Yes it's been discussed before ...but I think this is a great jam.
Tempo changes a la Midnight Rambler.
Vocal improv a la Otis Redding
Bass improv like nothing else before, for them...
Brushes swirling and swinging
Harp moaning and wailing, all reverbed up in the back...
Guitars stinging and weaving...
Just the Stones circa '65-'66, willing to put a jam on a record.
Thanks!
DR

Right on Dillard!

Agree. Going Home shows real improv. mastery from everyone in the band. I have ALWAYS loved it! Even as a young kid, before I was even into music - my older sister had bought the record when it came out - those sounds and that tension fascinated me.

A masterpiece.
Love stole it for side 2 of their otherwise classic 'da capo' lp.
Greil Marcus, in "Stranded" re Aftermath & GH: "Bohemians roamed London, flashing contempt for all things bourgeois while toying with their ruling class equivalents...They skirted decadence by the pace they kept, and avoided it because they were driven not by idle curiosity, or even narcissism, but by the most delicate and brutal shadings of lust, given absolute and final form in eleven and a half minutes of 'Going Home', which they never really did."

I like the song but i don't think it's something special. But it sure is what the stones were about in thos days, doing something different and they sure succeeded with a song like this!

Cheers,
Wuudy

ne of my all time favorites! I would love to play that to all people who don´t know or don´t like the Stones (after having them tied up).

It has a dark quality, & Hassinger's engineering influenced Botnick's on the debut Doors. You feel like your inside a single organism, or conciousness - very lonely sound, like 2000 Light years.

Interesting comment john r though I always heard it more as a vital, throbbing powerhouse of lust and persistence. Glad to see you recognised Love ripped it off with Da Capo. Arthur Lee is always going on about how the Stones ripped him off with 'She's A Rainbow' even though the only similarity is the 4 words "she comes in colours". When I met him in '92 I told him I thought 'Da Capo' ripped off 'Going Home' & he tried to claim the Stones watched him playing an early version of it & ripped it off for 'Going Home'! A genius but completely untrustworthy IMO.

Wow, one fantastic track. This actually was kind of a new kick in the rear end of the record industry at the time. All songs had to be something like 2 minutes and 3 sec to make any LP. This runs around ten minutes!!!! One of the longest songs ever to be put on vinyl at that time. It was really a groundbraking thing in 1966. Have ya heard the outtake... don't remember how long it was, some 20 minutes..... that's a tough one

Janrichards
of them
www.stonesvikings.com

tseveren, interesting perspective & equally true. btw Love were a great band, but a little sleazy, as 2 of them robbed donut shops & Arthur has spent time in jail...I love them but not clear on some of the biographical details.

My Polish friend Kowalski and I, back in High School, use to listen to "Aftermath" with split headphones on a Walkman. We would get high and cruise around the golf course at the Country Club in Connecticut late at night. He turned me on to Bob Marley and I turned him onto the Stones. Both of us had no idea how great the two artist's were. "Going Home" was always the highlight of the experience. Unfortunately one time we took acid and dug holes in the greens while we listened to "Their Majesties...". Oooops.

Wow man!!Good trip ... guess ya must have mistaken Gomper for Gopher.

ROCKMAN

Don't get me started on the whole "Caddyshack" thing.
Really though, there's nothing more fun, when your 17, then taking some acid and running lose on a prestigious golf course in snobby ol' Connecticut while listening to the RS. I often wondered why then didn't have hot wire fences to keep the likes of me and my friends away. Probably b/c we were Daddy's Caddies by day. Anyhow, as far as "Going Home" is concerned, I love the part when Mick say's "suchasuchalonglongtime". And then the guitar's wander off into Fender Reverb Neverland.

Connecticut...yeah! have you bumped into Keith?

ROCKMAN

I think Going Home is not a typical Live Song.

Blacklimousine

Acid opened up Exile for me 10 years after its release (yes I already knew it was a masterpiece, that's why I chose it as an acid soundtrack) - just overwhelmed w/ the emotions tripping - weariness, ennui, sadness, joy, the amazing will to rock and roll

from Andrew Oldham's 2Stoned:

The Stones were four minutes into Going Home and to everybody it felt like a great take – the take. But as I tapped along and looked up through the control room window into the studio I knew something was up as Charlie looked at Keith, who didn't look back, and Bill looked at Charlie as if to say, 'I don't know either.'

I turned to Dave Hassinger. 'Dave, they don't know how to end it; they don't have a @#$%&' ending.' ... Dave turned oh so slowly towards me and shot me a look that said, 'there ain't nothing I can do about it.' Now at the five-minute line of Going Home, the Rolling Stones kept rocking along. Mick's vocal was over and he crossed his arms without missing a beat. Keith curled into his guitar, playing away any problem, not allowing anyone to catch his eye. As we crossed into six minutes, it was still the one, still the take, but if something didn't happen and somebody take charge and find an ending, we could be derailed. It didn't matter that the take had eclipsed the four-minute-tops borderline; the track was holding and I wanted the Stones to make every second of this majestic piece releasable. When they had mapped it out they hadn't allowed they'd nailed such a great one that fast, and now they were a plane looking for a safe landing.

Charlie couldn't catch Keith's eye; Keith would only let me have the sly underbelly of his ... At seven minutes Charlie looked, I waved a circle, meaning just keep it moving. He looked at me for a few seconds, figured it in and nodded his head. Bill heard Charlie step it up and followed him. Brian and Keith now admitted they were playing together, stayed on the money and got on the ride. Stu shrugged, grinned and started to glide. Mick looked for and found the right harp, wrapped his lips around it and sucked his way into our ears forever with a triumphant groan. ... Charlie looked in my direction, then made the obvious suggestion by looking down at the floor. The Stones followed suit and allowed themselves to descend to a last apres skasmic crawl. Eleven minutes-plus on the slopes and spent; thank God we'd had enough tape between reels. The group fell about, as well they should, exhilarated. They laughed, hugged each other and collapsed on the floor. Going Home was done and so were we. I had just witnessed a musical moment of the forever, the Rolling Stones having just broken the sound barrier with ease.


- december 1965, by Gered Mankowitz



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2005-07-23 11:53 by with sssoul.

I had just witnessed a musical moment of the forever...nice words Andrew Loog.

Going Home best heard on the UK Aftermath (14 tracks) where it sonically capped off side one and left the listener stunned. Never heard the US Aftermath (11 tracks and no Out Of Time) till a couple of years after but it just never seemed right as the final track... but then again the UK-US Aftermath debate can sometimes rage as hot as the old Wood-Taylor argument.

ROCKMAN

Would be really cool to see the Stones do this one in 2005

Pieter:

>>I think Going Home is not a typical Live Song.<<

Might not be so for the concert stage, but it certainly is a live, intimate one in the studio.

Andrew's tale is great, with sssoul. But is it really any accurate? Isn't it BRIAN who blows the harp there instead? Not that it's in any way scientific to say so, but what else would Brian be playing on this specific track?

"Andrew's tale is great, with sssoul. But is it really any accurate? Isn't it BRIAN who blows the harp there instead? Not that it's in any way scientific to say so, but what else would Brian be playing on this specific track?"

Yes, Andrew's tales are fascinating - like Keith's - but the historical adequacy ain't the biggest virtue always. I suppose that the whole description of sharing looks etc. is a product of Loog's imagination (of course, the guys actually were at the studio, and somehow decided to continue playing or jamming the song, as can be heard). And yes, from what I know - based on the testimony of different written sources (like Bill's Stone Alone) plus my ears - that is Brian Jones in harmonica.

- Doxa

Odd-Beat and Doxa, it seems to me too that ALO's misremembering some of the details of this scene (such as exactly who was playing what - in fact Keith's said that Brian didn't play guitar on this), but i like what he wrote anyway, as an "impressionist" piece, if you will. one thing ALO did definitely get right: the part about witnessing a musical moment of the forever. that's just what it sounds like to me.


"What do you want - what?!"
- Keith



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2005-07-23 17:32 by with sssoul.

ALO has a very vivid imagination. He describes this session much like his linernotes colored the Stones a certain way. Still, it's a lot more fun to read his depiction of the session than some dry line-up chart. And after all ALO's colorings of the Stones' lifestyles eventually stuck and became rea;lity.