Moonlight Mile

Stick Fingers
Track 10
"Moonlight Mile" – 5:56





The story goes that Mick Taylor's first major contributions were on "Sway" and "Moonlight Mile", two songs the Stones had already recorded rudimentary demos of. Taylor came in and, with Jagger, finished the songs off, playing all the guitars as well as arranging the songs (including adding the string sections). Taylor later said that he quit the band because of Jagger and Richard's refusal to grant him songwriting credits.

Keith does not play on "Moonlight Mile", and although the lead acoustic riff is frequently credited to Jagger, it is pretty clearly Taylor's work. Here, we get an idea of what the Stones would have sounded like without Keith – it turns out they would have sounded exactly like the Beatles, complete with a double-tracked lead vocal.

The lyrics fall into the whiny "being a rock star is so hard!" genre that Mick dipped into on occaiasion. They do have a particular grace and facility on "Moonlight Mile", suggestive of Lennon:

Made a rag pile of my shiny clothes.
Gonna warm my bones, gonna warm my bones.
I got silence on my radio.
Let the air waves flow, let the air waves flow.