rank the songs on STICKY FINGERS

played at my friend's funeral so same vibes here

the scene in gimme shelter where they are in the studio listening to the playback of wild horses is all-time. song rules and I pity people who have heard it too much to enjoy it.

Wild Horses has associations with death for me as well. It came on the radio right after I found out a friend of mine died in an accident. It tears a hole in me ever since.

They played Nashville last night, so for the 'Internet Vote' song the ballot was limited to Country-style tracks, and interestingly "Dead Flowers" beat "Wild Horses".

On record, I prefer "Wild Horses," but I think "Dead Flowers" usually is the better one for them to perform live.

Lately I have been listening to Sticky Fingers and realizing how little I know it as an actual album. It's such a weird mix of great songs I've heard a million times, great songs I don't hear enough, and songs I never need to hear again that it's very rare for me to just put it on and let it play. But I listened to the first half a while back and now I'm kind of obsessed with the sequencing that puts Wild Horses right after Brown Sugar and Sway and right before Can't You Hear Me Knocking.

Like, you start out with two songs that are intentionally noisy and opaque and messy; Jagger slurring his lines on Brown Sugar, howling on Sway; there's that sense that you often get with Stones songs of the signal just barely making it through the noise. Sway, in particular, feels like it's very much about that, just this scream of frustration at the messiness of life & the persistence of shit coming down on you that you have to care about.

Set against that, what I notice most about "Wild Horses" is how clear it is, and how careful. Each moment in the song, whether it's the musical accompaniment or a line of verse, has a little island of quiet around it, as if Jagger is waiting to make sure you've got the message before he goes on. There's a feeling of handling something fragile, a feeling of going line by line through a compact between two people, a feeling of emotion held in check - even in the final verse, every word is clear and deliberate. It all adds up to a sense - and I can't believe I'm saying this of Jagger, but it's what I get from the song - of "this isn't about me."

And then you get to "Can't You Hear Me Knocking," and the noise closes in again. And the more I listen to the songs in that order, the more striking the sheer amount of silence in "Wild Horses" seems. Stones songs of this era often seem to me, like I said, to be the signal trying to make it through the noise. And I love that about them. But "Wild Horses," in this sequence, comes off to me as something different: Jagger holding off the noise for just long enough to say something he needs to say.

Do you hear the same "quiet" in "Moonlight Mile"? Or "Sister Morphine" for that matter?

Now I kinda want to switch the track listing around. I think it might work better this way:

SIDE A
1. Brown Sugar
2. Sway
3. Wild Horses
4. Bitch
5. I Got The Blues
6. You Gotta Move

SIDE B
7. Can't You Hear Me Knocking
8. Sister Morphine
9. Dead Flowers
10. Moonlight Mile

“Knocking” is barely a song and has terrible production

the what?

the hell you say

Lily Dale otm.

And the production throughout is by far the clearest and most vivid of any Stones record up to this point. If you told me Watts wasn’t sitting next to me when he kicks in on “Knocking,” I’d call you a damn liar. And whether or not it’s a “song” (how are you defining that, calstars?) is irrelevant, since “song” isn’t qualitative.

I have bought into the stones myth for most of my life. But the truth is these guys are just not that good. They had access to recoding equipment and distribution and that’s the biggest reason they are revered by so many

I love the first few minutes of “Knocking,” but not so much when it turns into a stiff, noodly jam… :/

But the truth is these guys are just not that good.

Of course they are: they’re good at being the Stones. Sometimes, they’re great at being the Stones. What other yardstick (imagined or otherwise) could one even measure them by?

yeah that's a weird conclusion to reach

I must agree that the first part of Knocking >>>> the second part of Knocking

May the ghost of Bobby Keys fart in all y'all haters direction.

Aww

There’s nothing stiff (the presence of Watts and Dzidzornu makes stiffness impossible) nor noodly (ditto Taylor and Keys) about “Knocking.” It’s focused, there’s nothing the least bit tentative about it, and of all the Stones songs Scorsese has used, “Knocking” is the only one (I think?) that he lets play through to its completion.

I love the first few minutes of “Knocking,” but not so much when it turns into a stiff, noodly jam… :/
― Vexatious litigant (morrisp)

Have been saying this for years. Scorsese wisely used the first part in the trailer for Casino, and it was great; he used both parts for the film, and it dragged.

xp I dunno, it sounds pretty stiff to me… the guitar & sax lines not particular good… like it’s not up to the standards of even the weakest Dead jam. Maybe I’m just not coming at it from the right standpoint.

(xpost) Think he maybe used the entirety of "Then He Kissed Me" for Goodfellas' Copa shot, but not 100% sure.

I'm not a fan.

I dunno, it sounds pretty stiff to me… the guitar & sax lines not particular good… like it’s not up to the standards of even the weakest Dead jam. Maybe I’m just not coming at it from the right standpoint.

Yeah, not a patch on Garcia/Marsalis, right?

This album is so boring

The idea of comparing any music on earth to the Grateful Dead and having the Dead come out on top...

ban calstars

Yeah, not a patch on Garcia/Marsalis, right?

Don’t know if you’re joking, but “EOTW” on Without a Net is awesome!

(It’s OK for the Stones not to be good at everything they tried…? Fwiw, I also wouldn’t endorse the dead playing Johnny B. Goode or whatever.)

Stop worshipping these guys

ban calstars

god I knew it was a bad idea to click on this thread

great, now i bought all this shrine equipment and got the incense going and i can't even use it to worship. built this whole rock n roll wing for nothing

does anyone agree that mick taylor blows a note in his solo? then repeats the phrase to get it right? the blown note i'm hearing is at 5:32. don't get me wrong -- i love the whole thing; the jam is slinky and cool as could be. it's even cool that they left in the blown note.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gz5mI6tqm_Q

mick Taylor blows

Really! Why is he so canon? He’s a player who gets wax and knows what a 9th is Ohh

i'd take brian jones or ronnie wood over him but his tenure happened to coincide with their songwriting peak and he filled the spot admirably.

To balance out my negativity, I will say that “Sway” is some fierceness (my keeper from this album)

sway is ilm's very favourite stones track (and also mine)

Every song on this album is good to great.

xp I dunno, it sounds pretty stiff to me… the guitar & sax lines not particular good… like it’s not up to the standards of even the weakest Dead jam. Maybe I’m just not coming at it from the right standpoint.

― Vexatious litigant (morrisp), Sunday, January 22, 2023 4:29 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

could we just not talk about this band for one minute?

every time those dorks staggered their way through a few chord changes people act like it's "the creator has a master plan" times a billion

Every song on this album is good to great.

I hate "You Gotta Move", it's the worst song they released between 1968 and 1972.

xp Who, the Dead(?)

does anyone agree that mick taylor blows a note in his solo? then repeats the phrase to get it right? the blown note i'm hearing is at 5:32. don't get me wrong -- i love the whole thing; the jam is slinky and cool as could be. it's even cool that they left in the blown note.

― Thus Sang Freud, Sunday, January 22, 2023 7:46 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

mick Taylor blows

― calstars, Sunday, January 22, 2023 7:49 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Clifford Brown takes no fewer than FIVE stabs at a phrase during his solo in "What Is This Thing Called Love," and it's beautiful (at 1:59)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gb_uG7dSGcs

So the question now is, why does calstars hate Clifford Brown so much?

I always think I don't like this stuff at all when I'm not listening to it for some reason

My rankings

Pretty great to pretty listenable:
1. Can't You Hear Me Knocking
2. Wild Horses
3. Bitch
4. Moonlight Mile
5. Sway
6. Dead Flowers
7. Sister Morphine
8. I Got the Blues

Absolutely fuck off with that delivery:
9. You Gotta Move

Possibly the worst song ever recorded:
10. fuck this fucking piece of shit

yeah, it is fucking terrible, that song. i'm not a lyrics guy, or at least barely paid attention to them in the past, but once you recognize what he's singing, on purpose, and that it's a huge hit and they played it for 40 years* it's really, really hard to overlook

*we were talking about this song a while back, i think, and i think i remember it mentioned that they don't play it anymore? (now that they're 150 years old)

Just relistened this morning. There's not a song I would remove. If I was forced to rank the tracks and put something last, I guess it would have to be "Moonlight Mile", which is probably the one I'd be least likely to listen to as a stand-alone track, but don't get me wrong, it's still a good song, and it's better than good in the context of the album, where it kind of feels like a glimpse of redemption as the first rays of sun peak through the curtains after a long night of doing things that are not great for one's health. Maybe the reason this is my favorite Stones album is because its the most swamp-rock. There's more than a bit of CCR and Fogerty in this album. Jagger even sings "boined" for "burned" in "I Got the Blues". "Brown Sugar" bears some similarity to "Proud Mary". "Dead Flowers" is a bit like "Lodi".

yes it's too bad that artists 50 years ago had a different way of expressing their disgust with slavery and imperialism.