like most 1970s rockers, Jagger got one of his last rocks off in the world of disco, crooning out the song ‘Miss You’ for the ageing generation of rock stars.
That didn’t mean that The Rolling Stones had run dry. As they made their way into the ’80s, both Jagger and Richards were still prolific, making new classics like ‘Start Me Up’ while still riding the momentum of their past glory. Even though they might not have gotten to the top of the charts these days, The Stones don’t need the charts anymore. They have conquered the world already, and now is the time when they can do whatever they want.
Mick Jagger’s number one Rolling Stones songs:
- ‘Satisfaction’
- ‘Get Off Of My Cloud’
- ‘Paint It Black’
- ‘Ruby Tuesday’
- ‘Honky Tonk Women’
- ‘Brown Sugar’
- ‘Angie’
- ‘Miss You’
