I’m posting my 40 favorite Rolling Stones songs, complete with covers.
Today, we’re finally in the top 10!
10. Dead Flowers (Sticky Fingers, 1971)
How do you include just a few songs from an album that’s amazing from start to finish? It’s hard. I included “Dead Flowers” because it showcases the band’s strong country-rock side, big at the time due to Keith Richards being close with Gram Parsons. And just so this list doesn’t become completely ridden with Sticky Fingers songs, I’ll also mention that Moonlight Mile has a similar feel—and it’s also fantastic.
Covers: Many, but Caitlin Rose’s might be my personal fave.
9. Paint It, Black (Aftermath, 1966)
Depending on which version you’re looking at, there either is or isn’t a comma in the title—and grammar matters, people. Mick Jagger is either demanding that a person with dark skin to do some painting, or instructing someone to paint something black. Big difference. I tend to think that the comma wasn’t intended, since the song is really about depression.
Also, this was the #1 first rock song with sitar. Oh, and it’s the theme to Westworld, the best new HBO show in quite some time.
Covers: Too many to list, but on a personal note Eric Burdon’s version—which clocks in at over 13 minutes–was the first one I ever heard. When I first heard The Rolling Stones’ original, I thought it was a cover, and couldn’t understand why it was so short. Here’s some of the most interesting ones:
8. Beast of Burden (Some Girls, 1978)
The other big song from the best Rolling Stones album of the 1970s. Bette Midler had a hit with a cover of it, and Mick appeared in the video (above).
Covers: In addition to Bette having a top 100 hit with it, Buckwheat Zydeco’s best selling single is a cover of Beast of Burden.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8vK_ZrJZnE
7. Brown Sugar (Sticky Fingers, 1971)
The best song from The Rolling Stones’ second-best album. Famously originally titled, “Black Pussy,” it includes just about every raunchy and taboo sexual subject possible in just three minutes, and seems to celebrate white slave owners’ sexual domination and subjugation. But the guitar solo cooks.
Also check out “Bitch,” also from Sticky Fingers.
Covers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=masNmZy5d6Y
Hit next for more!
