The Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger and Ronnie Wood name the 10 songs that have soundtracked their lives
The Rolling Stones duo Mick Jagger and Ronnie Wood have looked back on their lives through ten songs.
Ahead of releasing their new album, Foreign Tongues, on July 10th, the Stones pair sat down with Vernon Kay on BBC Radio 2 for Tracks of My Years.
The radio segment sees musicians select ten songs, including some from their own catalogue, which remind them of a specific chapter of their life.
To begin with, they went right back to the beginning to ‘Tell Me’ from their self-titled debut album in 1964, with Jagger casting his mind back more than 60 years to look back on their writing process in those days, sharing, “A lot of them are obviously very derivative, ‘Tell Me’ is a classic pop ’50s sequence which was used over, and over by everybody.”
He continued, “We did it in this little studio, the building is still there, in Denmark Street, the walls were covered in egg boxes, which was the cheapest form of soundproofing at the time. All live, there was no overdubs, I remember Keith sang into his guitar mic because he was playing a 12-string acoustic, so his harmonies were recorded on the same microphone as his 12-string, swamped in echo. It’s not a bad sound, really, considering the circumstances.
Next up, Jagger then selected ‘Mannish Boy’ from Muddy Waters, before Wood took over with the selections, starting off with ‘It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll (But I Like It)’ by The Stones, and then choosing ‘Johnny B Goode’ by his hero, Chuck Berry.
Sticking with the 1960s, another selection by Jagger was ‘I Wanna Be Your Man’ by The Beatles, which The Rolling Stones recorded and earned their first hit record.
After explaining how they met at a jazz club in Richmond, Jagger shared, “They did that with everyone; they were selling their songs, they were great sellers of their own songs. They had stacks of songs that they sold to all these people, nearly all became very successful in the day, Cilla Black for instance, all these kind of stuff that we’ve kind of forgotten.”
He continued, “Everything they touched became great big hits, so it was great to get one of their songs, because, as I’ve said before, we didn’t really write rock songs in that period, and here was a rock song.”
Notably, Paul McCartney plays bass on one song on The Stones’ new album, which was a joy for Jagger, who added, “It’s great, though, because we’d never played with him before, I’d sung with him before, but we’d never actually played a musical instrument. That was very exciting, he was a very quick learner.”
Back to Wood, after picking The Stones’ ‘Dance (Pt 1)‘, he spoke of the chemistry between him and Keith Richards on-stage, before poignantly saying of his craft, “If you’re enjoying it, it’s not work. I’ve never worked a day in my life, because I’ve enjoyed it so much.”
He also spoke about the new Stones track, ‘Back In Your Life’, which Wood wrote the riff for in the aftermath of the deaths of Brian Wilson and Sly Stone, explaining, “I never met Brian Wilson, but my heart was always with him because I loved his melodies. I knew the other boys in the band, but not Brian, I was always eluded by him. Anyway, his spirit just caught me that day, and I was so sad he was gone.”
While on the topic of Wilson, Wood also spoke about his love of Pet Sounds, naming ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice’ from the record.
Lastly, the final selection came from Pete Townshend and Ronnie Lane with ‘My Baby Gives It Away’, which also includes the late Charlie Watts playing on the recording.
See the full list of selections below.
Mick Jagger and Ronnie Wood’s 10 songs on ‘Tracks of My Years’:
- The Rolling Stones – ‘Tell Me’
- Muddy Waters – ‘Mannish Boy’
- The Rolling Stones – ‘It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll (But I Like It)’
- Chuck Berry – ‘Johnny B. Goode’
- The Rolling Stones – ‘Start Me Up’
- The Beatles – ‘I Wanna Be Your Man’
- The Rolling Stones – ‘Dance (Pt 1.)’
- The Beach Boys – ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice’
- The Rolling Stones – ‘In The Stars’
- Pete Townshend & Ronnie Lane – ‘My Baby Gives It Away’
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