A Jagger/Richards song credit is almost as iconic as Lennon/McCartney, but with the Beatles you could always figure out who was the main songwriter from who sang lead and also simply by characteristic style. I know that in their early days, there was more collaboration (John added and sang the bridge in We Can Work It Out and things like that) and later solo writing efforts all got the Lennon/McCartney tag by definition. But I never read about how it is with the Stones and really have no internal hunches who wrote what in their oeuvre. I suspect that Jagger’s main emphasis was on lyrics and Richard’s on the music, but I’m not sure if this is a general rule. Then there’s the complication that bandmates like Brian Jones, Mick Taylor and Ronnie Wood took part in shaping some songs, but almost never got credit. Can someone enlighten me about it or give recommendations for good sources/bios where this is a subject?
The various sources of books and films are a jumble, but ISTR in Keith’s book he basically says that he comes up with the riff and catchphrase and Mick fleshes out the lyric. Add dozens and dozens of hours of studio time to tweak it and hammer out a song. I recall seeing/ hearing Sympathy and maybe Tumbling Dice and the way they started was very different vs where they ended up.
By the same token, I think Mick wrote all of Brown Sugar.
There is an NPR Terry Gross interview with Richards where he explains he writes the riffs and Mick writes the lyrics.
Just to expand on this on a Sunday morning. This is what I have intuited from ingesting a ton of Stones material over the years: Keith is a riff guy and taste-maker and grinder. Mick is smart, flash and also a grinder. The rest of the band is along for the ride as part of the process.
So Keith messes around and comes up with a riff, and a concept, say I Can’t Get No Satisfaction, famously on a tape before he passed out, or Gimme Shelter. He passes it on to Mick who comes up with flashy lyrics built around the phrase. Keith doesn’t like it, or only likes a bit of it and they start recording. Keith was speedballing between medical-grade cocaine and heroin, alternating bumps and staying up for days at a time (not for Satisfaction; that was booze and nicotine). He used Watts and Wyman as his personal drum-and-bass machine, having them play the same shit for hours and hours while he noodled. The Exile sessions in the basement of rented villa, Nell Côte, were famous for being fetid in ths old almost-catacomb, Keith drifting between interminable sessions of noodling, of which 90%+ were pointless drug-hazed silliness but the remaining bits form one of the best albums ever. He was wasted, but his ear picked out the right bits. In his book, and everything I’ve read, Keith has final cut. It’s not done until Keith says it’s done.
Keith was looking for happy accidents and that with his taste, he’d hear them and know how to use them to improve the song. And he’d grind it out, and if Wyman got fed up and left, or Keith in his estimation could do better, he would. Mick trusts Keith and is an idea guy, so will grind it out too. But you also get the sense that Keith would use his final cut authority to wield power, being a dick to people at times in the studio, erasing their parts if he wanted to, etc. He’s a difficult guy when he wants to be, and no one is allowed to challenge his taste.
So, within that dynamic, songs emerged. Kinda weird and amazing. Bobby Keys, Keef’s biggest running buddy on the road and their sax player, discussed simply being present through a grinder session that led to Can’t You Hear Me Knockin’ - Keith thought a jam close out would work, assembled the players who were there, maybe called someone to come at 2am, and launched. You had to be ready when Keith was.
Interesting stuff, WordMan.
The two filmed examples I’ve seen of a Stones song gestating are Godard’s One Plus One, renamed Sympathy for the Devil, which shows that song changing style in the studio, from a slow folk-blues to a sort of samba. Hard to tell who is “directing” at that stage – in any case, the words and chord changes had already been written.
Charlie is my Darling shows the Stones joking around in a hotel room in Ireland in 1965, basically working out the lyrics to what would become “Sitting on a Fence.” So, at that point it’s mostly Mick at “work” (though with input from the others)…but based on WordMan’s post, Keith probably called the final shots on the musical product when they eventually recorded the song.
Off-topic, I just wanted to mention that this particular jam is about the only occasion on a Stones recording when Charlie got to whip out some of his beloved jazz chops.
Christ, that reminds me of no one so much as Josef Stalin.
I think Keith and Mick’s solo work is educational, here.
Keith’s “Talk Is Cheap” album SOUNDS very much like a Stones album, far more so than Mick’s solo work.
Hey, that’s how it works. Steven Tyler is the musical genius and dictator within Aerosmith. He knows when the song is done and regardless of how Joe Perry’s coolness is marketed, he is Stevie Tallarico’s bitch in the studio. (Tyler’s real name)
Springsteen is famously an autocratic bastard in the studio. Watch the making of Born to Run sometime and watch how he tortured Clarence Clemmons to get the sax parts right for Jungleland.
Very insightful so far, special thanks to WordMan. But I’ve got still one question left: how much does Keith contribute to the lyrics? Does he sometimes write the lyrics all by himself, especially for the songs when he sings lead?
Sure! A quick check on Wikipedia for Happy and Before They Make Me Run state that Richards was principle lyricist. Makes sense; Jagger wouldn’t write lyrics like “never kept a dollar past sunset; always burned a hole in my pants.” That’s pure Keef.
Hah, funny, that was the exact line I was thinking of as exemplary for a Keef lyric. Thanks for confirming my guess.
I don’t remember where I read it - maybe in Keith’s memoir? - but my favorite story about the Stones’ writing/recording process involved the making of Exile.
(I may have some specifics wrong, but you’ll get the idea)
Initially they would sleep until the afternoon, start rolling in around evening time to begin their workday. The rock and roll life, right? As the days and weeks progressed, start time became later and later. Soon they weren’t starting their day until 11pm, then 1 am. Before long, it was pushed all the way back to 6am.
The hard partyin’ rockers eventually found themselves working bankers’ hours.
mmm
Keith wrote Ruby Tuesday, by himself.
Mick wrote Brown Sugar.
Make of it what you need.
Even if you can’t always get what you want.
Oh, and regarding song credit, Mick Taylor asserted he deserved co-write credit on a bunch of songs during his era. I can totally imagine Keith in an hours-long noodlefest session, with Taylor desperately wanting to fit in and playing his heart out and Keith picking out bits and pieces to use.
It’s what happened with Honky Tonk Woman: Ry Cooder was showing Keith some Blues tunings, including Open G. I think he did a variant of the Honky Tonk riff illustratively. Keith took it and made it a song and damaged the relationship. But Keith heard the song, not Ry.
Other than having people shot in the back of the head, I agree.
I think most of the answers lie in Keith’s book. With reference to a lot of what’s said above, Richards is the backbone of the Stones sound, and Mick is the one who tends to run off towards the sound of that era. Keith’s job is to keep the leash short, most of the time.
Interesting thread. Anyone happen to know anything about Brian Jones’ contributions? He was a multi-instrumentalist (Keith said of him, “That cat could play anything, man”), and after he died (actually, after he left the band), the creative range of the Stones’ compositions (arguably) narrowed.
Since Mick and Keith so often belittled Brian, I’m guessing he was rarely (perhaps never) allowed to contribute melodies, riffs, or lyrics (much less entire songs), but that he did add sonic “color”’ to many songs. For example, he played (and perhaps suggested) the recorder on “Ruby Tuesday.”
Jones never wrote a song, but he came up with numerous ideas that completely changed the sound of many songs.
The sitar on “Paint It Black” and the marimba on “Under My Thumb” were his idea.