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Mel Belli
Hated the live versions: too fast and one-dimensional. But the studio version has all the charms: a just-right groove. The sleigh-bell percussion. Charlie's Charlie-esque stop-time drumming ("The bell has rung and I've called time"). Mick purring about frequenting gay bars. And, not least, one of my favorite Keith solos of all time: unhurried, note-perfect, and reminscent of what he did later on "You Don't Move Me."

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Mel Belli
Hated the live versions: too fast and one-dimensional. But the studio version has all the charms: a just-right groove. The sleigh-bell percussion. Charlie's Charlie-esque stop-time drumming ("The bell has rung and I've called time"). Mick purring about frequenting gay bars. And, not least, one of my favorite Keith solos of all time: unhurried, note-perfect, and reminscent of what he did later on "You Don't Move Me."

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Maindefender
Does Mick ever sing the Playboy verse live? It's not song at Leeds.

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HMS
Let Me Go is a fantastic piece of music on an fantastic but highly underrated album. The intro alone is worth millions.

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Munichhilton

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HMS
Let Me Go is a fantastic piece of music on an fantastic but highly underrated album. The intro alone is worth millions.

Perfect analysis

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with sssoul
I always loved the hyper Hampton rendition, and had to learn to love the studio version,
but thanks to some very capable help from iorrians (you know who you are!) I did learn (thank you!).
Still, the staging of the concert renditions slays me every time: that nervous skinny little frontman cat
getting out in the crowds to let people put their hands on him while he's singing "let me go!"

I wonder if that would count as Brechtian. I'm never sure. But either way, it's astonishing

I love the Rolling Stones

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Natlanta
it's a rhythm-lead clinic.

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TeaAtThree

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Mel Belli
Hated the live versions: too fast and one-dimensional. But the studio version has all the charms: a just-right groove. The sleigh-bell percussion. Charlie's Charlie-esque stop-time drumming ("The bell has rung and I've called time"). Mick purring about frequenting gay bars. And, not least, one of my favorite Keith solos of all time: unhurried, note-perfect, and reminscent of what he did later on "You Don't Move Me."

Yes, yes,Mel Belli!

"The bell has rung and I've called time, the chair is on the table out the door, baby! CYMBAL CRASH!

That cymbal crash might be my single favorite Stones moment ever.

T@3

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stupidguy2

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TeaAtThree

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Mel Belli
Hated the live versions: too fast and one-dimensional.


And that line, 'Maybe Ill become a playboyyyee..hang around in gay barrrrrsss and mooooove to the west side of townnn..'
One of my alltime favorite Jaggerisms. He sounds wasted and hopeless and effortlessly sexy.

Yes! and Yes again!! It's the effortlessly sexy, wasted and hopeless phrasing that makes the studio version so perfect and is lost live. However, the extended live solos make it so that one can love it -- just in an entirely different way.

Those who label it "filler" miss how the subtleties of performance can elevate a song. Is it an "important" song like Sympathy? Of course not. It's the craft behind the performance.

I also love how the lyrics continue the New York City vibe that so informed the entirety of Some Girls before it.

T@3



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2015-12-12 19:13 by TeaAtThree.

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Witness
I am one, who has said that EMOTIONAL RESCUE is one of approximately 12 great albums in the career of the Rolling Stones, and that there is not one weak song on this album. All the same, comparatively speaking, to me this is clearly the weakest song on this underestimated album.

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Doxa

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Witness
I am one, who has said that EMOTIONAL RESCUE is one of approximately 12 great albums in the career of the Rolling Stones, and that there is not one weak song on this album. All the same, comparatively speaking, to me this is clearly the weakest song on this underestimated album.

I agree that there is not one weak song in this album, but then, there aren't any extradonary stand-out cuts either, that is, to count out our subjective taste, the ones we might call 'classics' with no any kind of hesitation either. Without having that kind of key songs, it is doomed to remain kind of lesser, a bit faceless work between SOME GIRLS and TATTOO YOU.

But as far as "Let Me Go" go, that's always been one of favourites in the album. Actually when I first heard the album, that was the only song that somehow made an impression to me. Of course, since then I have learned to appreciate the album much, much more, but let's say, at the time, I wasn't ready to 'get' the album at all. It was one of my first Stones albums after being hooked by TATTOO YOU, and especially compared to it - and some of the older, classical stuff I had by then - it really sounded odd with its sleazy feel and disco, funk, reggae, pseudo punk stuff, and especially Jagger's twisted vocals... In 1982 EMOTIONAL RESCUE sounded strangely dated album to my teenager ears. Like anythng of the coolness and majestity and eternatilty they absorded in TATTOO YOU was not there at all. (I guess it is clear that now I think differently.)

But "Let Me Go" was an expection. The 'rock-a-billy' guitar sound and feel of it reminded me positively of "Little T&A". I loved - and still do - of that sound and feel.

I have never been a huge fan of the live version(s) that I was first introduced when STILL LIFE was released. I always like the idea of doing the song differently than in studio original (to use artistic imagination and to have a some kind of unique point in live performances), but "Let Me Go" always sound a bit rushed and one-dimensional to my ears. Like they can't really handle the tempo they have there - even this time it is even more rock-a-billy than originally! The outcome is just a bit monotoneus to my ears, lacking some peculiar Stones dynamics.

But the version in the new Leeds DVD is a great one. I wasn't that impressed of the whole show, but that song stood out. Probably it is the (visual) Ian Stewart part, and probably some sort of nostalgy sentiment attached there, which makes the difference.

- Doxa