The Rolling Stones songs that Mick Jagger and Keith Richards hate: “It’s not very good”
The Rolling Stones have been raising hell for longer than most other rock artists have been alive, and if longevity means the greatest legacy, then there are few bands who can compete with the Dartford outfit.
Ever since a chance meeting between Keith Richards and Mick Jagger in the 1960s, The Stones have always represented the slightly sinister side of rock and roll, which included sex, drugs, and countless other escapades that no mother wanted their child to be involved in. Though they may have notched one hit after another, that doesn’t mean that every single one of their creations is a personal favourite.
Though plenty of songs might not work at the moment, there are more than a few that don’t hold up over time. When talking about their iconic tune ‘Street Fighting Man’, Jagger thought that the lyrics didn’t have any resonance over time, later telling Rolling Stone: “I’m not sure if it has any resonance for the present day. I don’t really like it that much. I thought it was a very good thing at the time”.
It’s not hard to see where Jagger is coming from, with the need for a young man’s revolution resonating with more people who went through the trials and tribulations of the late ‘60s than anything in the modern age. However, Jagger’s knack for writing honest lyrics served him well, capturing the sound most disenfranchised kids feel at that age.
While some of these songs were hits for obvious reasons, it’s hard to spot the tracks that are bound to be classics unless they’re in hindsight. When Richards first dreamed up the riff to ‘Satisfaction’, Jagger remembered Richards detesting it, telling the BBC documentary My Life as a Rolling Stone, “I remember sitting with Keith and writing the song Satisfaction. Our manager, Andrew Oldham, said, ‘This is like a number one single, this is great!’ Keith was like, ‘I don’t really like it. It can’t come out as a single.’ And it went to number one like instantly”.
Since its 1965 release, the song’s infectious chords and lyrics have taken over everyone who hears it. While Mick Jagger would write the lyrics for the now iconic rock and roll record in the relative comfort of a hotel in Florida, four days before the band recorded it. Yet Keith Richards can boast the legendary feat of writing the riffs for the music in his sleep.
The story goes that Richards recorded a rough version of the riff on a cassette player while in the middle of a groggy sleep. When he woke up in the morning, the guitarist had no idea he had even written the song, he said when he listened to the recording in the morning, there was the iconic rif,f followed by Richards dropping a pick and “then me snoring for the next 40 minutes”
Richards didn’t even envision the song’s main riff as a guitar part, instead thinking it would have made a great horn line before giving his electric guitar a healthy dose of fuzz. Regardless of his feelings, the song became a worldwide hit and gave fans something more edgy than what they heard from bands like The Beatles.
That kind of standoffish attitude isn’t exclusive to just songs. When combing through the band’s back catalogue, Jagger and Richards don’t have warm feelings towards their album Their Satanic Majesties Request.
Though the band may have tried immersing themselves in psychedelia, Jagger remembers drugs getting the better of them in the studio most of the time, admitting, “Well, it’s not very good. It had interesting things on it, but I don’t think any of the songs are very good. It’s a bit like Between the Buttons. It’s a sound experience, really, rather than a song experience. There’s two good songs on it: ‘She’s a Rainbow’ and ‘2000 Light Years From Home’. The rest of them are nonsense”.
Regardless of how The Stones like to rate their records, every one of their albums has significantly impacted rock and roll for the better. Though something like ‘Satisfaction’ may have irritated Keith Richards or Satanic Majesties sounded like rubbish to Jagger’s ears, nothing will change how that music made the fans feel when they heard it. The lyrics of those tunes might read as a bit cringe looking back on it, but in between the riffing in every Stones song is the sound of pure angst waiting to bust loose.
