“Water under the bridge”: The Rolling Stones song Keith Richards said was misunderstood
According to the almighty book of rock and roll, not every song has to mean something. Even though some of the greatest tunesmiths of their day have been able to make bold social comments about the human psyche, there are only so many times that they can get up on a soapbox before people start either asking questions or want to turn their backs on them entirely. Keith Richards never bothered getting that bogged down in the political side of rock and roll, but he knew enough to know this classic Rolling Stones was taken entirely out of context.
Then again, The Stones were never afraid to say what was on their minds, either. They had their sensitive side throughout their career, but looking through some of their biggest hits, tunes like ‘Street Fighting Man’ and ‘Satisfaction’ were given rapturous praise because of how much they managed to push the envelope and the buttons of every concerned parent that wanted their kids to be raised right.
As far as the band were concerned, they were the epitome of what the old bluesmen they admired were supposed to be. They may have still stolen licks from The Beatles where they could on albums like Between the Buttons, but once the 1960s drew to a close, they had begun getting back in touch with what made the blues speak to them back in the day.
Although records like Exile on Main Street and Sticky Fingers were still swaggering rock records, there was still a darker side to what they did. Right when people started to think that they had seen it all, the more dangerous side of the band on ‘Gimme Shelter’ would be balanced out by songs that could break your heart, like the countrified ‘Wild Horses’ or their interpretation of ‘Love in Vain’.
Despite Mick Jagger having a fantastic singing voice, nothing cut deeper than listening to Keef sing one of their ballads. His voice was never meant to be pretty, but hearing him sing while still sounding rough around the edges gave a much more human element to songs like ‘Coming Down Again’, which sounded like he was coming up for air after a night high on heroin.
While most people picked up on this song being about Richards stealing Brian Jones’s girlfriend, Anita Pallenberg, he said that nothing was further from the truth, recalling, “Some people think ‘Coming Down Again’ is about me stealing Anita, but by then that’s all water under the fucking bridge. You get highs and lows. I remember joy and happiness and a lot of hard work. But when shit did hit the fan, it always hit it very solidly. You get exhausted.”
And it’s hard not to see Richards pouring out all that pain throughout these few minutes. Even though we had already heard what the band could do on tracks like ‘Moonlight Mile’, Jagger could have never pulled off what Keef did here, especially when he sounds like he’s lost in a cloud during the second verse.
So, while it would be easy to chalk this up to another tale of love gone wrong, Richards’s dependence on heroin is a much more obvious factor for why the song sounds so beautifully melancholic. Richards may have been a womaniser during his time, but there was a much more dangerous lady calling his name whenever he had a needle and a spoon in his hand.
