It always perplexed me why the Stones would chose to make Come On their first single. As Chuck Berry covers go, this song always struck me as the weakest song. Further, looking at their sets at the time they had many other songs that would have made stronger debut singles and probably more representative of their sound at the time.
So why Come On as their debut single?

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Happy Jack
It always perplexed me why the Stones would chose to make Come On their first single. As Chuck Berry covers go, this song always struck me as the weakest song. Further, looking at their sets at the time they had many other songs that would have made stronger debut singles and probably more representative of their sound at the time.
So why Come On as their debut single?

I read it before, but in all honesty, I forgot. But if you can get hold of Andrew Oldham's book "Stoned", it will tell you. It was a kind of "in a hurry" situation and a Blues song (they had a few available at the time) was not "pop" enough.

I was always surprised when I first heard it (in 1973?..well, whenever More Hot Rocks was released) that it had the most "un-like" Chuck Berry arrangement of any Chuck song I had heard them perform. I also remember reading at the time (can't remember which book it was) that they hated performing it and would skip it every chance they got when performing live. Can't swear to any accuracy tho. Oh,wow...I just checked that other thread from 3 yrs ago and I guess at least I'm consistent!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2020-06-05 23:56 by scottkeef.

Always loved it .....
It's a pulsating.. rattlin' garage beat group kinda thing .....

Now come on what more ya want ....



ROCKMAN

.....pulled up Come On from Tube
and it was followed by Doom & Gloom.....

and ya think geeeez not much has changed .... R&B garage noise ....mmmmmmm



ROCKMAN

The BBC recording is far better than the single, in my opinion.

To understand the song Come One as a choice back then..........you have to go to back to '63................

__________________________

everything is wrong
since me and my baby parted
all day long been walking
cause I can't get my car started
laid off of my job
and can't afford to check it
I wish someone would come along
and run into it
and wreck it.
Come on.

brilliant lyrics (at least as I recall them). I love the song just for that and like Rockman says, pulsating sound, rough and ready. I can see why they released it as a single. Its a good version of a great song.

Emotional Rescue...now there is a puzzle

jb

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jbwelda
everything is wrong
since me and my baby parted
all day long been walking
cause I can't get my car started
laid off of my job
and can't afford to check it
I wish someone would come along
and run into it
and wreck it.
Come on.

brilliant lyrics (at least as I recall them). I love the song just for that and like Rockman says, pulsating sound, rough and ready. I can see why they released it as a single. Its a good version of a great song.

Emotional Rescue...now there is a puzzle

jb

That's brilliant?

I always liked this song. It sounds good, strong and has evocative lyrics. Sort of untypical of Chuck's usual ding ding dongalong dong kind of stuff (ok I'm exaggerating here , how's that for a depressed song for the start of your career...
Same mood to be found in Paint It Black.

I see that it seems to be because it was "pop" like, which is what I had kind of guessed.
Still its a weak start, fortunately they were able to improve upon it within a year.

>That's brilliant?

Yes, I think it is. It tells a story in a few short succinct words that flow and rhyme and fit the beat of the song. Tunesmithing at its finest.

YMMV I guess.

jb

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jbwelda
>That's brilliant?

Yes, I think it is. It tells a story in a few short succinct words that flow and rhyme and fit the beat of the song. Tunesmithing at its finest.

YMMV I guess.

jb

Nursery rhyme crap. My 7 year old writes stuff like this. Fun? yes. Brilliant? Ummm....no

I don't think anybody would argue that Chuck Berry is the world's greatest poet. The same goes for Mick (or Keith). That is not to say that neither one them could write very striking lyrics now and again, as jbwelda said: with a few words. Conjuring up an image, a viable emotion, in a 2 min song, like Ray Davies used to do.

Ray Davies...exactly. Just bringing up his name in this context convinces me you see what I mean. Its not easy writing "nursery rhyme crap".



jb

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jbwelda
..Its not easy writing "nursery rhyme crap".

jb

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More Hot Rocks
Nursery rhyme crap. My 7 year old writes stuff like this...

Awesome, fill us in when he has his first hit record.

In 1963, it was unthinkable (to Andrew Loog Oldham, anyway) that they could release the sort of material they performed on stage as a chart single. Not "pop" enough. It's fairly well documented that it took them a long time to pick Come On, deliberately choosing a less familiar track because all the world and his band in the UK - and the Beatles in particular - were already covering all the well known stuff. They had to censor "jerk" from the lyrics - the early 60s were a lot more prudish than the later years of the decade.

The Chuck Berry original has a lovely relaxed New Orleans roll to it that is entirely missing from the hard-driven Stones copy - they are very different, but I love them both. There's a performance from the Hail Hail Rock & Roll sessions (which seems to have disappeared from YouTube) which has Keith playing Come On In the proper Berry style.

They had a foot in the door but to me I Wanna Be Your Man is just more real as a first single

Yep, a weak cover in hindsight. A mishmash between rock and pop. But I guess they were going for chart success. Maybe they figured the charts weren't ready for the blues?
And their own song writing capacity wasn't really established then. Who can blame them? The song did the trick...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2020-06-06 11:00 by Stoneage.

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SomeGuy
I don't think anybody would argue that Chuck Berry is the world's greatest poet. The same goes for Mick (or Keith). That is not to say that neither one them could write very striking lyrics now and again, as jbwelda said: with a few words. Conjuring up an image, a viable emotion, in a 2 min song, like Ray Davies used to do.

Maybe my English is not good enough: are you saying we can or we cannot say Chuck Berry is the world's greatest poet?
I think in the pop-rock-blues world, he is pretty much the best lyrics writer ever. If Bob Dylan got a Nobelprice, Chuck Berry certainly should get one. (And then Leonard Cohen and maybe Tom Waits)

The combination of choice of words and rhythms on top of his music is brilliant. Come On is a good example. Nadine is another one.

I can understand why the Stones didn't like the song in 1963. It's not very "pure blues". But I think it's a good song and they recording even now works for me.

NICOS is right. You have to go back to 63 to understand.
One way is to have been there......and I can say that when the Stones played Thank Your Lucky Stars TV programme in their houndstooth jackets.....they made an impact and it got them rolling commercially.

The other way you can go back to 63 is to compile a playlist of the charts when Come On was in its highest position and spend a few hours listening. Then you may start to see how this record fitted in at the time and how it compared to the stuff people were buying with their hard earned cash. The UK was not yet really out of the 50s in 63....it only started swinging and having more disposable income as we moved into 65.

There were much better songs they could have chosen....but Come On did its job and that proves they made the right choice for their commercial future. They have never looked back.

To me Come On has the basic Rolling Stones ingredients, but a little "too much in a hurry". Not Fade Away basically has the same ingredients, but somehow the band managed to improve the balance and combined with the "Diddley" beat it turned into a great song. It's fun to put on Grrr! Both songs on it, so easy the feel the difference

I Wanna Be Your Man was a much better first single? The worst song L&M ever wrote and recorded and then gave away was a much better first single? Well, we just have to disagree on that. Never liked that song no matter who did it. Talk about your 7 year old nursery rhymes, that song doesn't even have lyrics worth writing out. I think my dog can howl better than that.

IMO of course and of course YMMV and whatever other acronyms may see appropriate.

jb

I Wanna Be Your Man is not exactly a song Beatles fans would like to be reminded of, I don't think. It's your typical 'Ringo has to have a song too & let's make it a funny one' choice to put on your album. I think it is about the worst song they ever recorded.

The Stones version is much better than that of The Beatles but still, I recall the grins I had to face from Beatles fans, having to admit to them that this song was actually given to the Stones, and that it was something of a hit even. As in: a total throwaway for The Beatles is still good enough for The Stones...

But tg The Stones turned it into a really punky, noisy and abrasive thing, and that is why I like it too. But for The Stones also, it isn't exactly their best single of the 60s. Just my opinion of course.

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jbwelda
I Wanna Be Your Man was a much better first single? The worst song L&M ever wrote and recorded and then gave away was a much better first single? Well, we just have to disagree on that. Never liked that song no matter who did it. Talk about your 7 year old nursery rhymes, that song doesn't even have lyrics worth writing out. I think my dog can howl better than that.

IMO of course and of course YMMV and whatever other acronyms may see appropriate.

jb

I mean that in a sense of being the first of many abrasive sounds to follow, with the first Nanker/Phelge track as a B-side (prominently featuring Stu with a great Keith solo) It also made an appearance in the Top Ten which Come On didn't. You know how the first pancake never quite works out? That sort of thing. I also assume you heard the version Keith did in 1988?

OK I see your point but if you mean KR did I wanna be your man in 1988 then no, I guess I missed that one.

jb

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matxil

Maybe my English is not good enough: are you saying we can or we cannot say Chuck Berry is the world's greatest poet?
I think in the pop-rock-blues world, he is pretty much the best lyrics writer ever. If Bob Dylan got a Nobelprice, Chuck Berry certainly should get one. (And then Leonard Cohen and maybe Tom Waits)

The combination of choice of words and rhythms on top of his music is brilliant. Come On is a good example. Nadine is another one.

I very much agree with the essence of the above remarks. Pure genius.

The overwhelming majority of Chuck's lyrics capture the daily life of the people of the times. If that's not brilliant poetry...what is?

Without Chuck (and a small number of others) we'd not have The Beatles and we'd not have The Rolling Stones.

--
Captain Corella
60 Years a Fan

Of course the irony of Chuck Berry is that he was the lyricist, the lyric writer. Johnny Johnson was in charge of the music.

I am off to listen to Promised Land, another unsurpassed great song by him, in many ways his finest and a great portrait of escaping the south or to the promised land of California, something many of his generation did or aspired to do.

There were just so many examples of Chuck Berry's genius in his compositions; no one else in the genre at the time approached him for being able to paint pictures with words.

jb

Released 57 years ago today.

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Cristiano Radtke
Released 54 years ago today in UK.



Record Mirror, June 8, 1963
(thanks, His Majesty)

Come On (live on June 6, 2013, Air Canada Centre, Toronto, Canada)