The Rolling Stones songs Mick Jagger can’t stand: “I was really disappointed”
Throughout their first two albums, The Rolling Stones relied heavily on R&B covers under the leadership of Brian Jones. Over time, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards became increasingly competent as songwriters and began to steer the group in a more contemporary pop-rock direction.
The 1966 LP Aftermath marked the Stones’ first album entirely stocked with original compositions. The previous year had also borne two number-one hits for the band: ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’ and ‘Get Off of My Cloud’. With such resounding success, the Stones consolidated their place as The Beatles’ sparring partners.
By this point, the Stones had begun moving beyond their image as simply Britain’s premier blues revivalists. Jagger and Richards were becoming increasingly ambitious songwriters, eager to compete with The Beatles not just commercially, but artistically as well. Their evolution during this period would define the sound of late-1960s British rock.
Over the late 1960s, The Rolling Stones ventured into psychedelic territory before entering their most important and successful spell in the early ’70s. Before the overtly psychedelic Their Satanic Majesties Request, Between the Buttons clunked through the low gears.
In a 1995 interview with Rolling Stone, Jagger reflected on Between the Buttons as one of his least favourite albums. “Frank Zappa used to say he really liked it,” he recalled. “It’s a good record, but it was, unfortunately, rather spoiled. We recorded it in London on four-track machines. We bounced it back to do overdubs so many times; we lost the sound of a lot of it.”
Recording limitations frustrated many artists during the 1960s, especially bands attempting increasingly layered productions. The repeated overdubbing sessions Jagger referred to often degraded audio quality, leaving albums sounding muddier than the group originally intended once the final mixes were completed.
When Jagger was asked whether any of the music on Between the Buttons meant much to him, he gave a comically revealing reply, “No. What’s on it?”. When the interviewer began to name some of the tracks, Jagger appeared increasingly disappointed.
On the track, ‘Yesterday’s Papers’, Jagger interjected: “Yeah, the first song I ever wrote completely on my own for a Rolling Stones record. ‘My Obsession’, that’s a good one. They sounded so great, but then, later on, I was really disappointed with it. Isn’t ‘Ruby Tuesday’ on there or something? I don’t think the rest of the songs are that brilliant. ‘Ruby Tuesday’ is good. I think that’s a wonderful song”.
Jagger continued, explaining why he liked ‘Ruby Tuesday’ so much. “It’s just a nice melody, really,” he opined. “And a lovely lyric. Neither of which I wrote, but I always enjoy singing it. But I agree with you about the rest of the songs — I don’t think they’re there. I don’t think I thought they were very good at the time either.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Jagger compared Between the Buttons with its 1967 follow-up, Their Satanic Majesties Request. “It’s not very good,” he said. “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.”
Following their ill-conceived response to The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the Stones returned to their blues-rock roots. The late 1960s offerings, Beggars Banquet and Let it Bleed, are among the band’s finest, but Jagger found a dud in the former.
Although inspired by political demonstrations, Jagger feels that ‘Street Fighting Man’ has very little resonance in the modern day. “I’m not sure if it really has any resonance for the present day,” he told Rolling Stone. “I don’t really like it that much. I thought it was a very good thing at the time.”
Another of Jagger’s least favourite Rolling Stones tracks was contributed by guitarist Ronnie Wood. While recording the 1983 album Undercover, The Rolling Stones were in a sticky patch, with tensions between Jagger and Richards reaching an all-time high. Incidentally, the only thing they seemed to agree on was that Wood’s contribution, ‘Pretty Beat Up’, wasn’t worthy of a position on the album. Ultimately, the band reluctantly agreed to put the song on side two.
By the early 1980s, tensions inside the Stones had become increasingly difficult to ignore. Creative disagreements between Jagger and Richards were beginning to overshadow the chemistry that had powered the band through their most celebrated era, making albums like Undercover feel notably fractured behind the scenes.
Below, we list some of Mick Jagger’s least favourite songs by the Rolling Stones.
The Rolling Stones songs Mick Jagger didn’t like:
- ‘Sing This All Together’
- ‘Citadel’
- ‘In Another Land’
- ‘2000 Man’
- ‘Sing This All Together (See What Happens)’
- ‘Lantern’
- ‘Gomper’
- ‘On with the Show’
- ‘Street Fighting Man’
- ‘Back Street Girl’
- ‘Connection’
- ‘She Smiled Sweetly’
- ‘Cool, Calm & Collected’
- ‘All Sold Out’
- ‘Please Go Home’
- ‘Who’s Been Sleeping Here?’
- ‘Complicated’
- ‘Miss Amanda Jones’
- ‘Something Happened to Me Yesterday’
- ‘Pretty Beat Up’
