Factory Girl

Beggars Banquet
Track 9
"Factory Girl" – 2:12



A terrific melody that must have sounded classic the moment it came off Keith's guitar. A neat, old timey arrangement with minimal percussion (including the return of Rocky Dijon!), some mandolin courtesy of Dave Mason, and viola care of Rick Grech.

So the question that keeps popping up in my head: why do these tunes sound so good, while the band's previous attempts at blues sound so bad? Part of the answer must be that I am partial to the more traditional arrangements they used on this album over the Chicago style the Stones used on their first few albums. Another part of the answer is surely Mick, who sounded so tentative on those early tracks and so self-assured on these. Compare his slurring delivery on "Factory Girl" with his earlier "Little Red Rooster":



The band also sounds more confident. But I think it's Mick that really gives authority to these songs on this album.

Sympathy for the Devil

Beggars Banquet
Track 1
"Sympathy for the Devil" – 6:27



I wrote this blog entry four times, and erased it four times. If you're counting, that means I'm writing it for the fifth time. The problem is that I cannot summon any modicum of objectivity or distance. The song exists in that wasteland of overplayed classic rock songs – I've listen to "Sympathy for the Devil" maybe hundreds of times, and I just can't hear it anymore. I listen to it, but I'm not hearing anything. It's like that scar I have on my finger, where I had to get a mess of stitches after cutting myself trying to slice a carrot. I know it's there, but I just don't pay it any attention.

I know, in some abstract sense, that it is an important recording in an historical sense, helping to establish Mick's lasting image as... well, something. It also showed a musical progression, from the dippy psychedelia of the Summer of Love to... something else. Dammit, I told you I can't say anything interesting about the song.

Reading the Wikipedia article, there appears to have been quite a bit of public distress upon the release of "Sympathy", something about satanism and such. From our perspective in these enlightened times, that's all faintly ridiculous, but I can't put myself in the position of someone hearing the song for the first time. Was it really all that dark? Was there a discernibly evil vibe? Or were listeners in on the joke? Like I said, I'm too close to the song – it just won't come into focus.

Wait – I thought of one piece of trivia worth passing along: this is the second time the wonderfully named Rocky Dijon makes his appearance on this blog, playing percussion – but the first time, chronologically, he played with the Stones. It won't be the last.

UPDATE: Via friend of the blog Mondo comes this clip of the Stones in the studio playing Sympathy. Pretty cool. The hilarity starts at 1:20.



Also, see



I miss John Lennon.

I'm Going Down

The Rolling Stones
"I'm Going Down" (Mick Jagger/Keith Richards) – 2:52





By request. "I'm Going Down" is a track off Metamorphosis, that odds and sods compilation with the wacky Kafka cover released in 1975. I'm having trouble tracking down information on this particular song, but wikipedia says it dates to the Sticky Fingers sessions in 1970. It sounds like a half-formed studio jam – Mick seems to be improvising throughout, and there isn't really a melody to speak of – the chorus is especially limp.

In fact, the track sounds exactly like something that would have appeared on Keith's other solo album (the one I can't remember the name of – not Talk is Cheap, the one with "Eileen"): you've got your classic classic-era Stones midtempo groove, you've got your monster Keith open G riffing, and you have your undercomposed, underproduced vocal out front. Add in your hotshot session musicians (Bobby Keys on the sax, the improbably named Rocky Dijon on the congas) and you're good to go.