34. Not Fade Away (Single, 1964)
I love the Stones’ take on this Buddy Holly classic! And so did those girls!
33. Harlem Shuffle (Dirty Work, 1986)
This song is a cover of an old Bob and Earl tune. It’s far from the best Stones song, but I have a strong attachment to it for personal reasons. Back in the mid-80s, when the record labels were promoting albums, they’d ship singles out in advance but radio stations weren’t allowed to play them until a fixed date and time. Howard Stern found out that his station had the advance copies of Harlem Shuffle and played the song early. Everyone was up in arms, there was even press about it.
Then, the next day, Stern revealed that what he’d actually played was his colleague, Fred, and Fred’s band Pig Vomit imitating what they thought The Stones would sound like covering the old Bob and Earl song. Not only was that hilarious, but when the actual single started getting airplay, Fred’s version sounded almost exactly like it. Except that the Stones’ version had the great Bobby Womack on backing vocals.
Posting the video because, hey, cartoons!
Covers: I’ll post the original version of the song, and also House Of Pain’s “Jump Around,” which sampled the horns from the original version at the start of their (only) monster rap/rock hit. And then a bonus cover.
32. Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker) (Goats Head Soup, 1973)
A song about a cop killing a preteen kid in Queens. Not your typical Rolling Stones fare. But it was written while the band was living in Jamaica, and after a five-year period of creating several of the greatest albums in the history of rock and roll. I mean, those albums (Exile on Main St., Beggar’s Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers) are still, to this day, some of the best of all time. So the band relocated and spent some time in the sun. The result was an album that was much more different than what we’d become accustomed to. Fans disagree, but I welcomed the change of pace to a darker, more deliberate Rolling Stones
Covers: Couldn’t find a single good one…
31. It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll (But I Like It) (It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll, 1974)
Early 1970s Stones feel almost like the air got sucked out of the room. Gone is the visceral anger and rebellion of “Gimme Shelter” and “Sympathy for the Devil,” and also missing is the ecstatic raunch of “Brown Sugar” and “Let it Bleed.” Also gone is much of the sentimentality—the love energy. “It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll (But I Like It)” is a fitting symbol of the time—the title at once seems to discredit the Stones as artists because, after all, it’s only rock and roll. And the lyrics, which talk about how Mick Jagger has to “stick a pen in [his] heart and spill [blood] all over the stage” seem to resist his role of rock God. And yet, he does like it.
And in 1974 he was in no way close to giving it up.
But Mick Taylor was. This was his last album with the band.
Covers: Tina Turner liked to play it so much she did it with Mick at Live Aid (above). And here’s a few covers, along with Apologetix’s version, which was retitled “It’s All In God’s Control.” They’re Christian rockers. OH and don’t miss the last one, the benefit version…
Next time, the Stones romanticize statutory rape!
