The Rolling Stones Top 75 Countdown (#21-19) & This Week's Statistics

Here's more of my favorite Rolling Stones songs. Today we'll get to hear Nos 21-19.

At #21 is a song that is high up on most people's lists: Jumpin' Jack Flash. One of their biggest hits worldwide, it peaked at #1 in the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and New Zealand, #2 in France, Australia and Switzerland, #3 in the US, Ireland, Austria and Norway, #5 in Canada and #8 in Canada.

"It's about having a hard time and getting out. Just a metaphor for getting out of all the acid things," Jagger told Rolling Stone's Jann S. Wenner in 1995. After the psychedelic experimentation of Their Satanic Majesties Request, Jumpin' Jack Flash, released in May 1968, was a primal system shock that kick-started the greatest period in the band's career. Richards was on a historic run at the time, exploring the open-D blues-guitar tuning for the first time and coming up with some of his most dynamic riffs. He overheard an organ lick that bassist Wyman was fooling around with in a London studio and turned it into the song's unstoppable, churning pulse. The lyric was inspired by Richards' gardener, Jack Dyer, who slogged past as the guitarist and Jagger were coming to the end of an all-night session. "Who's that?" Jagger asked. "Jumpin' Jack," Richards answered. The song evolved into supernatural Delta blues by way of Swinging London.

The most notable cover version was the one by Aretha Franklin, which was featured in the 1986 Whoopi Goldberg film of the same name. On this version, the Stones' Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood play guitars, and Aretha herself plays the piano. The song peaked at #21 on the US Hot 100.

Another notable version was the one by Peter Frampton on his 1976 album Frampton Comes Alive!, one of the best-selling live albums in the United States, and considered by many to be one of the finest live Rock recordings of all time.

At #20 sits a song released in 1965, Play With Fire. It was originally released as B-side to the song "The Last Time". It was later included on the American release of their 1965 album Out of Our Heads. Cut on a late January night as a janitor swept up at L.A.'s RCA Studios, Play With Fire wasn't really a Rolling Stones record: While Jagger sang and added echo-chamber tambourine and Richards played a haunting minor-key progression, Phil Spector played bass and Jack Nitzsche played the ballad's signature harpsichord.

The song is a takedown of a spoiled aristocratic woman, which fit the band's anti-establishment image. "The music was fueled by my emotions," Jones said. "The lyrics were done by Mick for me."

Finally for today, at #19 we find another Rolling Stones classic, recorded for one of their best albums ever, Beggars Banquet.

Street Fighting Man was recorded in the spring of 1968, after Jagger witnessed a massive anti-war protest in Grosvenor Square. The song's literal meaning was ambivalent. But its energy wasn't, and it felt like a call for radicals to up their game. Inspired by Martha and the Vandellas' Dancing in the Streets, the song emerged from the band's first sessions with Jimmy Miller, who produced all of its albums from Beggars Banquet to Goats Head Soup, in 1973. Remarkably, bass aside, it has no electric instrumentation. Richards created the layered guitar parts by distorting his acoustic through a cassette recorder. Jones played sitar and tamboura; Dave Mason, of Traffic, played a droning double-reed shehnai; Nicky Hopkins tinkled some ascending notes on piano, and Watts played a small practice drum kit miked to sound gargantuan. What emerged was the Stones' most explicitly political moment. As Richards later wrote, "You wouldn't have had Street Fighting Man without the Vietnam War."

Here's a live version from 1969:

Now, let's move on to this week's statistics. Leslie Cheung did very well this week, but the big hit was Conchita Wurst. Followed by a rare day without a new post, Conchita really thrived. Along with it, so did her home country, Austria, but even more so neighboring Italy, allowing it to place well in this week's Top 10, as well as to crack the all-time Top 10, displacing Portugal in the process. In order to celebrate Italy's success, our next post will feature an Italian artist.

The full Top 10 is as follows (there is a 2-way tie at #5 & at #8):

1. the United States

2. Greece

3. Germany

4. Italy

5. France

5. the United Kingdom

7. Austria

8. Russia

8. the Netherlands

10. Cyprus

Here are the other countries that graced us with their presence this week (alphabetically): Algeria, Australia, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Denmark, Estonia, Ethiopia, Finland, Gabon, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Lithuania, Panama, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Singapore, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, and Vietnam. Happy to have you all!

Here's the all-time list.

1. the United States = 46.9%

2. Greece = 18.8%

3. Russia = 10.2%

4. Germany = 3.7%

5. France = 2.5%

6. the United Kingdom = 2.1%

7. Canada = 1.16%

8. Ireland = 1.09%

9. Cyprus = 0.80%

10. Italy = 0.62%

That's all for today, folks. Till the next one!