The Rolling Stones are not playing SXSW, at least not as far I know. I’ve just been listening to the remastered (whatever that means) Some Girls album a lot recently and am totally thrilled at how rocking it is. And since The Rolling Stones in no way need another review of their album, let’s do this! My godparents gave the album to David for Christmas, but since then, he’s not touched it and I keep trying to wedge it deeper and deeper into my ears and then somehow into my subconscious. (I’m pretty sure a doctor would disapprove.)
I don’t know the Rolling Stones that well. This is in part due to the almost complete lack of classic rock in my formative years and subsequent musical leanings. Also, I was always been more of a Beatles girl. But the Rolling Stones are totally different than the Beatles. The Beatles made pop music into a substantial art form for the world (we are all indebted), while goofing around and making fun of the medium itself. The Rolling Stones were more into the groove, the R&B flavors of rock and roll, the sex, the drugs, the swagger for Christ’s sake. And maybe their reliance on black music makes them less authentic than the Beatles’ contributions to a mostly very white British and American musical ethos, I don’t think either band was terribly concerned with authenticity. And that’s awesome.
So “Beast of Burden” was my favorite Stones song before I started to listening to this album. And I still love it. Its all you could ever want from an enticement to casual sex. The music pretends as a love song, slower and with more focus on vocals and less rocking guitar, but the lyrics resolve any ambiguity. “I need no fussing. I need no nursing ” and of course, “Am I hard enough? Am I rough enough? Am I rich enough?” Yes!
I love “Before They Make Me,” even more these days. Keith Richards wrote it after a heroin arrest and its his tightrope voice and story. Mick Jagger wasn’t there at the original recording session. His backing vocals were added later. As much as I like Mick Jagger as a leading man, “Before They Make Me” is a different song than the rest of the songs on Some Girls and that’s what makes it so exciting. The mirroring of harmonies and guitars create a sound that’s more straight-up classic rock, and the track stands out on the album that otherwise looks more towards R&B and country as source material. It reminds me a little of the Allmann Brothers (or what little I know of and like about the Allmann Brothers). The lyrics are serve as a great reflection on a rock and roll lifestyle. “After all is said and done/ I gotta move while its still fun/ I’m gonna walk/ before they make me run.” That image of defiant living is perhaps the most important social contribution the Rolling Stones made. And I sit here listening and writing in this coffee shop in Austin, TX and I (pretend to only) casually take note of all the gorgeous people who walk in and order their drinks, with their dirty hair, and tattoos, and rhinestones, and tight pants, I realize that for those of us that love rock and roll, we are all still stuck in that image loop, drugs or no drugs.
So here’s my recommendation: listen to Some Girls. Go running and listen to a song like “Shattered,” or “Respectable,” you’ll feel the thrill of losing control, of riding that razor blade edge of a tightly held beat and bass line and lead vocals that scream, “And SEX, and SEX, and SEX, and SEX!” You’ll feel a wave of excitement flood your senses. You’ll shake your head vigorously and break into dance for a few moments. You’ll feel good. And you will love rock and roll.
