The Beggar's Banquet Poll

PS, poll ends on the 40th anniversary of UK release.

Fcuk! Typo! Poll actually ends the day before the anniversary.

Great album, but it has to be "Street Fighting Man".

Street Fighting Man. My favorite song in the history of music.

probably SFM, but i hav much love for stray cat blueand factory girl. and parachute woman.

blues and*

Salt of the Earth

"Stray Cat Blues", my favorite Stones song, and pretty much what I mean when I say I like "rock" music.

wtf not:

1. "Stray Cat Blues" – 4:40
2. "Jigsaw Puzzle" – 6:17
3. "Sympathy for the Devil" – 6:27
4. "No Expectations" – 4:02
5. "Dear Doctor" – 3:26
6. "Salt of the Earth" – 4:51
7. "Street Fighting Man" – 3:18
8. "Factory Girl" – 2:12
9. "Parachute Woman" – 2:23
10. "Prodigal Son" – 2:55

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Sympathy for the Devil

"Prodigal Son."

I voted Street Fighting Man, but really the guitar solo in Sympathy is the greatest moment on this album, and possibly in the history of Western Music.

Symp.

also, moral: Don't make polls run for too long.

Salt of the Earth is in my top 10 fave songs by anyone ever, tho sympathy will win this poll.

damn Euler's bottom four are some of my favorite on the record. Sympathy is awes, but is handicapped by its ubiquity. I realize that's hardly fair to the song itself, but there you go. Jigsaw is good stuff, even if it goes on a little long. Salt of the Earth is a fine enough tune, but the cringe-worthy lyrics probably push it to the bottom of the list for me.

I think Street Fighting Man could possibly edge out Sympathy.

I'm going with "Jigsaw Puzzle" for my favorite line ("the drummer, he's so shattered") and my all-time favorite Jagger vocal.

well, my bottom four are still fab songs!

"Parachute Woman"

Finally got the remaster of this album for my last birthday. It sounds amazing, easily one of the best I've ever heard.

No Expectations ain't gonna win, but it's a beauty.

I'm voting for Stray Cat Blues because it's still about as dirty as rock'n'roll gets.

Street Fighting Man for me.

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

Let It Bleed is my favorite album ever, but there have been many times I've thought this is really the one in the Stones catalogue.

nice showing for "No Expectations! :)

wow, wtf at Sympathy beating Street Fighting Man!!

Thing is, "Factory Girl" is totally good, too.

What a great album. Good showing, everyone.

no expectations is awesome. i would have voted for that if i hadn't been keeping so inconspicuous. top 3 voted songs are a pretty good reflection of this album's main strengths

lol my vote mattered

i think i might like (or at least play) this one more than sticky fingers or let it bleed.

good results. Glad to see some others voted Stray Cat Blues too

Pretty f'in amazing performance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaqWXmhCrX4

There is no wrong answer to this poll, of course, but listening to this album again today on the occasion of the 23rd anniversary of getting a copy of it for my 15th birthday, I was struck by just how much "Jigsaw Puzzle" is the album's secret weapon.

"Prodigal Son" for me, followed by "No Expectations" and "Street Fighting Man." Long tired of the winner, although occasionally I can still hear past that.

"Salt of the Earth" is an interestingly conflicted song. On the one hand, the "faceless crowd" is a "swirling mass of grays and black and whites" that doesn't "look real" to Mick, a celebrity and a millionnaire. Looking at these undifferentiated, unfamous people produces a weird kind of nausea and revulsion. ("In fact they look so straaaaaange.") On the other hand the song is an ode to the "salt of the earth," the "hardworking people" who can only be described in platitudes. The kind of people whose music Mick has pilfered to produce this dark fantasia of an album about factory girls, jigsaw puzzles, riots, and political murder. There is a kind of haughty admission of bad faith here that is even more shocking in its way than the bad taste of "sympathy for the devil." I love it so much but I don't understand it at all.

^this above is the central theme of the essay about this album in Stranded, iirc.

Lol seriously? Interesting

mick has said the song is meant to be cynical

Interesting. I like how the two sentiments reflected in the lyrics -- bland populism and aristocratic exceptionalism -- both suck. It's the closing song but nothing is really resolved, which is perfect for the chaotic mood of the album, which was released in the most volatile year of the 60s

Street Fighting Man = greatest Rock N Roll song ever?

I like the counterintuitive factoid that there's no electric guitar on Street Fighting Man