The Rolling Stones Top 75 Countdown (#15-13)

Since we've entered the home stretch of our Rolling Stones' countdown - and since we've already decided on Bob Dylan as our next weekend subject, I thought that I would accelerate the RS list by giving it the rest of this week. The fortnight after that will include a celebrated Broadway and Hollywood lyricist. A true Renaissance man, an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit and flamboyance. Two of the biggest Pop idols of the 50s. Six film & TV stars, teenage idols, who were gay and who also happened to make music. Plus, the beginning of the Bob Dylan list. All this and more, after the conclusion of the Rolling Stones list. So, without further ado, here are my Top 15 RS songs.

At #15 we find a beautiful ballad from 1966, which was a #5 hit in the Netherlands and #24 in the US, although it was only the B-side of Mother's Little Helper.

Lady Jane is a flower-bearing foray into Elizabethan balladry that exerted a huge influence on the refined, genteel side of British psychedelic pop. "There are a few places in England where people still speak that way, Chaucer English," Richards said, referring to Jagger's slightly pompous vocal delivery.

Lady Jane was written and composed by Jagger in early 1966 after reading the then controversial book, Lady Chatterley's Lover, which uses the term "Lady Jane" to describe female genitalia. According to Jagger, "the names [in the song] are historical, but it was really unconscious that they should fit together from the same period." The most impactful development was by Jones, no longer the principal musical force for the band, searching for methods to improve upon The Rolling Stones' musical textures. He expressed an intrigue in incorporating culturally diverse instruments into the band's music, investigating the sitar, koto, marimba, and testing electronics. In the press Jones talked about applying the Appalachian dulcimer into compositions, although he seemed somewhat uncertain of the instrument, saying "It's an old English instrument used at the beginning of the century". The dulcimer was first brought to his attention in March 1966 when Jones began listening to recordings of Richard Farina. The influence of these recordings would manifest itself in Aftermath, where Jones performed with the dulcimer on two tracks, I Am Waiting and, more distinctively, Lady Jane. This later attributed to Jones's status as an early pioneer in World Music, and effectively shifting the band from Blues Rock to a versatile Pop group. Jack Nitzsche plays the harpsichord.

Here's a live version from Ed Sullivan's Show in 1966:

All the songs from #14 upwards are graded 10/10, so we're talking about the best of the best. At #14, here's a RS classic: Honky Tonk Women was released in 1969 as a single only release. The song was written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards while on holiday in Brazil from late December 1968 to early January 1969, inspired by Brazilian "caipiras" (inhabitants of rural, remote areas of parts of Brazil) at the ranch where Jagger and Richards were staying in Matão, São Paulo. Honky Tonk Women is distinctive as it opens not with a guitar riff, but with a beat played on a cowbell. The Rolling Stones' producer Jimmy Miller performed the cowbell for the recording.

Richards once described the sacred place that Honky Tonk Women had in the Rolling Stones' live set: "If they weren't dancing by then, you'd know you weren't getting it on." It gave the world a first taste of that Richards-Taylor twin-guitar raunch. For Taylor, the session Honky Tonk Women came out of was basically his audition to join the band. For Jones, the man Taylor replaced, it was the song that was released days after his death. Immediately after mixing it, Jagger, Richards and Watts drove directly from the studio to Jones' home and gave him his official walking papers. The Stones opted not to put Honky Tonk Women on 1969's Let It Bleed; instead, they included an acoustic-hoedown version retitled Country Honk. But in any version, Jagger's nose and mind both get duly blown. As Richards later said, "It was a groove, no doubt about it, and it's one of those tracks that you knew was a Number One before you'd finished the motherf*cker."

Indeed it was: #1 in the US, the UK, Ireland, Switzerland, Australia and New Zealand, #2 in Germany, Canada and Norway, #4 in the Netherlands and Austria, #5 in Belgium and #13 in France. In the US it was the 4th biggest hit of the year, as well as a gold record. This is a live version from 1969:

Finally for today, at #13, here's a song from Sticky Fingers (1971). Usually in a Pop song, love is the sun shining, the birds singing and all sorts of cute images. Leave it to the Rolling Stones to bring love down to earth:

Feeling so tired, can't understand it

Just had a fortnight's sleep

I'm feeling so tired, I'm so distracted

Ain't touched a thing all week

I'm feeling drunk, juiced up and sloppy

Ain't touched a drink all night

I'm feeling hungry, can't see the reason

Just ate a horse meat pie

And the chorus concludes with " it must be love, it's a bitch"

Despite its raw immediacy, it was recorded in an all-night session over many takes, with Richards arriving late in the process to work in his punishing riff on the fly. The song is also notable for its killer brass section that punctuates the guitar riff after the choruses.

Despite not being used as an official single by itself (it was the B-side to Brown Sugar), the tune has garnered major airplay from Classic Rock radio stations.

This is the album version:

This is the extended version, from the remastered and re-released version of Sticky Fingers:

This is "the official" live version:

Tomorrow we'll be entering the Top 10. See you then!