Comments, input and alterations are very welcome!
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Play With Fire
(Nanker Phelge)

RCA Studios, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, US, January 18, 1965

Mick Jagger - vocals, tambourine
Keith Richards - acoustic guitar
Phil Spector - zoom bass
Jack Nitzsche - harpsichord, percussion

Well, you've got your diamonds and you've got your pretty clothes
And the chauffeur drives your cars, you let everybody know
But don't play with me, 'cause you're playing with fire

Your mother, she's an heiress, owns a block in Saint John's Wood
And your father'd be there with her if he only could
But don't play with me, 'cause you're playing with fire

Your old man took her diamonds and tiaras by the score
Now she gets her kicks in Stepney, not in Knightsbridge anymore
So don't play with me, 'cause you're playing with fire

Now you've got some diamonds and you will have some others
But you'd better watch your step girl, or start living with your mother
So don't play with me, 'cause you're playing with fire
So don't play with me, 'cause you're playing with fire

Produced by Andrew Loog Oldham

First released on:
The Rolling Stones - “The Last Time / Play With Fire” 7” single
(Decca F 12104) UK, February 26, 1965

Very good, moody ballad with vivid, incisive lyrics. Memorable and haunting, PWF sends its message with remarkable economy and precision. Nice production, too; dig that slight reverb.

Drew



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2013-11-11 12:30 by drewmaster.

Their greatest ballad from the 60's and one of the finest melodies they written.......man!!! i loved this song back then...and still do

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They did a nice rendition on the SW tour, imo.

One of the highlights on the "Steel Wheels Tour" PURE MAGIC !!

Enchanting Good! And what an incredible content!

6/5



Mick&Keith

2 1 2 0

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Ruby Friday
One of the highlights on the "Steel Wheels Tour" PURE MAGIC !!

I don't hear that too often but i agree with you

The Rolling Stones - “The Last Time / Play With Fire” 7” single
(Decca F 12104) UK, February 26, 1965

What a perfect single!

Good advice spoken/sung by Mick Jagger...

One of those songs that showed the depth of the group's output. Too bad Chuck feels he has to tinkle all over this one on stage too. Minimalism, Chuck.

Beatles were fun, innocent, non-threatening still at this point. Mick and Keith were in a much darker place...they were the people your parents warned you about, but you were drawn to. GREAT song, haunting and I agree with the other posters that 'less is more'. Perfectly arranged.

PWF live in 1989: have a look at 1:52-2:05! We always knew, the Stones are a 2-keyboard-band!!

;-)

Priest

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buffalo7478
Beatles were fun, innocent, non-threatening still at this point. Mick and Keith were in a much darker place...they were the people your parents warned you about, but you were drawn to. GREAT song, haunting and I agree with the other posters that 'less is more'. Perfectly arranged.

Maybe the Stones were 'darker' at this point than the Beatles, but not necessarily better. On 'A Hard Day's Night' and 'Beatles For Sale' John and Paul were getting more 'introspective' in their songs. Both of those albums were completed by October of 1964 that predated 'Play With Fire' (I think).

Also, John and Paul wrote a song for the Stones before Mick and Keith even thought about songwriting (and darker places). Just sayin'.

Great song. Slow, intriguing melody with excellent lyrics. An early favorite.

have they played it live after 1989-90?

I remember being awed by this track when it came out
I was 10, nowhere near comprehending the shadows and innuendos in it,
but they sure were menacing, whether you understood them or not.
I'm still awed. Freakin great track.

Great song, sound and lyrics!

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Literally 965 kilometers from being "Born in an Arctic zone".

Sweet..............









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LieB
have they played it live after 1989-90?

no

Former Rolling Stone Dick Taylor covers The Rolling Stones with his band The Pretty Things from their 1999 album Rage Before Beauty.

Has this song being released in stereo apart from the London Hot Rocks CD in 85?

The first Rolling Stones I heard. I was 4 years old.
One of the greatest Stones song!

Benjamin.

brilliant!

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buffalo7478
Beatles were fun, innocent, non-threatening still at this point. Mick and Keith were in a much darker place...they were the people your parents warned you about, but you were drawn to. GREAT song, haunting and I agree with the other posters that 'less is more'. Perfectly arranged.

This is one of The Rolling Stones most underrated songs IMO. Nice haunting melody and nice use of harpsichord. One common myth about the early Beatles is they only wrote songs about holding hands.

Lennon said he was influenced by Bob Dylan in the writing of the song "I'm A Loser". Many think it’s sound and subject matter was the precursor and partially responsible for the folk/rock explosion

They paint that song in a folk-rock vein. (I wonder if Dylan was counter-influenced by that... Remember, it wasn't until 1965 when he released his first folk-rock album.)

It's also very British, perhaps even very English, maybe it's even what one might call "Music Hall" influenced at least. Up to BTB, I'd have to say the Stones were much more British/English than the Beatles, in fact, despite all the wrapping up in the Union Jack and "made in England" stamps on Who albums, the Stones seem even more that so that than the Who. I could be wrong, just my tuppence. Lady Jane, As Tears Go By, Backstreet Girl which is a lift to Chanson, these are the Stones' best ballads and songs like Play with fire are up there. The Best Stones was with Jones no doubt.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013-11-05 05:54 by BroomWagon.

Kudos to ALO for putting the reverb on the track. I'm sure that's his brushstroke, which some find annoying. That really gives the track its feel.

A perfect b-side for "The Last Time", which, by the way, is their best selling single ever in Britain. Those two songs constituted the claim of The Stones for originality.

A haunting, threatening atmosphere the song has - all the quality needed for an unique Rolling Stones recording. Especially Jagger, as a social commentator and interpretator, is discovering a right role for him to make his original contribution in pop music. A huge artistic step from "Little Red Rooster", which was a kind of "mission complished" single - the route to make blues popular and to interpret it by a touch of their own.

It is very British indeed. To even understand the meaning of the lyrics one needs to have a certain understanding of the social status of certain parts of London. I recall Jorma Kaukonen of Jefferson Airplane commenting something to the effect that 'he couldn't understand its social commentary at all - too English'. But that alone is a mark how much and how closely the music of these British guys were listened by the growing rock scene all over the world. The guys from the same scene as Kaukonen, The Doors, might still have found some clue from it when composing their breakthrough single "Light My Fire".

In his "Jagger Remembers" 1995 interview the writer himself spoke it exceptionally warmly, and how good it still sounds. It was nice that they picked up this old and not probably so well remebered gem of theirs to STEEL WHEELS tour, and even - to repeat the history - released it as a b-side of "Highwire" single, even though I think the version they did was rather lame. The old magic and naive charm was lost.

One of my very favourite Stones 'ballads' ever, and taking its fragile but frightening atmosphere, wonderfully executed by its production, it is still damn unique piece in their catalog. It is a kind of thing one can only do and reach in the very early stages in career when discovering all the possibilities in creativity one can has. A touch of pure inspiration.

- Doxa

<released it as a b-side of "Highwire" single>

On my copy, the B-side was 2000 LYFM

It is a great one, indeed

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DGA35
Has this song being released in stereo apart from the London Hot Rocks CD in 85?

AFAIK, not officially.



Beautiful, atmospheric song!

That "zoom bass" is a tuned downed acoustic guitar, I read somewhere.

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DandelionPowderman
<released it as a b-side of "Highwire" single>

On my copy, the B-side was 2000 LYFM

Well, I suppose I have also that one. But the one with "Play With Fire" was a maxi single I recall, having also "2000 Light Years From Home". I'm not sure though, haven't listened or seen it for 20 years or so...

EDIT: just checked from wikipedia, and yeah, the 7 inch single had "I Just Want To Make Love to You", and not "Light Years".

- Doxa



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013-11-05 11:07 by Doxa.