Here ya go Pauly .... borrowed from timeisonourside.com ....
TrackTalk
I've got a new one myself. No words yet, but a few words in my head - called Brown Sugar - about a woman who screws one of her black servants. I started to call it Black Pussy but I decided that was too direct, too nitty-gritty.
- Mick Jagger, December 2, 1969, on the way
to Muscle Shoals Studios (from Stanley Booth's
The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones)
(I've written riffs that people assume are Keith's.) Brown Sugar. That was the first one I did. I've done many since.
- Mick Jagger, 1994
At the end of the '60s I had a little more time to sit around and play my guitar, writing songs rather than just lyrics for the first time. I'd written songs before then, but they were little things like Yesterday's Papers. Now I could take it more seriously. Brown Sugar was one of those songs. I wrote it in Australia, somewhere between Melbourne and Sydney, while I was in my trailer filming Ned Kelly - I had a whole bunch of time out there. I was simply writing what I wanted to write, not trying to test the waters. People are very quick to react to what you write, but I just write what comes into my head.
- Mick Jagger, 2003
I wrote that song in Australia in the middle of a field. They were really odd circumstances. I was doing this movie, Ned Kelly, and my hand had got really damaged in this action sequence. So stupid. I was trying to rehabilitate my hand and I had this new kind of electric guitar, and I was playing in the middle of the outback and wrote this tune. But why it works? I mean, it's a good groove and all that. I mean, the groove is slightly similar to Freddy Cannon, this rather obscure '50s rock performer - Tallahassee Lassie or something. Do you remember this? She's down in F-L-A. Anyway, the groove of that - boom-boom-boom-boom-boom - is going to a go-go or whatever, but that's the groove.
- Mick Jagger, 1995
The lyrics were partially inspired by a black backing singer we knew in L.A. called Claudia Linnear.
- Bill Wyman, Rolling With The Stones, 2002
We cut a version of Brown Sugar with Al Kooper, it was a good track. He's playing piano on it at Bobby Keys' and my birthday party, which was held at Olympic Studios... We wanted to use it 'cause it's a new version but there's something about the Muscle Shoals feel of the album one, that we got into at the end of the last American tour. Charlie really fills the sound and it was so easy to cut down there.
- Keith Richards, 1971
(Keith was playing) a Gibson, but not a Les Paul... I think it was an SG, and as I recall it was black. I remember it had those sharp horns on the cutaways. That's what he played most of the time he was here. Taylor, to my recollection, was playing a Strat. And guess what we came up with for Bill Wyman? Do you remember those Plexiglas body basses that were around then? I checked with David Hood later and he says it was a Dan Armstrong. So to the best of our recollection, that's what it was... Keith played a Fender Twin, and so did Mick Taylor, and they brought those in with them. The loudness on those tracks really came from Keith. I had it put in that back booth and shut the door on it.
- Jimmy Johnson, 2005
We use acoustic guitars a lot to shadow the electric, always have done. It gives another atmosphere to this track, makes it less dry. It's cheap, too.
- Keith Richards, 1993
Keith's guitar amp was in a booth, and Jagger was in the back of the room with baffles around him. There was some leakage going on, but you couldn't tell because he was so close to the mic. It was part of the sound. The drums did not have a booth, they were open, but with baffles. But there was a lot of leakage on the drums, cymbals and stuff, even though (Charlie) didn't play real hard... Even today, that would be a good way for a rock band to mic their drums, if they like some great live drumming sound. They would be surprised to find that sometimes less is more.
- Jimmy Johnson, 2005
God knows what I'm on about on that song. It's such a mishmash. All the nasty subjects in one go... I never would write that song now. I would probably censor myself. I'd think, Oh God, I can't. I've got to stop. I can't just write raw like that.
- Mick Jagger, 1995
This song was a very instant thing, a definite high point. We played it at Altamont even before it was out on record.
- Mick Jagger, 1993
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ROCKMAN