Who was The Rolling Stones songwriter Nanker Phelge?
From the mid-1960s onwards, The Rolling Stones boasted one of the two most famous songwriting partnerships in the history of rock music. Only John Lennon and Paul McCartney can compare the vast collection of classic Mick Jagger and Keith Richards compositions.
But before the band’s singer and main guitarist had established themselves as collaborative composers, another songsmith on the scene threatened to rival their efforts. The mysterious Nanker Phelge began supplying the Stones with B-side tracks in late 1963 before providing several songs for their second UK and US albums in 1964.
Then in February 1965 came Phelge’s most significant composition to date. The dark, acoustic-driven track ‘Play with Fire’ may have originated as a B-side, but it marked a notable step forward for the band, towards the more socially conscious lyrics and elements of classical music they would incorporate on their seminal 1966 album Aftermath. The track rightly got the exposure it deserved on the group’s US version of their LP Out of Our Heads at the end of 1965.
The following year, however, Phelge disappeared, never to be seen or heard from again, on a Rolling Stones record or anywhere else. Bassist Bill Wyman claimed in his autobiography that Phelge was responsible for the landmark single ‘Paint It, Black’ but didn’t get recognition for it. Instead, the songwriting credit for the song reads Jagger/Richards.
So, who was this mysterious writer of early Stones originals?
Well, several writers, actually. Nanker Phelge wasn’t a real person, but a pseudonym representing all the members of The Rolling Stones collectively, along with their manager and producer Andrew Loog-Oldham. The name “Nanker Phelge” was used for any composition in which each of the band members contributed to the songwriting.
Original leader of the band Brian Jones suggested the idea as a way for every member to get an equal cut of the royalties for these songs. Jones came up with the name himself.
He borrowed the surname Phelge from his flatmate at the time, Jimmy Phelge, with whom he shared a small living space on Edith Grove, just off King’s Road in Chelsea, West London. The word “nanker”, meanwhile, was invented by the group to refer to funny faces they would pull at each other.
The Stones’ songwriting secret was revealed by Wyman back in 2003. Considering the number of individual songwriting credits doled out like confetti on contemporary chart hits, it’s hard to see why they bothered. Loog-Oldham probably did, though, as the Nanker Phelge moniker allowed him to pocket royalties for songs he played no part in writing.
