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Mathijs


There are two? Never heard that.

Mathijs

Yes, one sticks to rhythm, the other does the melody and also sitar drone like chord.

It's easiest to distinguish between them both during the outro. One thrashes away rhythmically, the other plays melody along with the sitar and also strikes a chord.

Top one!

A true Rolling Stones song. Everyone shines!

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René
Comments, input and alterations are very welcome!

It's not 'Paint It Black' It's Paint, It Black

Although, admittedly, Keith has stated the comma was a Decca's doing.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013-10-14 18:11 by Big Al.

A quite singular song that is among the very best the band ever created. Jack Nitzche created the rhythm? I thought it was pretty much history that Bill got that strange thing going by getting on his the floor and pumping the bass on an organ with his fists (or something very similar).

There's a 1967 American TV music special hosted by the conductor Leonard Bernstein called 'Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution'. Along with Beatle songs, Beach Boys (Brian was at the height of his powers) At 13:13 in he plays a snippet of Paint It Black and calls it Arab Café Music.

[www.youtube.com]

I think it works on many levels. It's timeless and yet for me it takes me back to teenage darkness and angst and I hear, "I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes. I have to turn my head...."

Later I saw it as sort of an eerie premonition of Brian's fate. "I could not foresee this thing happening to you."

They retired it for quite a while. When they finally did bring it back to the stage, it was wildly received. I would put it in the top 5 of my Stone favorites.

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Big Al

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René
Comments, input and alterations are very welcome!

It's not 'Paint It Black' It's Paint, It Black

Although, admittedly, Keith has stated the comma was a Decca's doing.

That explains Mick's perfect enunication on Ready Steady Go. He says Paint It...then pauses, and says Black.

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Silver Dagger


That explains Mick's perfect enunication on Ready Steady Go. He says Paint It...then pauses, and says Black.

I actually prefer the title as 'Paint It, Black' The addition of the comma creates a moment of suspense that the song rightly warrants.

In case: It is not "Paint, It Black", but instead "Paint It, Black". My old single from the '60s has the comma there (if my memory serves me well). In an earlier post I used the comma once. As you also describe it adequately with reference to Mick, Silver Dagger.

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Mathijs

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rootsman

Brian also plays acoustic guitar, btw.

Nope, that's Richards.

Mathijs

From The Rolling Stones Monthly Book, May 1966 - about Paint It Black:

A few weeks ago Mick gave us a special preview of this rather ingenious disc, which on first hearing makes you think it´s full of Eastern promise!
Throughout the record one hears a strange sound which one would associate with a snake charmer - this however, is accomplished by Brian´s expert Sitar-playing. Mick also informed us that Brian played acoustic guitar with Keith on electric and Charlie of course, on drums, plus tambourine and castanets.

And, as His Majesty has pointed out, that chugging acoustic chord-guitar is near to what Brian played live on this track.

From timeisonourside.com:

Drums: Charlie Watts
Bass: Bill Wyman
Acoustic guitars: Keith Richards
Electric guitar: Keith Richards
Vocal: Mick Jagger
Background vocals: Mick Jagger & Keith Richards
Sitar: Brian Jones
Organ pedals: Bill Wyman
Piano: Jack Nitzsche
Percussion: Mick Jagger

Brian played acoustic guitar on Paint It, Black...

* Mick say's so in Rolling Stones Monthly in 1966
* Bill's books credit Brian with sitar and acoustic guitar
* The rhythmic acoustic part matches what Brian played live during 1966 - 1967

It´s likely, but based on what you´re listing we don´t really know

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DandelionPowderman
It´s likely, but based on what you´re listing we don´t really know

We don't really know who played most of the instruments on their records then.

There's more proof about the main rhythmic acoustic guitar being played by Brian than there is for a whole number of instrument credits which get way more easily accepted.

His live playing in 1966 is the best proof there is, the part is near enough exact.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2013-10-15 00:02 by His Majesty.

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Big Al

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Silver Dagger


That explains Mick's perfect enunication on Ready Steady Go. He says Paint It...then pauses, and says Black.

I actually prefer the title as 'Paint It, Black' The addition of the comma creates a moment of suspense that the song rightly warrants.

Great observation Al. Like it.

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His Majesty
Brian played acoustic guitar on Paint It, Black...

* Mick say's so in Rolling Stones Monthly in 1966
* Bill's books credit Brian with sitar and acoustic guitar
* The rhythmic acoustic part matches what Brian played live during 1966 - 1967

I'm confused. Brian didn't play Sitar live on Paint It Black? Or did he pull a Rahsaan Roland Kirk and play two instruments at one time?

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24FPS

I'm confused. Brian didn't play Sitar live on Paint It Black? Or did he pull a Rahsaan Roland Kirk and play two instruments at one time?

He never played sitar live onstage.

He played rhythm guitar live for Paint It, Black. The same part as the main acoustic rhythm guitar on the record.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013-10-15 01:00 by His Majesty.

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His Majesty

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DandelionPowderman
It´s likely, but based on what you´re listing we don´t really know

We don't really know who played most of the instruments on their records then.

There's more proof about the main rhythmic acoustic guitar being played by Brian than there is for a whole number of instrument credits which get way more easily accepted.

His live playing in 1966 is the best proof there is, the part is near enough exact.

I agree, don't get me wrong. However, Mick and Bill are often wrong, so the similarity in playing might be the closest thing to a proof.

They are often right as well. Micks 1966 comment a few months after the session and Bill's books in tandem with the playing make it as factual as you can get with that sort of thing.

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DandelionPowderman
One hour and two minutes time difference?

I second what you both state here. A very important and defining (in many ways) crossover number. Stones fans on iTunes have it among the top 5 (even higher?) as well.

A brilliant track, where all the members of the band shine simultaneously

Is it 58 minutes? Yes a brilliant track indeed...

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24FPS
A quite singular song that is among the very best the band ever created. Jack Nitzche created the rhythm? I thought it was pretty much history that Bill got that strange thing going by getting on his the floor and pumping the bass on an organ with his fists (or something very similar).

There's a 1967 American TV music special hosted by the conductor Leonard Bernstein called 'Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution'. Along with Beatle songs, Beach Boys (Brian was at the height of his powers) At 13:13 in he plays a snippet of Paint It Black and calls it Arab Café Music.

[www.youtube.com]

I think it works on many levels. It's timeless and yet for me it takes me back to teenage darkness and angst and I hear, "I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes. I have to turn my head...."

Later I saw it as sort of an eerie premonition of Brian's fate. "I could not foresee this thing happening to you."

They retired it for quite a while. When they finally did bring it back to the stage, it was wildly received. I would put it in the top 5 of my Stone favorites.

[www.spectropop.com]

"The Stones asked him to play piano at their recording sessions. Nitzsche balked at first, explaining he wasn't an experienced studio musician. "Taht's alright," Jagger assured him, "Neither are we." Nitzsche played on most of the Stones' early albums - Rolling Stones, Now!, Out of Our Heads, December's Children, Aftermath. Some rock writers credit him with having a heavy influence on the band's early sound. His deepest imprint, says Nitzsche, was on the frenzied "Paint It Black"; "They didn't know what to play on the back up and I started playing the piano Gypsy style, and they just picked it up. I thought it was just a joke."

ROCKMAN

Paint It Black is NOT A POP song its rock 'n' roll!!!!

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Rockman

So, it was a Bill thing after all.

Differing accounts.

Bill says what Keith says is fiction or mixed up memories.

Jack wasn't one of the Stones so maybe the band doesn't like mentioning him when arranging credits are talked about.

I'd say Jack probably started the song going in that direction and Bill added his thing to it.


The organ-playing story (that Bill was doing a take-off on Eric Easton) is complete fiction, actually. What really happened was that I had put a bass track and then another bass on top of that, but the sound still wasn't fat enough, it needed something on the bottom end. I wanted to play organ very loud on it to fill the sound. I tried playing the organ pedals with my feet but the pedals kept sticking so I got down on the floor and hit them with my fists. I actually never touched the keyboard. If anything it was a bit of an in-joke because Eric Easton was a keyboard player and I was just playing the pedals.

- Bill Wyman

Andrew Loog Oldham - 2 STONED -------- page 220



ROCKMAN

Yeah, Andrew is the man to describe what happened...his book is a 'must read' just to set a understatement...

2 1 2 0

Bill says the music was a group effort. Keith probably wrote the chords though.The rhythm is really the engine behind the melody.

Still don't really know who started the rhythm, as Andrew went out for a joint when it happened.

Jack was on piano as far as I know but he's over with Bill on the organ according to Andrew, so maybe Jack started it on piano while Andrew was out and then Bill had the idea of doing the rhythm with the organ pedals to fatten up his bass part and Jack is helping out a bit.

Who knows, but the above interpretation allows for Jack and Bill's and Keith's and Andrews stories to sort of sync.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2013-10-15 10:49 by howled.

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His Majesty
They are often right as well. Micks 1966 comment a few months after the session and Bill's books in tandem with the playing make it as factual as you can get with that sort of thing.

Of course they are! But they're often wrong as well. That makes it difficult to trust them. Keith is impossible to trust

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howled
I think some are reading too much into it.

The song started off with Keith's riff and they were doing novelty joke like things with it in the studio according to Keith and they probably would have had no idea when they were first playing around with it that it would end up as a potential single.

For how the Stones play around with arrangements, see the Goddard Sympathy video where it goes from an Acoustic song to a Samba.

Anyway, they played around with what would become Paint It Black and I think Jack Nitzsche got the rhythm going in a certain way and the Sitar playing the riff spun it in a certain way and then Mick probably finished off the lyrics to suit it (maybe inspired by some things he's read) and that was Paint It Black.

It could have ended up as a Mothers Little Helper thing with a middle eastern riff and different lyrics to suit.

The lyrics are about someones funeral that the person has known and the after effects, and Eleanor Rigby was sort of similar and recorded a bit earlier and later then when Paint It Black hit the charts.

This was in the period where the Beatles had stopped singing about Love and just about any subject could theoretically be used for a pop song.

Satisfaction was Keith suggesting Satisfaction as the title and Mick just focused on how he couldn't get it in the lyrics, which just worked.

I guess I might belong to the category of "some reading too much into it", but actually I don't see anything in your post that contradicts with anything I wrote. You are a giving a description how the song actually was accomplished, and being it accurate or not, doesn't matter if we are going to judge the output. The actual result is unique and masterful in this tune, no matter how easily or not they 'get there'- was it by lucky accident, or from where the ideas were taken from, or how the decisions done, is irrelevant.

I mean, who knows - and cares - how the process goes if the muse and inspiration is there. "Honky Tonk Women" was a country joke, that suddenly got a new life when Keith decided to apply his Ry Cooder-'inspired' open G tuning riffs into it... "Start Me Up" was a reggae jam until they - probably just for a fun - try it as a way "Brown Sugar" was played. In both cases we know the classical results. So the issue how the 'trick' was done, doesn't matter; to enjoy a delicious dinner in a five Michelin restaurant, we don't need to know what the cooks did in the kitchen.

But I discuss one feature you brought in your post: the influence of the Beatles. The Beatlelogists, in order to emphasize the originality of the FabFour, tend to put down "Paint It Black" as a kind of rip off of two Beatles songs, "Norwegian Wood" and "Eleanor Rigby". Like you could 'reduce' "Paint It Black" into these two tunes, and thereby not having 'originality' of its own. From the first we get the sitar, and from the latter we get the theme (funeral). Both accounts are probably right. But what these biased Beatlelogists are unable to see or recognize is what the Stones did with these ideas.

First, the sitar. Yes, in "Norwegian Wood" Harrison did it first, but if we compare the songs, The Beatle tune is a pop version of pure Indian melody, and the whole tone of the song, as Harrison's sitar, is 'authentic' in its ear-pleasing way, trying to escape the realm of typical western pop song. But in "Paint It Black" the sitar is served in the context of a rock and roll song. What is extraordinary in it, is to take these odd sources and transform them into a convincing rock and roll song, which defies time and place. Yeah, there might be those Turkish/Indian/Gypsy/psychedelic nuances in it - and the sitar! - but the song, in the end, rocks like hell. You put the song on any dance floor, and see what happens: rock fans of any generation, hipsters or whoever, will get their senses sensitive when they recognize that magical intro of it, and in the second Charlie hits the fan, jump on their feet and let their asses move...

Second: the theme. Yes, "Eleanor Rigby" gives us a fine-tuned, elegant, description of sorrow and other feelings associated to a funeral and death. But "Paint It Black", probably discussing the same theme, transforms these feelings into dark, aggressive, angst-like passions. Even the specific target of the theme is not so important any longer: it is the whole feel of the song, and Jagger, with his blues-trained edge-nuanced voice and interpretation skills, speaks in a universally recognizable tone, and all the Iggy Pops of the world know exatly what it is all about. If "Eleanor Rigby" gives us a fine-tuned, meditative third person perspective of certain sad feelings, "Paint It Black" just hits your face with its subjective account what pain feels like. This Jagger guy did not waste his formative years from 15 to 20 listening the blues for nothing.

Yeah, thanks The Beatles for 'inspiration'. But as far as "Paint It Black" goes, I think they should be proud for having inspired (to an extent) achievements like that. What the Stones did with 'their' ideas, was totally original (very much based on their own unique nature as a band), as we can hear from the result.

- Doxa



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013-10-15 11:25 by Doxa.

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DandelionPowderman

Of course they are! But they're often wrong as well. That makes it difficult to trust them. Keith is impossible to trust

Allthingstakentogether, n o t a p a r t.

Brian's live PIB playing backs up their comments and vice versa.

Mick telling us just a month or so after the session in tandem with Brian's live playing is only hard to trust if you end up in the usual uber doubtful mind set that seems to be the default setting for a lot of people when ever it comes to Brian Jones instrument credits.