55 Years of the Rolling Stones, in Eleven Songs
By: Caroline Delbert
Tags: History, Music, Lists, Pop Culture, Songwriting

This spring, you can see the Rolling Stones in their 55th year of touring. The cheapest tickets for the opening show in Miami are nearly $300, and the cheapest tickets at the closing shows in Chicago are also nearly $300, excluding the spaceship upper-atmosphere deck of Soldier Field, which is about $250. And those are just the nosebleeds. The more VIP seats at these shows are up to and upwards of $2,000 each.

After all this time and virtually no great new material in 25 or more years, what’s still worth $1,000 an hour about the Rolling Stones? I don’t have that kind of money and couldn’t tell you anyway, but I was surprised to learn that they pulled out “Under My Thumb” at one of their 2018 London shows. The undisputed elder statesmen of classic rock and roll have never broken up—not even a Ross and Rachel balk—and apparently, they still contain multitudes.

I’m not here to make a greatest hits, and the Stones have like twenty of those already, if you’re interested. But I’d like to introduce you to some of the most interesting and illustrative tracks from this legendary band.

Not Fade Away (1964)

The meet-cute of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards is one of those pure stranger-than-fiction miracles. Middle-class Jagger and working-class Richards went to primary school together before going separate ways for the rest of their schooling. They met again on a train, where, it seems, Mick’s armful of legit “music guy” records persuaded Keith to give him another chance.

The Stones’s first album was almost all covers. This is fascinating—I’m sure a lot of the copycat British Invasion bands recorded albums of covers to start, especially when blues standards were tight and single-ready as soon as the tempo was turned up. But for the band whose songwriting core now holds fourteen of Rolling Stone’s top 500 songs to start with a cover album? Mick and Keef wrote just one song on the first Stones album. The Beatles wrote about half of their debut, and the Who wrote most of theirs.

“Not Fade Away” is a Buddy Holly cover. The Stones have made the arrangement more complex and gently sped up the tempo. Please, if you take one thing from this piece, watch this wild live appearance from 1964 on the Mike Douglas Show. Douglas banters with the Stones about their hair, which is already much longer than the scandalous Beatle cuts. The Stones make a joke about Mick’s appeal to gay men, and it’s ostensibly homophobic but doesn’t seem mean or nasty. Their insouciant body language adds to the sense that they really can’t be arsed. And Douglas is a great sport about all of it.

Spider and the Fly (1965)

For their second album, the Stones wrote five of the 12 songs released on the U.S. version, all classics. “Spider and the Fly” was the b-side to “Satisfaction,” a combination that singlehandedly combats any misremembering Boomer claims that today’s pop or R&B songs are too racy. I’m jaded from watching 70-year-old Mick continue to have the same dated haircut and progressively younger girlfriends, but I see in these early clips how fresh his energy was in these first few years. He’s making this tambourine look cool, that’s how much this is working for him.

Under My Thumb (1966)

From a sea of early Stones songs that are sort of skeezy in their hetero gender dynamics, “Under My Thumb” still washes up on shore as the worst one. This is another reason I’m surprised they brought it out as their choice deep cut in 2018 — we all know it’s ironic at this point, or do we? It’s clear to me that Mick Jagger had his finger on the pulse of his time and place, but I think he’s also got a very long track record of trend-hopping that showed more as the band aged and went through different fashion eras. The same flexibility has led them to fresher arrangements and other changes with the times.

She’s a Rainbow (1967)

In 1967, the Beatles released Sgt. Pepper and the Stones cranked out Their Satanic Majesties Request several months later. For a band that came up playing covers of blues and early rock standards, this is the first time the band really sounds like they’re wearing a costume—and they wrote all these songs. Most of this album is forgettable or at least more of a lush, uniform sound than the heterogeneous arrangements of most Stones classics.

“She’s a Rainbow” is beautiful, though, with the discrete pieces of instrumentation that have always set the Stones apart. Nicky Hopkins joins the boys to add a twinkling, almost toylike piano part that’s just . . . extraordinary. A string section is subtle for most of the song but joins the piano for a breakdown in the middle. I think this is why the song succeeds: like the later megahit and frequent only-Stones-song-people-like “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” some classical and even novel instrumentation builds up a foundation for the Stones’s best qualities to rest on.

Sympathy for the Devil (1968)

Mick Jagger can strum a guitar, but he’s masterful with almost everything in the rhythm section apart from the actual drumset. I mean this in the most expansive sense, too: Mick’s singing is emphatic and punctuated, and he uses it to add color to the music of a song, not just his vocal parts. He’s gifted at piano and offbeat percussion like the tambourine, and in “Sympathy for the Devil,” the band brings in congas, maracas, and percussive vocables. They strike a balance where the song has an exotic and primal sound without being racist or culturally appropriatey.

The lyrics are a masterpiece in line with our millennia-old human tradition of writing myths and fictions from the perspective of our devils. This time, we know for sure that there’s irony, and “Sympathy for the Devil” plays as well in 2019 as it always has. Familiar readers know my love of Jimmy Buffett’s early songwriting and of story-songs in general—this song is Mick Jagger at his story-song best, filtered through what makes the Rolling Stones special. In my opinion, this is the single best Rolling Stones song.

Honky Tonk Woman (1969)

The Stones have used the “issue covers of ourselves” move from their bag of tricks more and more in the 2000s. It’s honestly a little sad, but I’d rather hear fresh covers of their classics than a lot of their forgettable newer songs — see further down this list.

“Honky Tonk Woman” is an early example of this, a one-off single that wasn’t ever released on a studio album in its original mix. Instead, the Stones included a completely different arrangement in a completely different genre on 1969’s Let It Bleed. The country version is called “Country Honk.” And as with late-model Stones blues or acoustic albums, “Country Honk” shows how much is missing when the boys don’t bring their characteristic arrangements. The country arrangement sounds more like a “Keith song” (TM) than a Stones song. This refers to the one to two songs per studio album that are sung by Keith Richards. Joe Walsh’s “Life’s Been Good” is really a Keith song (TM).

Brown Sugar (1971)

Ah yes, the Stones, demonstrating good taste with the title and cover art of 1971’s Sticky Fingers. Moreover, “Brown Sugar” is a classic Mick story-song with a traditional Stones arrangement and a subject that toes the line of good taste or racism—the narrator (is it Mick?) describes a lot of midnight sex between American slaves and their owners, but describes whippings in the same breathless context. His narrator wonders about the origins of one of the women slaves in the song and assigns some race essentialism to her.

We could easily say this is Mick playing a part the way he did in “Sympathy for the Devil,” but in that song he identified the narrator as Lucifer himself. In “Brown Sugar” there’s no such clarity, and the queasiness goes beyond race stuff and power dynamics to underage partners and . . . well, it’s a lot. And Mick himself was dating a black woman at the time. I don’t know! It’s a lot.

Shine a Light (1972)

Like “She’s a Rainbow”—and unlike “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” according to some, but not me—this beautiful song strikes a balance between reverence and bigness of spirit and tone without being precious or overly sweet. Honestly, all three songs sound like what might happen if you invited your real-life friend Mick to play something at your wedding. In this case, the song is mostly about drugs.

Exile on Main Street is the main and sometimes only album name many people associate with the Rolling Stones. It’s a sprawling double album that’s often called the Stones’s best work, which I don’t agree with, but I see why people feel that way. Despite being a double album, it feels tighter and more cohesive than a lot of their other studio albums. The songs are expressive and range widely in tone and lyrics, but the boys stick mostly to the lightweight melancholies of veteran rock stars. I think calling Exile the best Stones album is a safe choice. Prove me wrong!

She’s So Cold (1980)

Keen-eyed observers will note that the first eight songs in this primer are from a nine-year period and now we’ve jumped eight years before song #9. The Stones’s output gets very thin after Exile, including a lot of uncomfortable trend-hopping with disco and other places where the Stones just aren’t the best candidates for the job. (Nothing is wrong with disco.)

Within Stones lore, their 1981 album Tattoo You is often called a comeback, including the huge hit “Start Me Up.” Imagine being 1980’s Emotional Rescue, which is, qualitywise, about the same. Tattoo You wasn’t even new songs. Anyway, “She’s So Cold” is an interesting counterpoint to Mick Jagger’s earlier songs about women. It’s kind of a Nice Guy (TM) storyline! Our narrator is super into a woman and laments that she doesn’t give him the time of day. Partway through the song, he pivots and tells her she’ll grow old and lonely and dusty because of it.

Hang Fire (1981)

I only love a handful of songs off 1981’s Tattoo You. “Hang Fire” was written a few years before and indicted a specific political climate in England. By 1981, the subject matter still wasn’t appealing to a band who’d run into problems every time they released a political song. When your band is helmed by a hyperliterate almost-economist in a politically combustive time, I guess that’s a predictable outcome.

The message of the song is hidden in its sparkling arrangement though. This tiny song (two minutes, 21 seconds!) harkens back to the Stones’s beginnings as a sped-up blues band and adds a ’50s-feeling doo-wop backup vocal. This song always reminds me of Blur’s 1994 song “Parklife” but with a conscience. Both feel somewhere out of time and uniquely British.

Saint of Me (1997)

We’ve come to the end. “Saint of Me,” off 1997’s Bridges to Babylon, is the last great Rolling Stones song. Late-model Stones songs are often what I think of as “Lady Gaga singles,” meaning the verses are totally forgettable but the choruses are amazing. Why didn’t they take like two more days of work and come up with great melodies for the rest of the song? But “Saint of Me” is a fresh (for the ’90s), contemporary song that highlights Mick’s talent for story-songs and religious imagery. The band brings in church organs and uses the ubiquitous ’90s acoustic strum to help flesh out the song. Mick’s voice honestly sounds as good as it did in 1964, and he mixes backup harmonies with the controlled sprawl of his and Keith’s vocals in the chorus.

Classic bands have a true obstacle to work around: they can stick in the past and continue to put out albums that sound dated, or they can really try to connect with what’s zeitgeisting in contemporary music. That’s genuinely difficult when you came of age 30 or 50 years before, and I respect that the Stones have never stopped trying to adapt. In fact, 1994’s Voodoo Lounge, despite not making this list, is one of the best and most creative of that period’s crop of classic rock revivals. It includes my favorite Keith song, which I’m going to subject you to now as a bonus track.

New for this list, I’ve made a Spotify playlist with the 11 — well, 12 — songs in this piece. I’d love to hear your feedback. You may also like my 11-song primers on Fleetwood Mac and Jimmy Buffett.