The classic Rolling Stones song Keith Richards gave away
Throughout their careers together, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards have written a number of iconic moments for The Rolling Stones. One of the most significant songwriting partnerships of all time, second only to their friends John Lennon and Paul McCartney, Jagger and Richards have managed to cover almost every creative base.
One of the greatest songs written by the pair is undoubtedly the 1971 effort ‘Wild Horses’. An incredibly sincere moment, the line “wild horses couldn’t drag me away” is so impactful that it is deeply etched into the collective consciousness. Notably, the song was written in 1969 and started out as a tribute to Richards’ newborn son, Marlon, whom the guitarist lamented leaving to go on tour. The lyrics were eventually re-written by Jagger based on his disintegrating relationship with Marianne Faithfull, with the only line kept from Richards’ version being the above.
Keith Richards reflected on the track in his autobiography, Life: “‘Wild Horses’ almost wrote itself. It was really a lot to do with, once again, fucking around with the tunings,” he said. “I found these chords, especially doing it on a twelve-string to start with, which gave the song this character and sound. There’s a certain forlornness that can come out of a twelve-string. I started off, I think, on a regular six-string open E, and it sounded very nice, but sometimes you just get these ideas. What if I open tuned a twelve-string? All it meant was translate what Mississippi Fred McDowell was doing – twelve-string slide – into five-string mode, which meant a ten-string guitar.”
For all of the sincerity and musical brilliance of ‘Wild Horses’, it is also significant for another reason: Keith Richards initially gave it away. This is a rarity for him and the band. Due to his great friendship with ‘Cosmic American Music’ pioneer Gram Parsons, a former member of The Byrds and leader of The Flying Burrito Brothers, Richards opted to give him the song. In fact, The Flying Burrito Brothers were the first to release ‘Wild Horses’ in 1970, as The Rolling Stones didn’t think that the demo was worth turning into a fully-fledged track. However, they would later change their mind and record the material for the 1971 album Sticky Fingers.
Discussing his friendship with Richards and Jagger, Parsons once touched on how the English band influenced him: “I picked up some rock and roll from Keith Richards, and Mick Jagger knows an awful lot about country music,” he said. “I learned a lot about singing from Mick.”
In the liner notes to the 1993 compilation Jump Back, Jagger explains: “I remember we sat around originally doing this with Gram Parsons, and I think his version came out slightly before ours. Everyone always says this was written about Marianne but I don’t think it was; that was all well over by then. But I was definitely very inside this piece emotionally.”
In the same segment, Richards deems the song the quintessential product of his and Jagger’s collaborative partnership. He said: “If there is a classic way of Mick and me working together this is it. I had the riff and chorus line, Mick got stuck into the verses. Just like ‘Satisfaction’, ‘Wild Horses’ was about the usual thing of not wanting to be on the road, being a million miles from where you want to be.”
Later, in the 2004 documentary Gram Parsons: Fallen Angel, Pamela des Barres, a close friend of the late Flying Burrito Brother, reflected on his happiness that The Roling Stones gave him a song. She said: “Gram was so proud of the Stones giving him that song to do…because that was unusual; the Stones didn’t just give songs to people.”
