Help me out here. I am listening to "Sweet Thing" by Jagger and am grooving fiercely. This makes me wonder why no hip tunes like this ever make it on to a Stonesalbum. Same goes for "999" or "Make No Mistake". Even "Always Wanted More" for that matter. I think a hook like "God Gave Me Everything" done by the Stones as a band would have impacted a hundred times stronger. Jagger solo artist has a different aura than the mythical Stones. They could have built an entire tour motif aeround "God Gave Me Everything". Great lyrics there.
And it makes me wonder if the songwriters just hold back their best ideas and songs for solo efforts. By now soloalbums are de rigeur, so they all know there is another one coming. Have Jagger and Keith relegated the Rolling Stones to backburner status? Their back catalogue is so strong that maybe they all believe that they should just coast out on it's strength. Check this: for any other band tunes like "If you can't rock me", "Hand of Fate" or "Heartbreaker" would be career milestones. For the Stones they are also-rans. Album openers and good Livetunes. They have so many warhorse gems that they can afford to pick only a small percentage from all those megahits.

In my opinion, God Gave Me Everything is a desparate attempt by Mick to revisit Heartbreaker.
The vocals and the guitar tone and chord sequence during the chorus are nearly identical.

As Keith wrote so eloquently..."You Don't Move Me"...Mick.

Ditto your remarks Chelsea except for HOF.

I've never understood the appeal of that song.

Keith doing "Make no mistake" with Lisa would be HUGE.
Would make his spot alot more appealing to the general audience as well.
Very slick, hip and cool.

"Sweet thing" done by the Stones would have been another top ten hit too.
"Hard woman" and "Party doll" would have become Stones standards live wise I believe if they'd been on DW/SW instead of Mick's solo efforts.

"God gave me..", "Everybody getting high" - these types of rockers would get the crowd going just as well as SOM and OOC if not even moreso also.

kyle m

Have you ever lent somebody $20 and never seen them again? It was probably worth it.

God gave me everything by the Stones??
A great Top 5 Single.
Don´t stop in comparison is a looser song!!
Same for Sweet Thing, Everybody geeting high or Runnin´too deep!!

Well Lenny Kravitz wrote "God gave me.." so its not really a Stones song.

Wasn't Sweet Thing attempted by the Stones during the Steel Wheels sessions?

Make No Mistake is fine as it is. In fact, it's more than fine, it's superb. Can't believe you'd take Sarah Dash over Lisa Fischer (ok, physically, YEAH, but not musically).

monkey man Wrote:
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>
> "Hard woman" and "Party doll" would have become
> Stones standards live wise I believe if they'd
> been on DW/SW instead of Mick's solo efforts.
>


LOL

Nikolai Wrote:
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> Wasn't Sweet Thing attempted by the Stones during the Steel Wheels sessions?

I think so. Also "Hang On To Me Tonight".

You are so right. Unfortunately. Ever since he started his solo career Mick has adressed his best musical ideas and efforts to his solo records. Being by his own, with no one to lean on, there he has seemed to be forced to work his ass off. Even though he has sometimes sounded too forced and calculated in his urge of working so hard. As the consenses is, the results weren't always been so great. The guys he has decided to work with are not always been the 'right' ones either. (But a good thing is that because his solo career never turned out to be the sort of phenomenon he perhaps dreamed of, there remained a room for the Rolling Stones to exist.)

But a sad thing is, starting seemingly with Dirty Work, that Jagger presence in the Stones album has never been so committed as it used to be (prior Undercover or something). As a good protestant he has a strong working ethics, he does his part and more, but somehow I feel that his creative ambition is lacking in the 'recent' Stones products. Some very important spark is missing. By contrast, just listen Some Girls: it is a Mick Jagger album; Jagger is using the Stones as his a vehicle of expression. And that's the best possible vehicle for him. Perhaps Keith is the boss inside the vehicle and the commander of it, but it all works for Mick, and everything is under his control and supervision. Some connection between Jagger and The Stones (that is, Keith) seriously broke down when Jagger committed himself to his solo career, and despite some occasional good signs of good ol' partnership, I don't believe Mick and Keith really have re-connected relationship after their World War III; they just seem to be faited to work together, being forced to tolarate each other, but the nature of their co-work is more like a business deal that works for both of them.

Mick's solo projects and the 'heretic uncommitment to the holy Stones' affected Keith. As a revange he did worked his lazy ass off to make his best album since Exile: Talk Is Cheap - an album that seems to be a sort of swang song of Keith Richards. Some great ideas were alro reserved for Main Offender, although the energy level weren't so high any more and the album turned out be quite repetive.

I don't know. What I tried to say is that since Dirty Work I have viewed Jagger just too easily playing a type role of Mick Jagger, and not really expressing himself anymore. He is present, as loud as ever, but still in some way not. He too easily is ready to make compromises, easy routes, even retro ones, and not really adding any new chapters to his adventures. Just good ol' simple role of Mick Jagger. An icon. But what I have learned of this man is that his ambition and artistic imagination is not to be reduced to that. And of course that almost total of lack of new Rolling Stones material speaks volumes. Jagger simply doesn't view The Stones anymore as his vehicle of expression, of new out-put. It is just a money machine, a sort of "sampo" as is told in Finnish folk-saga Kalevala.

Hmm.. I can only imagine what the Stones could have done with "Lonely At The Top", "Just Another Night", "Party Doll", "Evening Grown", "Sweet Thing", "God Gave Me Everything" (yes, that might have been an anthem in the hands of The Stones), etc. Moreover, if Keith could have used inspiring gems like "Make No MIstake" or "Hate It When You Leave" (a masterpiece!) in the context of his real band, instead doing those secondary repetitive ballads, there be more recent legendary songs in their repertuare these days. And of course, if many of those solo songs would have gotten a touch from another Glimmer Twin, the result might have been (even) better. I suppose that if we put the energy level and amount of ideas tthat made Talk Is Cheap and Primitive Cool together, it would have made much better album than Steel Wheels. The same goes for Wandering Spirit (Jagger's best effort since Tattoo You or Some Girls) and Main Offender.

And by the way the duet of "Mistake" with Lisa sounds a marvellous idea!

If and if...

- Doxa

I've been wondering that also...When I listen to "Everybody gettin' high" I always wonder what a great opener for Stones live shows it would have been; "Wired All Night" also would tear the house down!

"got to be worked on
don't have no bark nor bite..."