In the late 70's I had a friend, Glenn, in New Zealand who was a total Stones disciple. He started young collecting all their vinyl. When cassettes came along he got all available releases in both formats. He corresponded by mail worldwide long before the internet and gained a reputation and recognition. He traded bootlegs and vhs tapes. He subscribed to everything.
The last I heard from him was late 80's. CD's had arrived, he couldn't stop collecting because he had to keep up, had to keep the collection as complete as possible. He was furious. He hated the Rolling Stones. He prayed they'd split up for good.
I wonder where he is now, thirty odd years on.
My first ever LP was the first Stones album (review 25 June 2020), but I didn't go overboard. I was selective, I allowed myself to dislike some stuff and not buy a new release just for the hell of it.
I was still in the market for 45's so I'd just buy the occasional single or early compilation like 'High Tide and Green Grass' and 'Flowers'. I avoided 'Their Satanic Majesties Request'. To be fair, I did like some of it, but the album was too close to 'Sgt. Pepper .. 'in attempted style and it just didn't sit right.
Then in 1968 we got 'Beggars Banquet'. This was more like it. After the pop and the psychedelia and some misguided attempts at who-knows-what, here were the Stones I knew from 1964 when I bought that first album. The edge was back along with, to use the genre titles, roots rock, blues rock and where appropriate some innovation with new instrumentation - but essentially, it was the Stones I wanted.
The opening track gave some of that experimentation.
'Sympathy For The Devil' has maracas, congas, bongos, even a cowbell in there. Mick comes in with a request .. "Please allow me to introduce myself" and his character sings to us in first person. It's a brutal song full of historic atrocities where the devil takes delight in the suffering. Then he has the nerve to tell the listener to treat him with respect. There's no real rise and fall to the music, no real change of pace, just a hypnotic repetition. Add to that the gradual increase in the disembodied chant of 'woo-woo' behind everything and you get a song of power and foreboding and menace. There's a whole story about how the 'woo-woo' came to be in the song, but Anita Pallenberg, Brian Jones' girlfriend and Marianne Faithfull, long time member of the Stones inner circle, provided the backup vocals.
Good innit !!
It was part of the song's notoriety that the Stones were playing it at Altmont in '69 when Meredith Hunter was killed by a Hell's Angel security guard, but they were playing 'Under My Thumb' at the time.
'No Expectations' is a sad, lonely refrain. Anything that starts with a train leaving a station is setting up to be a tear-jerker. Brian Jones' slide guitar gives that melancholic feel. Sometimes when I listen to this song I imagine the slide guitar part being done by a harmonica, give it almost a 1920's southern blues tone.
The very next track gives us exactly that! On 'Dear Doctor' Brian Jones puts down the guitar and picks up his blues harp. Nice one. It's a tongue-in-cheek story of a man being jilted on his wedding day and instead of being upset he is totally relieved.
'Parachute Woman' is blues - plain and simple. Mick gets into some harmonica along with Brian this time.
'Jigsaw Puzzle' has comparisons to the type of song Dylan was doing, particularly 'Stuck Inside of Mobile ..' because of the wordplay and imagery used. It's probably my second least favourite song on the album, but I'm not sure if that's why.
'Street Fighting Man' is what it is. Everybody knows it, everybody has an opinion, it's a real Stones song, best played loud as a good rock song, but surprisingly with a sitar keeping the energy going.
'Prodigal Son' is the only song on the album not written by Jagger/Richards. Instead it's a Rev. Robert Wilkins composition from the 1920's-30's. Originally called 'That's No Way to Get Along' the Stones renamed it for the album. In 1928 the Rev. Wilkins wrote a song called 'Rollin' Stone'. Funny how things work out. I think 'Prodigal Son' is probably my second favourite song on the album.
'Stray Cat Blues' is a controversial song, dealing as it does with the singers desire to have sex with a 15 year old. Just to make it worse, Mick sometimes dropped the age to 13 when he was singing it live!
'Factory Girl'. Love it. Love it. This is my favourite. Technically it's compared to 'an Appalachian folk tune' .. but who cares. To me it's evocative of my working class roots, of back streets and simple pleasures.
"Waiting for a girl who's got curlers in her hair
Waiting for a girl she has no money anywhere
We get buses everywhere
Waiting for a factory girl"
Although nothing like it in style or melody it always makes me think of the Ewan MacColl song 'Dirty Old Town'
"I met my love by the gas works wall
Dreamed a dream by the old canal
I kissed my girl by the factory wall
Dirty old town
Dirty old town"
As I said at the top of this review, I allow myself to dislike some stuff. I don't like 'Salt of the Earth'
This was Brian Jones' last album to be released while he was alive. Two tracks on their 'Let It Bleed' album included him playing congas and autoharp, but he was fired during the production of this album. He had already died when the album was released. (The 27 Club).
Altogether, I like this album. Play it, get back into it. If you need to know any more about it, try to find my mate Glenn from the 80's back in New Zealand. He'll tell you.
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