From ‘Stupid Girl’ to ‘Stray Cat Blues’: the songs The Rolling Stones wished they could delete from history
The Rolling Stones might have had an illustrious career with several classic albums and hits to their name, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t release a number of stinkers in their time. When you’ve released a total of 24 albums, it’s almost inevitable that the inspiration will run dry every once in a while, and that creative spark will dissipate at some point – perhaps even for an extended period of time.
Plenty of things have led to the Rolling Stones releasing some absolute dross over the years, and probably most notably of all, the bumpy inter-band relations during the late 1970s and ‘80s meant that the group weren’t firing on all cylinders creatively. Some of their albums, such as 1986’s Dirty Work, were made without many members of the band even occupying the same space as each other due to the fact that some of their relationships were so fractured at the time. Other ‘80s albums, such as Emotional Rescue and Undercover, were also met with a lukewarm reception, and you’d think that looking back, the band would be the least proud of this period of their work.
That’s not to say that they didn’t also release many albums worthy of significant praise for how they helped shape rock music. Exile on Main Street, Let It Bleed and Sticky Fingers are all regarded not only as some of the band’s best but the best of all time. Similarly to how you might imagine the band disowning their more forgettable releases, you would also think that the band would be all in favour of celebrating their most acclaimed albums and placing them at the forefront of people’s minds.
However, there are a number of tracks that one might consider to be among their best or most famous works that the band are less than proud of, and in hindsight, they might have opted to either make drastic changes to the lyrical content or avoid releasing them entirely. Sure, it might mean that they had a handful fewer hits to their name if they erased some of these contentious and controversial tracks from their catalogue, but it might also have meant that they, and Mick Jagger in particular, had fewer questionable lyrical blemishes.
While ‘Under My Thumb’ is undoubtedly a ghastly song with horrifically misogynistic themes running throughout, it isn’t nearly as gross as another early track of theirs, 1966’s ‘Stupid Girl’. The B-side to ‘Paint It, Black’ sees Jagger portray all women as being shallow and vapid, and with lines about the titular girl being a golddigger and the ‘worst thing in the world’, it’s hardly surprising that the frontman doesn’t look back on the song particularly fondly.
In a 1995 interview with Rolling Stone, Jagger claimed that his own relationship troubles were the reason for him lashing out on this song, and that the lyrics were something he regretted. “I had so many girlfriends at that point,” he told the publication. “None of them seemed to care they weren’t pleasing me very much. I was obviously in with the wrong group.”
Things become far more sinister on their 1968 cut ‘Stray Cat Blues’, a track taken from Beggars Banquet that ought to never have seen the light of day. In this particular track, Jagger appears to be boasting about having intimate relations with a minor and drags himself down into some of the most depraved lyrics he’s ever penned. “I can see that you’re 15 years old, no, I don’t want your ID,” reads the most offensive line of the song, and given that the track so brazenly and gleefully talks about sleeping with underage groupies, it’s understandable that it might cause its writer to feel a little sickened in retrospect. Unsurprisingly, the song hasn’t been included as a regular in the band’s setlist since 1971 – thank goodness.
However, the Rolling Stones’ most controversial song they might well have a sullied opinion of also happens to be one of their most popular. ‘Brown Sugar’ is arguably the Stones at their most formidable when it comes to rocking out, but it’s also Jagger at his most debauched, as he attempts to roll slavery, drug abuse, sexual assault and racism into one insipid four-minute package.
In the very same Rolling Stone interview where he denounced ‘Stupid Girl’, Jagger also admitted that he was far from proud of the lyrics he penned for the Sticky Fingers track. “All the nasty subjects in one go,” he argued in his dismissal of the hit. “I would never write that song now.” Given the horrifying levels of misogyny, sexual objectification and racial insensitivity, it probably shouldn’t have been written at all.
