Rolling Stones 1968-72 Songs

No "Cocksucker Blues"? I'll be . . .

Virtually impossible. I first thought Gimme Shelter. Then I saw Moonlight Mile. Might be easier to pick the one tune you'd leave behind.

begs to eggs.

So many great ones, but it's "Rip This Joint" for me...

"Sway," dude

some great songs gonna be shut out.

yes, Sway! See, dammit. This is impossible.

stray cat blues ya'll.

let it loose was my impulse pick

'No Expectations'-- so underrated

Sorry to be boring, but I gave Let It Bleed a spin the other night and You Can't Always Get What You Want floored me - such an amazing song.

Yeah, that was my vote too.

TS: "You Can't Always Get What You Want" vs. second side of Abbey Road

TBH YCAGWYW is too grandstandy. I always got disappointeed that the chorus held so much promise, but the verses were just about copping with some famous names...

However, did anyone ever write a song as great as "Sympathy"?

A song that's literate, intelligent, studied, practiced, rehearsed, refined and ends up effortless?

One that plays up to their bad boy image to those who only see the surface of "OMG devil worshipping" and yet actually has a bigger whole.

Well, that's my vote anyway.

never fully appreciated Sympathy until I saw them put it together in the film. Then watched these sexagenarian gents work their voodoo on it live. I might listen to some of the others more, but it's the Muhammad Ali of Stones songs.

"Let It Bleed" over "Stray Cat Blues" and "Sway"

"Moonlight Mile."

Don't know any of the album tracks, but I can't imagine any of them containing anything as good as the intro to Gimme Shelter.

YCAGWYW, probably only because I've overplayed Sympathy. I love Charlie's drumming on YCAGWYW.

But it's Jimmy Miller playing drums on YCAGWYW, I think.

Just checked on Wiki.

"You Can't Always Get What You Want" was recorded on November 16 and November 17, 1968 at London's Olympic Sound Studios. It features the London Bach Choir powerfully opening the song under the stewardship of Javier Sanchez Broto, highlighting throughout, and bringing it to an uproarious conclusion. Jimmy Miller, the Rolling Stones' producer at the time, plays drums on this song instead of Charlie Watts. Al Kooper plays piano, organ and horn while Rocky Dijon plays congas and maracas. Nanette Workman sings backup vocals, but she is credited as "Nanette Newman".

Wow, who knew?
Well, obviously you did...
I went with "No Expectations."

It's good to see that Wiki solves the Nanette Newman question as well.

Oh, and I voted for "Jigsaw puzzle".

This is too many good ones to pick from - to get hyperbolic, it's like trying to narrow down all of Schubert's songs to one best one. Not really do-able. Even by the time you strike from the contentions the six or seven that don't measure up, you're left trying to pit No Expectations against Wild Horses against Jigsaw Puzzle against Gimme fucking Shelter - even the ones that're hopelessly overplayed are just imposing motherfuckers.

I voted for "Rocks Off" anyway, which is a small song compared to some of these monoliths, but the opening couplet kind of changed my life when I first heard it.

The greatest hot streak in the history of rock & roll. Impossible to choose, and there's no wrong answers.

Street Fighting Man.

"Sympathy" deserves all its acclaim. But I'm gonna go with "Jig-Saw Puzzle".

The liner notes to Let It Bleed gives the names of the players on all the songs. Miller drummed on "..Get what you want".

I went for "Gimmie Shelter" (mostly because I haven't seen it mentioned yet), but Jesus Christ...

I want to say briefly what I love about "Let It Bleed": I don't usually think of songs as teachers but this is a pretty good one; it's kind of the opposite of "Sympathy for the Devil", thematically speaking: more like empathy, and not for the devil but more like its opposite. The drums leave so much space, and while ejaculations (vocal, guitar, and others) fill some of it, it still manages to sound spare to me.

even the "throwaways" like "Monkey Man" are bloody essential.

one of my favourite moments in music is the drums kicking in at the high choir note in YCAGWYW, whoever's playing them.

"Let It Bleed"

I just listened to "Monkey Man" again and I want to say that I want to live in a world where songs like that are throwaways.

let it loose was my impulse pick

-- Romeo Jones, Tuesday, 8 April 2008 05:54 (8 hours ago) Link

^^^and a damn fine one

gotta do "Rocks Off" though

Stones aside, "No Expectations" is about my favorite song ever.

IM A MONKAHHHH

"You Can't Always Get What You Want" is the only song I don't like on the whole list. Overplayed or not, I just don't like it. I think I'd feel the same way if it was never released as a single.

It was never released as a single........... was it?

Not in the UK anyway

It's on Hot Rocks, though, so most people consider it a single.

It's on The London Years, so it's single-related...according to various internet discographies, it was the B-side to "Honky Tonk Women" in both the UK and US.

http://wateryfowls.com/0aceapr1/STA67940.JPG

The single version of YCAGWYW is shorter, has no choir, and is short a couple of verses.

I went with "Gimme Shelter" which beyond everything else has always seemed one of the most frightening songs I've ever heard

Close second would be "Sympathy." Whoever it was upstream that said it was seemingly effortless greatness had it right on.

But I gotta go against the flow with "You Can't Always Get What You Want." I've always had a hard time figuring out exactly what, beyond the artists themselves, that song had to do with rock and roll.

Flaccid, overblown, pretentious, and meaningless are just four adjectives that come to mind in regard that particular tune. While I might, if pressed, allow that in the context of the 60's the song might have had some proseletyzing power, maybe changing people's minds about what rock and roll was, or what it was capable of, the flipside of that kind of attitude is that was just a simple sellout. So the Stones could sound like muzak or some dentist office shit, big deal.

I don't hold it against them, one weak song vs. a litany at the time otherwise breathtaking in its rawness and ferocity, but let's call a spade a spade, shall we?

Torn and Frayed

a spade is definitely a spade, xpost.

all of these songs are great except for maybe sister morphine

"Street Fighting Man". Because it was their last moment of psychedelia.

i'm partial to their samba period.

if it's a matter of removing a song, Sticky Fingers is the target album of choice, easily.

I preferred the Grifters from Memphis

Should the "Jumping Jack Flash"/"Child of the Moon" single be part of this poll, or was that released at the end of '67? I guess not if we're just talking albums, though.

"JJF" was the first Stones release of '68.

"Street Fighting Man" for me. That song still sends me into fits of hysteria.

ONE TWO!

Ah! Thanks. Of all the many anthems recorded during this period, I would choose that (if offered). Since that's not the case, I'm going with "Straw Cat Blues," which I think is the nastiest rock songs ever recorded.

Looking at the Stones' catalog form this angle, extracting an individual song from Exile doesn't make sense to me. It really feels like a whole, whereas the other three LPs feel like great collections of discreet tracks.

oh man casino boogie is great! i love the backup singers and the lazy-ass sax courtesy of Bobby K.

OTM. The last minute is the ultimate Stones shuffle (isn't it Keith or Mick Taylor on bass?). It's also got one of the album's best set of lyrics if you can hear them ("Judge and jury/walked out hand in hand").

"Stray"!

has to be wild horses at the end of the day.

Alfred, totally. they certainly had their share of clunkers - even on the bigger hits - but I think lots of folks tend to overlook what cunning lyricists Jagger/ Richards could be.

"Sway"
"Stray Cat Blues"
"Gimme Shelter"
"Live with Me"
"Monkey Man"
"Wild Horses"
"Rip This Joint"
"Tumbling Dice"
"Sweet Virginia"
"Ventilator Blues"

narrowed it down to these 10, then voted for 'Sway'

"Factory Girl" doesn't get enough love

fuck yeah, sway is great. i think i've definitely had this conversation with 69 before.

someone please vote for monkey man.

and nobody should vote for "bitch," the biggest stinker of the bunch.

"Country Honk" was recorded first, I believe.

narrowed it down to:

gimme shelter
sympathy for the devil
dead flowers
tumbling dice
monkey man

but am not willing to narrow it down any further yet

"Street Fighting Man". Because it was their last moment of psychedelia.

have you heard "rocks off"?

oh gimme a break that one stupid effect doesnt make it psych. nothing on exile is particularly psychedelic.

no, nothing, except for the trippy bit in "rocks off".

that's not really trippy it's more of a breakdown

surrounded by pedants

you must not know what it's like to be hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

haha you must not know to whom you speak

anyway, I'm writing in "memo from turner"

oh god you really are high aren't you

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/most_pwrfl_hand.jpg

"Jumpin' Jack Flash"
"Honky Tonk Women"
"Gimme Shelter"

Why is Jumpin Jack Flash not on here? Because it wasn't on an LP? the poll seems incomplete.

good point about 'Jumpin' Jack Flash.' I think it would have been a contender for top honors.

"I Just Want to See His Face" also seems a bit psychedelic to me, but I'm pretty easy to please that way.

I agree about "Face." It's that hypnotic drone dipped in smacked out reverb thing.

I might have voted for "Child Of The Moon" had it been included in the poll (which it should have)

gospel psych. there needs to be more of this.

(re: just want to see his face)

Yeah, "Child of the Moon" was one of their best b-sides.

xp

"Time Has Come Today"!

gospel psych. there needs to be more of this.
See: Spacemen 3, Spiritualized.

^^^ true

13th Floor Elevators approach the Gospel psych thing, too.
All their ballads have a very gospel feel. And to bring it back around to the thread topic, isn't "monkey man" somehow inspired by the Elevators "monkey island" or did I just make that up?

I'm guessing Geir loves him some Strawbs, in that case.

Actually I don't think I have ever heard Strawbs, but I have kind of considered to check them out, being that Rick Wakeman used to be with them and everything.

Jumpin Jack Flash and Honky Tonk Women aren't represented because I didn't think about looking up non-album singles from the era.

In terms of what the Stones did during the summer of love, I would say "Child of the Moon" is their last proper psych tune. Of course, I do think they had several psych-like moments after that. But "Child of the Moon" is their last overt attempt at hippie-dippie-trippie, I think. BTW, Cheater Slicks did a great version on Forgive Thee.

At the same time, "Child of the Moon" is more stripped down than most of the stuff on Satanic, as if the boys made it then left all the garish effects off because they said, "Fuck this. We're a rock band."

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

The top five would sound great on an iPod. "Torn and Frayed" made the cut!

"Stray Cat Blues" – 4:40 1
"Factory Girl" – 2:12 1

;_;

and nobody should vote for "bitch," the biggest stinker of the bunch.

But ... that groove!