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Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2018-10-23 13:12 by MrTurner.

It is a chord, not a riff. But what a sound that chord makes!

The song is pretty standard Stones filler, imo. Nothing remarkable is going on. The bridge is good, though. But the chorus is too repetitive.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2018-10-23 13:01 by DandelionPowderman.

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DandelionPowderman
It is a chord, not a riff. But what a sound that chord makes!

The song is pretty standard Stones filler, imo. Nothing remarkable is going on. The bridge is good, though. But the chorus is too repetitive.

Try to copy Mick Taylor's part, quite complicated



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2018-10-23 13:37 by TheflyingDutchman.

If the name of the album is "It's Only Rock'n'Roll", this number more than the title track itself, underlines the very statement. No any kind of sign of creativity involved, but that seems the purpose here: to give us nothing but an unmasked bare-bones R&B-based Stones rock music. If "Silver Train" - that I discussed yesterday - was a sign of The Stones learning the game of 'Stones-by-numbers', by no any artistic ambition any longer involved, this makes the point even further. I really can't imagine they were very serious at all while doing it, but were more like 'shit, who gives a damn. Let's just play some simple nonsense we do by instinct'.

Which, of course, has its merit. No any band in the world can sound so sexy just by trying so little. Especially now, in retrospect, it is pure gold: the results of the riff-master at his dirtiest and simpliest, the best Stones lead guitarist ever at his most over-the-top, Watts and Wyman as the straightest rhythm section in the world, Jagger at his biggest urge and over-played passion, all simply cooked to make each element to be heard like in an elementary text book for the Rolling Stones 1969-74 sound... But is that really going anywhere? Is there actually any point? My claim is no. Behind the charismatic outset, they just sound tired and forced. Usually the Stones sound bigger than the sum of their parts, but here they sound more like smaller than their parts. Each part is okay by its own terms, especially Keith's driving rhythm guitar, but putting those elements together, the magic just doesn't happen. (But it can happen, as its El Mocambo version shows - if the band is in a hot form they can make miracles from pieces like "Dance Little Sister" live)

I can easily imagine Taylor while making his part - "Taylor, now you have free hands, do whatever fuzzy thing you might imagine, we don't actually care" - thinking his first ever session with the Stones (five years earlier and doing "Jiving Sister Fanny" back then) and going that "oh shit, this really is not going anywhere, this is getting more reduced and banal. And that track back then wasn't actually any bad at all, but they didn't even release it. Shit, I go".

Actually at the time of IT'S ONLY ROCK'N'ROLL I have never viewed their 'self-declared reduction back to rock and roll' as a genuine artistic decision or move stemming from natural evolution, but more like an act of pure laziness or boredom. Like giving up artistically: 'let us not even try'. They probably realized that GOATS HEAD SOUP and "Angie" were seriously leading them to obscurity, so something needed to be set them back on the track. The choice they made was that of the easiest one: let us not even try to re-invent ourselves, try to find some new real inspiration, but just rely on our old merits, of what we think people might expect from us.

But there was no genuine inspiration or they were just too lazy to care (unlike with SOME GIRLS four years later that had an outside stimulus). I think the problem thoroughout the album is the band sound somehow exhausted, forced or tired (I take those to be traits of the lack of inspiration), even when they try something novel (like "Luxury" or "Fingerprint File"). Like no heart or guts is really ínvolved, but they are just acting an energetic rock and roll band but somehow cheating. Like this track, it tries rock harder than they naturally can. They end up sounding like making a caricature of themselves. Besides, we have to remember the context back then. If surprisingly fine-nuanced, slow song-oriented GOATS HEAD SOUP had shown that they probably are not a major rock force defining the scene any longer by their own will, IT'S ONLY ROCK'N'ROLL made the situation ever worse: it plainly showed how dated the Stones can sound when trying to play straight-forward rock and roll; there were a lot of new hot and more energetic rock and roll bands emerging at the time showing the future for rock music.

How damn quickly everything changed: just two years earlier they had released the greatest rock and roll album of all time, and none could have touched them. But almost nothing of that EXILE-era naturalness and flow is involved in IT'S ONLY ROCK'N'ROLL any longer. "Dance Little Sister" continues the tendency started by "Silver Train" and "Star Star" in GOATS HEAD SOUP with pieces like "If You Can't Rock Me", "Short & Curlies" or even the title track (which, by contrast, actually succeeds in making fun of the whole situation, by making the caricature to work), but shows the artistic downhill just getting worse and worse. There were no brownsugars or bitches nor rocksoffs or alldownthelines any longer. Just the weaker caricatures left; all form no substance.

In short, "Dance Little Sister" is a filler, totally forgettable piece in the long run except for die-hard Stones fans (but for them no one can do such exciting fillers as the Stones back then)... Belongs to the likes of "Had It With You"; only the very trained Stones fan ears (and Jimmy Page) can recognize the genius there, for the rest it would be banal and tiresome.

- Doxa, a die-hard fan



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 2018-10-23 13:49 by Doxa.

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TheflyingDutchman

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DandelionPowderman
It is a chord, not a riff. But what a sound that chord makes!

The song is pretty standard Stones filler, imo. Nothing remarkable is going on. The bridge is good, though. But the chorus is too repetitive.

Try to copy Mick Taylor's part.

At least, you did once (what happened with that one, btw?)

Seriously, that's a part of the song (and it's good, of course). I'm talking about the song as a whole, which is a bit one-dimensional.

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DandelionPowderman

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TheflyingDutchman

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DandelionPowderman
It is a chord, not a riff. But what a sound that chord makes!

The song is pretty standard Stones filler, imo. Nothing remarkable is going on. The bridge is good, though. But the chorus is too repetitive.

Try to copy Mick Taylor's part.

At least, you did once (what happened with that one, btw?)

I trashed the entire track we recorded with the iorr- band.

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TheflyingDutchman

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DandelionPowderman

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TheflyingDutchman

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DandelionPowderman
It is a chord, not a riff. But what a sound that chord makes!

The song is pretty standard Stones filler, imo. Nothing remarkable is going on. The bridge is good, though. But the chorus is too repetitive.

Try to copy Mick Taylor's part.

At least, you did once (what happened with that one, btw?)

I trashed the entire track we recorded with the iorr- band.

There might be bootlegs floating around on the dark web...

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this song and it flows nicely on IORR Album. Actually, it fits and flows well with this great album!!!

Sometimes I like it, sometimes it's meh...

I suppose it's more enjoyable if you listen it on an autumn evening.

To add to my comments from three years ago "Like a freight train chugging along fast and steady - has always been a favorite of mine"...

I love the way this stomps right out the gate like a bull in a cage and never relents. As for any repetitiveness, I think that's part of the beauty and charm - on your mark, get set, go...and don't stop! The drumming is fantastic, not to mention Mick's vocals, Keith and M.T's guitars, Bills bass, and Ian's piano - it all forms a perfect perfect chemistry. And there's a certain groove there that has certain qualities to a hypnotic reggae tune -perhaps there's some influence from their time in Jamaica. And just imagine for a moment if this were done in a reggae style with a reggae beat with chunky reggae rhythm guitar and a steady lilting reggae groove...might have been something Bob Marley would have been proud to call his own!

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Rip this joint, gonna save your soul, round and round and round we go......

Great input Doxa, as always. Spot on about Taylor and how they recorded some of the songs.

I like this song. It's a no nonsense, straight ahead barrelhouse stomper. It's a party like If You Can't Rock Me, Crazy Mama, Respectable and Where the Boys all Go.

From a guitar point of view it has to be mentioned that Keith's part is fairly intricate and quite difficult to copy, and while Taylor's part sounds like a first (and last) run-though 'warming up the fingers', it's quite complicated to play. There's several slides and double stops I still can't play, if that means anything.

Mathijs

there is another mix which is better than the released version IMO.

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dadrob
there is another mix which is better than the released version IMO.

I understand this dilemma, This reminds when the Stones played Saturday Night Live on HBO (Licks Tour) with excited anticipation. Sadly enough , the better show was on Friday night and not on the national telecast.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2018-10-24 17:00 by Chris Fountain.

There's several slides and double stops I still can't play, if that means anything.

Heck man to me that's like someone sayin' …. That's one blow-out Red Adair just can't cap … hhhhhaaaaaaaa



ROCKMAN

Great analysis Doxa (as usual). I think you have perfectly summed up the nature of this track.

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Chris Fountain

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dadrob
there is another mix which is better than the released version IMO.

I understand this dilemma, This reminds when the Stones played Saturday Night Live on HBO (Licks Tour) with excited anticipation. Sadly enough , the better show was on Friday night and not on the national telecast.

Street Fighting Man from the PPV was excellent - and bizarrely wasn't used for LIVE LICKS, which instead used the messy Twickenham version. Keith laid a small clam right before the chorus that is amazingly absent on the DVD.

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Rockman
There's several slides and double stops I still can't play, if that means anything.

Heck man to me that's like someone sayin' …. That's one blow-out Red Adair just can't cap … hhhhhaaaaaaaa

It took me 15 minutes of Google to understand that sentence!

Mathijs

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dadrob
there is another mix which is better than the released version IMO.

I think it is that very mix which has re-upped this older thread.

It took me 15 minutes of Google to understand that sentence!


hhhhaa ... glad I got ya



ROCKMAN

beats me why this is never performed live. Keith could go hands-off through most of it

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Nikkei
beats me why this is never performed live. Keith could go hands-off through most of it

would he be on stage?

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treaclefingers

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Nikkei
beats me why this is never performed live. Keith could go hands-off through most of it

would he be on stage?

if he manages to behave

So I went back and listened to this a few more times, listening incessantly and constantly to the intricate guitar pieces being discussed.

What absolutly grates on my nerves are the continuous and constant "s's" which hiss at all times through this song. They are so hard to put aside....i simply just can't ignore them. Takes away any listening pleasure i may have had.

Dance Little sister, Dance
Dance Little Sister, Dance
Dance...etc etc etc

Some nice editing may have saved a nice track, but regretfully, it's not so. Such a shame, as the guitars DO sound nice.

Rod

The friendliest, most likeable song on IORR. (TWFNO is a brilliant but just a little too cold and snobby for its own good.)

A nice ass and good lyrics are what I value most and this song has neither but for once the lyrics don’t seem to particularly matter. Those guitars give me the cleanest shave.

Gimmie Luxury anyday …………………. da groove



ROCKMAN

One of six tracks on the album that I love. I don't care that it's not top tier Stones. I don't think of it as filler. I've loved it since I first discovered it on MADE IN THE SHADE as a kid. 39 years since I first heard it, it's in my DNA. There's a joy in the groove they lock into. Mick's vocals are one with the instruments. This is part of what made that first Glimmer Twins production shine.

Such a great rocker- never felt it got its true studio roots morphed into a great live song like other songs have, I.e. Rambler

It’s a cool title, and a call to all the chicks in the crowd if they could really turn up the guitars and nail that lick, with multiple cameras panning the crowd to give the sisters rocking out their due respect.

Chuck- put it in the rehearsal list?

The song kicks off like a cannonball to the belly - always been a favorite tune of mine by any band, and I wish it was twice as long.
Easily in my top 20 Stones tunes.

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Rip this joint, gonna save your soul, round and round and round we go......