Exile on Main St.

So I say just lose Torn and Frayed and Stop Breaking Down and call it good.

I could live without Stop Breaking Down but Torn and Frayed??? The song that came on the radio the other day and prompted me to soliloquize to my indifferent children about the greatness of this album? Madness.

otm

Yeah torn & frayed is great. I love how he says “BORdellooos”

"Casino Boogie" is the one song that I would absolutely keep no matter what else stayed or went.

I like Torn a lot, but it happens to be like my 15th favorite song on the record. The lines about Codeine are great, the lines about letting the music save you are not really my cuppa tea. I think Happy was recorded before the rest of the album. Maybe we can squeeze Torn and Frayed in if we make Happy a non-lp single that came out before the album.

Happy was recorded at Nellcote, vocals at Sunset Sound. Earliest song on the album might be Let it Loose (backing track purportedly recorded during the Let It Bleed sessions in early 69).

"Lovin' Cup" was Let It Bleed-era too--Stanley Booth mentioned they ran through it at Muscle Shoals (but didn't record it)--and supposedly "Shine A Light" was started back in '67.

"Torn and Frayed" is an essential part of the soul of the album imo. it could have ended up annoying and self-pitying in a "Walk of Life"/"Sultans of Swing" kind of way, and it is kind of the album describing itself, but the fact that it's so obviously Mick singing about Keith saves it and makes it beautiful. And the "Joe's got a cough" verse is as succinct and pithy a summary of the opioid epidemic as you can get, a quarter-century early.

Songs I could live with losing from the album are Stop Breaking Down and Soul Survivor. If I had to take out more, maybe Shake Your Hips and Turd on the Run as well, but that's pushing it.

People are always debating what a single LP White Album would look like, but I don’t see much discussion of Exile

because it RULES

which of your children would you kill to create a perfect family

A question I've mulled

NOT

"Lovin' Cup" was Let It Bleed-era too--Stanley Booth mentioned they ran through it at Muscle Shoals (but didn't record it)--and supposedly "Shine A Light" was started back in '67.

― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Tuesday, May 10, 2022 9:29 PM

Very true, but I didn't mention those two as the versions on Exile were done later at Olympic/Nellcote, whereas Let it Loose is apparently the same recording from back then.

“Torn and Frayed” is pivotal (to Exile, to the Stones, to the ‘70s).

And the filler on Exile is no more filler than that of the white album. It’s not filler (at least, not in the sense that, say, 1/4th of Tales From Topographic Oceans is) (by design, as Atlantic told Yes they wouldn’t release a 3-sided album); to paraphrase Kirk Hammet (‘s take on the uneven-at-best 2112), it’s all part of the journey.

plug in, flush out and fire the fuckin' feed

having just listened to torn and frayed i can only suspect that mig is secretly LJ, who is legendary for his horrible taste

I never ever understand people who want to trim double albums. Indulgence -- wading around -- is the point.

Songs I could live with losing from the album are Stop Breaking Down and Soul Survivor. If I had to take out more, maybe Shake Your Hips and Turd on the Run as well, but that's pushing it.

― Lily Dale, T

Love the latter: a masterpiece without exertion. Will keep "Stop..." on the strength of Jagger's electric rhythm work, which will get more prominent on later albums.

xp nominate this for an Alfred Tenet

can 100% understand thought experiments about removing rocky raccoon and honey pie from the white album listening experience - especially in pre-CD era

there are definite weaker moments but looking at the tracklist total that's no slight. i could never have a version of this album where "ventilator blues" didn't go into "i just want to see his face."

I never ever understand people who want to trim double albums. Indulgence -- wading around -- is the point.

a million times this

xp nominate this for an Alfred Tenet

― mookieproof,

is there a private list

"Stop Breaking Down" would be the worst song on a Foghat record. I wonder if Jagger wanted it on the record as a sign they could play without Keith, but this wasn't a very persuasive example.

The only Rolling Stones album with no skippable tracks for me is Beggars Banquet, and I'm being indulgent towards "Salt of the Earth".

ah ! Beggars is their "imperial" era album that I like the least.
As for Exile, yeah, difficult to cut it down to a single album without losing A LOT of its strength.
There's not a track I dislike.
By far my favourite album of theirs.

FTR, I agree with y’all, but this assignment / thought experiment was specific (Let’s say it’s 1972, and you’re the label rep…).

eheh ok. But then would you rather ruin a work of art for the future generations... or be fired as a label rep ! ;)
anyway, if some tracks HAD to be cut, among the "big" ones, I must say I was never as fond of "All Down The Line" as many people are (I like it and get how catchy/effective it is of course).

I wonder if Jagger wanted it on the record as a sign they could play without Keith

I'd argue that "Sway" and "Moonlight Mile" already answered that question definitively in the affirmative.

sitting here playing around with a playlist of all the tracks, making a sort of Rust Never Sleeps acoustic-to-electric, ballad-to-boogie build of an album.

and "Sway" and "Moonlight Mile" rank among Jagger's best performances in every dept.

i usually cut off my listen after "shine a light" because it would've been such a perfect closer. "soul survivor" is fine though. "stop breaking down" is fun but def a bottom tier rocker on the album.

soul survivor is one of those album closers that’s like.. when the credits roll at the end of a movie

I don’t necessarily buy the conventional wisdom that most double albums have filler.. I mean, I think this album is pretty consistent, idk!

"Stop Breaking Down" is great.

Yeah I always thought of "shine a light" as the last song of the album (and one of my all time favourites)... then "soul survivor" as the credit roll track !

“Knives Out” did a pretty good job of convincing me “Sweet Virginia” could’ve been an album closer.

i stumbled across this a couple of months ago. amateur footage of a 1973 show in australia, and the sound is basically excellent (apart from the beginning)

here's "happy"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYJCCSlvH80

the middle stretch of this album is my favorite (casino boogie to i just want to see his face) but no way i could trim it to a single lp. i know this is madness to everyone else but i still find "let it loose" a slog, i could lose that and maybe "stop breaking down" though it's really great, one of the hardest songs on the album. maybe maybe maybe i could lose "rocks off" and "rip this joint" but that's approaching insanity / controps.

no-way-can-it-be-removed songs for me are "casino boogie" "tumbling dice" "sweet virginia" "loving cup" "ventilator blues" "happy" "shine a light" and "soul survivor"

i know this is madness to everyone else but i still find "let it loose" a slog

map, come sit beside me.

My don't-fuck-with-me-boys keeper: "Casino Boogie," whose casual, muddy groove and outro and Keef high harmonies personify what I love about this era of Stones. Also Jagger's 5x7 card lyrics.

judge and jury walk out
hand in hand

OPEN FOH BIDNESS

i stumbled across this a couple of months ago. amateur footage of a 1973 show in australia, and the sound is basically excellent (apart from the beginning)

here's "happy"

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, May 11, 2022 5:29 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

That's my channel, I synced up the soundboard audio to the footage shot by Deniz Tek - super nice guy and great foresight for bringing his super8 camera, haha.

ahh!! did you post this before on ilx?! or is this just a very fortunate happenstance??

It got posted a few months ago on some Stones thread. Either C/D or Goats Head Soup?

Keith's backup on Casino Boogie is one of my favorite moments of his, every time I hear I am reminded of 90s Memphis rocker Lorette Velvette (produced by Alex Chilton)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-TjPoNOMpc

Lorette Velvette now there’s a name I hadn’t thought about in 20+ years


Im a big Let it Loose stan but it does benefit mightily from the LA overdubs

"Let It Loose" is an absolute masterclass but I could understand dumping that or others from this for a single LP. it would've only benefited goats head soup or the subsequent albums.

The sunlight bores the daylights out of me

Sunshine ?

sunshine

my fave line

True tho