The Rolling Stones – ‘Sticky Fingers’
The Rolling Stones operated at half-capacity throughout most of the late 1960s. After Brian Jones lost the spirit to perform on any of their albums anymore, the Mick Jagger and Keith Richards songwriting machine was still ascending, all while some of the more tragic incidents like the Altamont Festival plagued them in the background. The Stones were always a blues band, and some of the best blues can come from the most dour of situations.
Months before they would go into exile, Sticky Fingers encapsulates everything grimy about The Rolling Stones from the moment it starts. Although ‘Brown Sugar’ might not be looked at in the best light these days due to its lyrical content, the music behind the song is The Stones doing what they do best, with Richards utilising his open-G tuning to glorious effect.
While the song’s tale about the mistreatment of black women is more than a little bit disgusting right now, the theme seems to come from a different perspective entirely, more akin to something that one would find in an action movie soundtracking a drunken bar brawl. Though the band show their hand early with the rockers, some of the album’s best elements come in its ballads.
Coming right after ‘Sugar’, ‘Sway’ is one of the most dejected-sounding songs that The Rolling Stones would ever write, making allusions to the life and times of a travelling musician working his way through the countryside while pining for a woman. Although there is some type of romantic connection there, Jagger can’t get back, tracing it back to being stuck in the sway of life.
As Jagger becomes more depressed through this song, it culminates in one of their greatest ballads in ‘Wild Horses’. Returning to country music, Keef’s open tuning is dreadfully sad, combined with the lush sound of the slide guitar crying alongside Jagger. For all of the material things that Jagger might want to buy for his lover, no amount of money ever bought a second of time. Instead of apologising for the years of neglect, Jagger hopes to have some closure in another life, wanting them to do some living after they die.
It’s at this point that the album could easily dip into something a bit too depressing, so the band oblige the fans with ‘Can’t You Hear Me Knocking’. Of all the songs of the post-Brian Jones years, this is where Mick Taylor shows off his talents as a lead guitarist, sprinkling in some punchy stabs across the track as Richards riffs in the background. Giving way to a jam towards the end of the tune, ‘Knockin’ is the equivalent of seeing the group play in a dirty blues club looking to please no one but themselves.
The record’s back half settles back into the blues format that the band had been working with since their early days. Although ‘You Gotta Move’ got fans acclimated to the down-and-dirty rockers again, ‘Bitch’ is one of the most complete pastiches that they have ever made regarding the blues, with some of the best use of horns in their catalogue. As opposed to the teenage blues that the group was playing in their early days, it feels like they had slowly started to grow into those same bluesmen they had idolised when they were kids.
Although The Stones delve into some serious territory throughout this album, they aren’t above having a sense of humour, either. Throughout most of ‘Dead Flowers’, the country affectations give way to some of the funniest lyrics Jagger and Richards ever wrote, talking about a relationship that has gone sour and making promises to send dead flowers to the ex’s wedding.
Underneath all of the rock and roll excesses were some fractured souls, and songs like ‘Sister Morphine’ cut to the heart of what the group was going through then. After slowly losing Brian Jones to his drug-fueled excesses, this slow, plodding track from Richards is one of the most heartbroken on the record, relying on that drugged-out temptress for one more hit.
As the album comes to a close, the subtle strains of ‘Moonlight Mile’ is The Rolling Stones’ equivalent of an epic movie sendoff, as Jagger sings about waiting just a little while longer to see his baby on the other side of the world. Although it might seem like forever spent on the road, it will all be worth it if it means returning to the one he loves. Unlike the lowdown and dirty jams, it’s easy to picture the speeding car rolling down the highway, with Jagger breathing in the night air as he works his way back home.
The album closer offers peace for the rest of the album as well. For all of the raw wounds that The Stones were still nursing, the reminder that they could always go back to their home must have been a comfort when facing the gruelling schedule of one tour after the next.
Although there are a handful of decent blues cuts across most of the record, Sticky Fingers marks the moment that Jagger and Richards became one of the greatest songwriting duos in the world. After living through some of the greatest songs from rock’s most mythologised artists, Sticky Fingers took the weary blues rock of Beggars Banquet and turned it into rock and roll perfection. The Rolling Stones had just begun to impress us, and in a world full of newer acts like David Bowie coming around, The Stones could still hang with the new kids in town.
