Too Tough sounds like Keith wrote it
Sleep Tonight is one of Keith's

i don´t know but i can imagine keith often or always had one or two lines of lyrics too when he wrote the music.

Soul Survivor?

Quote
JMoisica
"How it works on a tune like Beast of Burden is Keith would set up a chord sequence and maybe one or two lines, and then you've got to extemporize on that, and come up with these melody lines and lyrics. " -- Mick

This is interesting quote. It is not solely the lyrics Mick is adding to Keith's "songs" but melodies - or finishing them - as well. Most of (post-60's)Keith's songs sound like sketches with certain chord sequences and proto-melodies (and key lyrical phrases). Keith's solo albums and Stones "solo" songs do sound like catching up certain atmosphere and not really based on following a written or worked melody but more like being intuitive interpretations of certain basic lines or ideas (which also seems to go with lyric department). There is a thing called 'discipline' sometimes not present at all, but more like following certain emotions and feelings. Sometimes I wonder what Mick could have done out of TALK IS CHEAP (and why on earth he didn't re-write the banal "Love Is Strong"?)...

But when did the change happen? Just think of the melodies of "As Tears Go By" or "Ruby Tuesday"; they are really finished, properly worked out compositions. You can play them with goddam piano and they sound catchy and awesome. In fact, most their early songs - especially melodic ballads - are quite carefully composed; not just the basic chords but also the melody is written precisely (think of "Paint It Black" or "Sittin on A Fence", "Lady Jane", etc.). I suppose all of these songs are mostly music composed by Keith. If "Ruby Tuedsday" is all Keith as it is supposed to be (forget Brian Jones), there is an incredible discipline there used to make that song - both in lyrics and melody section - to be accomplished.

Seemingly around the time of BEGGARS BANQUET - when Keith also started messing with open tuning - he also adapted a new kind of composing style that hadn't the precise form it used to have. In the following years he would master this style, but how much of it was not intentional but something perhaps to do with the drug addition making him more - in fact - sloppy and lazy? The way Keith mastered his guitar style, that went hand in hand I guess with his composing style, was also that of finding an easier, more intuitive, and not so precise style. Be that good or bad, but from the early 70's on, it looks like that finding the right and precise melody patterns seemed to be Mick's duty, even with the songs Keith supposed to have written. I guess the beautiful melody of "Angie" is actually Mick's achievement what he did at the same time when writing the lyrics. (But I don't know - perhaps that was the nature of the team work from the day zero - but that is not the pattern they have liked to tell. And the existence of "Ruby 'All Keith' Tuesday" is a counter example.)

I don't claim that Keith doesn't have an ear to great melodies (any longer) but what I find typical for him is not to really get them finished but leaving them as sketches (a wonderful "Hate It When You Leave" is a great example of that.). Sometimes guitarists typically think of the composing consisting solely of finding a nice chord sequence or a riff or a key phrase, but actully making a clever melody and the lyrics around/following/fulfilling them/it is, in fact, a great part of making an actual song. I think lacking this skill was something Keith always mocked Brian Jones, but perhaps Keith was also speaking a bit of his own problems if he wouldn't have a pragmatic and effective partner like Jagger...

- Doxa



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2010-07-31 12:51 by Doxa.

Brilliant, Doxa. This sounds right to me. Keith's switch from nerdy music-geek introvert to cool-assed poppy-soaked Anita-companion hipster was radical, and I'd never thought about the parallel or accompanying musical shift. He went (progressed? simply moved/morphed?) essentially from composing to as you say intuitive expressions...and maybe when the heroin ceased to inspire (as heroin will eventually do) Keith's fuller-bodied concepts and writing---following the extraordinary intuitive heroin laced work of BB, LIB, Sticky, Exile---started thinning out until his became more and more sketches and fragments, which, as you say, requires Mick to put in the hard work to craft them into actual songs.

Great post!

- swiss



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2010-07-31 13:10 by swiss.

I think the alternative "Soul Survivor" posted here tells quite a lot of Mick's role in finishing the songs - that actually occurred already in the aerly 70's, while Keith's "peak".

So in this sense I think it was quite natural for Jagger to do the EXILE BONUS album alone. Think of the best of them, "Plundered My Soul". Keith's contribution was already done in 1971 (?), putting the central "feel" and musical framework to the basic track, and what was left to do ws Jagger to compose an actual song melody and lyrics into it. Something quite ordinary for Mick I guess (And like he said there was no difference for him from where or when did the original back track came from; he did his thing like he always does.) "Following the River" was a hard case because it didn't go along the familiar patterns, but Mick managed - according to his own opinion - quite well even with that. So all in all, it is quite natural that Keith wasn't involved in 2009 in finishing these songs and it was all up to Mick. I guess it was easier for Jagger to be work by his own and not to "consult" Keith or make compromises with him.

But it is also quite strange - don't you think? - that Keith wasn't involved at all finishing the songs hat used to be (most likely) his own brain childs, and being released with the album that is to be known his biggest achievement ever? I think that tells the naked truth of the nature of teh creative box of the Stones.

- Doxa



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2010-07-31 13:22 by Doxa.

Quote
Doxa
But it is also quite strange - don't you think? - that Keith wasn't involved at all finishing the songs hat used to be (most likely) his own brain childs, and being released with the album that is to be known his biggest achievement ever? I think that tells the naked truth of the nature of teh creative box of the Stones.

- Doxa

Actually I don't think it's strange. Many of us think Exile was great as-is, probably including Keith. I don't like PMS particularly; and if I can appreciate it, it's not as an Exile song, but an interesting mash-up that Mick felt inspired/compelled to futz around with. I don't think Mick's perfectionism is superior to Keith's proclivities...I think when they're in balance and harmony they together make art. When one or the other's lesser more neurotic or perverse natures is running amok, unchecked, or too dominant their work is substandard. Too lax, sloppy, and incomplete (Keith); or too tightly wrought and self-conscious (Mick).

- swiss

Little T&A

swiss, I agree with you that it is not such a strange thing (my point was a bit rhetorical) if we know the dynamics how the Twins work (your description of its yin-yang nature is wonderful.)

But outside that familar-for-us framework, I find it a bit strange if any kind of artist, writer, or whatever person who creates something and does that seriuously and for living, is not interested at all when someone takes your old stuff and is going to mess with it whatever he likes to. Seemingly Mick had free hands to do whatever he likes, and he never mentioned Keith being involved any way in the process (expect listening some archive material and adding an acoustic guitar somewhere.) The fact is that because EXILE EXTRAS is a Stones product, and packed with Keith's masterpiece, it has Keith's signature written all over it, too. So officially he is okay with whatever Mick does - Keith otherwise trusts Mick extremily much or Mick had him strongly by the balls as far as leading The Stones affairs go. Any case, I find Keith's absence as an artist - who takes care of his art or feels responsible for it - extremily odd, taken the fact that Keith was involved quite heavily in EXILE promotion. Sometimes it sounds like Keith is just a PR person or a "poser boy" for the Stones who does not have a say to important, artistic decisions any longer. Like the substance is all to Mick.

The point of Keith talking "it should be left as it is" is typical "talk is cheap" stuff Keith does nowadays. What actually happened to those "Exile" extras is as far as it can be from what Keith wished for (like it always seems to be with the Stones; Keith talks romantic bullocks, and still loyally does whatever Mick decides.)... In that sense, the upcoming autobiography by Keith is quite in line and logical move now... Keith can do there what he does best thse days: to talk.

(But of course, we have to notice what has happened in the premises in recent years - Patti's problems especially - might have been natural reasons for Keith's non-interest to take heavily part in some recent projects. (I mean, what is more important: your loving wife struggle for life or keeping an eye what your co-business partner does with some 40 yaers old track you don't even remember a shit about.)

- Doxa



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2010-07-31 14:19 by Doxa.

Quote
Doxa
But when did the change happen? Just think of the melodies of "As Tears Go By" or "Ruby Tuesday"; they are really finished, properly worked out compositions. You can play them with goddam piano and they sound catchy and awesome. In fact, most their early songs - especially melodic ballads - are quite carefully composed; not just the basic chords but also the melody is written precisely (think of "Paint It Black" or "Sittin on A Fence", "Lady Jane", etc.). I suppose all of these songs are mostly music composed by Keith. If "Ruby Tuedsday" is all Keith as it is supposed to be (forget Brian Jones), there is an incredible discipline there used to make that song - both in lyrics and melody section - to be accomplished.

I wonder how many of those early tracks were more Nanker-Phelge credits rather than Jagger/Richards. Did Keith compose all of Ruby Tuesday or PIB by himself, as you suggest? Keith telling Brian, "You're going to play piano and recorder on this song of mine, Ruby Tuesday, and you're going to play it this way", seems far-fetched to me.
And I've always wondered about the lyrics of RT and who wrote them. The lyrics are very dark and depressing- "Cash your dreams before they slip away", "Dying all the time, lose your dreams and you will lose your mind, in life unkind". Could these be the autobiographical words of Mr. Brian Jones himself, an anguished man who by late 1966 had lost control of his band (and beginning to lose control of his life)? The only thing Keith says about RT to this day is that it was 'probably' about Linda Keith. That's it. Then in the Ask Keith section of his own website, a poster asked about RT and how he came to write it. Again, Keith was blunt, describing in two or three sentences how nice of a song it was. No long, elaborate stories or anecdotes- very unlike Mr. Richards.

..following the extraordinary intuitive heroin laced work of BB, LIB, Sticky, Exile

...not BB though; not at least according to Bokris' book and other accounts I've read

keith wasn't using it (heroin) at the time BB was written and recorded (March - June 68); it only became a 'tool' later when he began creating song ideas for LIB (alone) while hanging around Robert Fraser's flat (which Anita had rented while filming 'Performance' with Jagger and screwing Jagger in the film..I think the deleted 'outakes' of their Performance screwing marathons won a x rated film contest in Holland, once..)

..so keith was alone, somewhat pissed off, maybe a little paranoid of the anita/jagger thing going on... ..hanging out with Fraser.. a guy who was already known to enjoy his hero-in- a-riffic moments.. and voila

you get a marvel like gimme shelter out of it; i mean the intro to that song has smack plastered all over it



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 2010-07-31 18:26 by stones77.

It's probably safe to say that Keith does (or did) indeed come up with perhaps what would be the chorus and title, like he did with Wild Horses, while other times it's part of the riffage with some kind of dark romantic trip going on, like Thief In The Night or Love Is Strong or whatever. The details are hazy but the sound is clear - they've written some fantastic songs together in the way that they do however they do it.

yep

I've always thought of the stones stuff as a keith riff partnered with a jagger melody topped off with charlie's tempo locked in sync with bill's bottom end

lyrics? who the hell really knows ..but I can vision keith coming up with the gimme shelter riff and warbling 'war..children..etc over it, or something like that which jagger picked up on and put into focus

but don´t forget, that Jagger comes up with riffs, chorus etc. the same. I think Keith sometimes is a bit too quick with his "I wrote that song" when he maybe had the idea for the title or the chorus or the riff, or even the backing track, because it is no song without a melody and/or lyrics (of course, he also write melodies and lyrics...).
Doxa, I thought, it is one of the myths that finally got destroyed after all that Exile promoting in the last couple of months, that Exile is Keith´s album? Mick and Keith don´t call it Keith´s album.

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elunsi
Doxa, I thought, it is one of the myths that finally got destroyed after all that Exile promoting in the last couple of months, that Exile is Keith´s album? Mick and Keith don´t call it Keith´s album.

Yeah, that might be true - and Mick surely worked hard on interviews to explain away his past odd comments about EXILE.

- Doxa

Quote
stones77
..following the extraordinary intuitive heroin laced work of BB, LIB, Sticky, Exile

...not BB though; not at least according to Bokris' book and other accounts I've read

keith wasn't using it (heroin) at the time BB was written and recorded (March - June 68); it only became a 'tool' later when he began creating song ideas for LIB (alone) while hanging around Robert Fraser's flat (which Anita had rented while filming 'Performance' with Jagger and screwing Jagger in the film..I think the deleted 'outakes' of their Performance screwing marathons won a x rated film contest in Holland, once..)

..so keith was alone, somewhat pissed off, maybe a little paranoid of the anita/jagger thing going on... ..hanging out with Fraser.. a guy who was already known to enjoy his hero-in- a-riffic moments.. and voila

you get a marvel like gimme shelter out of it; i mean the intro to that song has smack plastered all over it

You're completely right - talk about sloppy. I know well when Keith started heroin and don't know why I fvcked that up. In fact I posted that very story above less than 2 weeks ago here. Thanks for correcting me. I shouldn't for many reasons have included BB in my sweeping statements.

Did you ever read Many Years From Now, the McCartney bio by Barry Miles where he goes through every Beatle song and asks Paul his recollection of it? Someone should sit Mick and Keith down and do the same thing. Yeah, there's three more decades involved, but so what? Or what Townshend did in the Scoop series. I've been trying to get my parents (in their mid 80s) to write down recollections of the past for years, but to no avail.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2010-08-01 05:35 by tomk.