My favorite band, The Rolling Stones, has probably appeared more often than any other band or artist in my 30 Day Song Challenge picks over the last several years. Their music sits right in the center of my sweet spot. It’s great “pop,”of course, but it’s messy, sloppy, lazy even. All rock n’ roll is formulaic, but the Stones execute that formula like they’re always a little high or a little hungover (which they were). There’s something about their sound that is always a tad under-practiced and un-polished, with a close-is-good-enough attitude that falls just behind the beat. And I can hear distinctly in the Stones’ music all of the ingredients that combined to make the mish-mash genre that we call rock n’ roll today: country, blues, jazz, gospel, folk.
Nothing in the world grooves like Keith Richards’ guitar lick on “Beast of Burden.” That song is not my pick today, but it is the epitome of the Stones’ sound and the Stones’ feel. Jagger asks: Am I hard enough? Am I rough enough? Am I rich enough? In love enough? Of course, the answer is “yes, yes, yes, yes” for the Stones, just as it is for most rock n’ rollers. The difference, I think, is that everything about the Stones’ music suggests that they need to ask. What I love about the Stones, unlike The Beatles, is that they always sound like the wrong side of the tracks: the speakeasy, the dive bar, the juke joint, the jailhouse. They still, and always, got to scrape that sh*t right off their shoes. That’s what rock n’ roll is, in my book. If it ain’t got something messy to scrape off, then… well, it’s just too pretty.
Anyway, my pick for today is another great from The Stones, “Honky Tonk Women” from 1969. Here it is:
There’s a longstanding rumor that the inspiration for this song was a night that Jagger spent at the local downtown dive bar Earnestine & Hazel’s (pictured above) here in Memphis. Who knows if that rumor is true, but I’ve met more than my fair share of “gin-soaked barroom queens” there, so I’m inclined to believe it is. Earnestine & Hazel’s was a brothel back in the day, and it still bears all of the hallmarks of its infamous past, including the “upstairs” to which you can be taken for a ride.
In other words, be careful of whom you allow to cover you in roses there. She just might blow your nose and then she’ll blow your mind.
Click here to return to the “anchor page” for #30DaySongChallenge2016 with the full list of this year’s picks