Comments, input and alterations are very welcome!
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Respectable
(Mick Jagger / Keith Richards)

Pathé Marconi Studios (EMI Studios), Boulogne-Billancourt, Paris, France,
October 10 - December 21, 1977

Mick Jagger - vocals, electric guitar
Keith Richards - electric guitar
Charlie Watts - drums
Bill Wyman - bass
Ron Wood - electric guitar

Right now we're respected in society
We don't worry about the things that we used to be
We're talking heroin with the president
Yes, it's a problem, sir, but it can't be bent, oh yes

Right now you're a pillar of society
You don't worry about the things that you used to be
You're a rag-trade girl, you're the queen of porn
You're the easiest lay on the White House lawn
Get out of my life, don't come back, get out of my life, don't come back

She's so respectable, she's so respectable
She's so delectable, she's so respectable
Get out of my life, go take my wife, don't come back
Get out of my life, go take my wife, don't come back, what I say

She's so respectable, she's so respectable
She's so respectable, so respectable
Get out of my life, don't take my wife, don't come back
Get out of my life, don't take my wife, don't come back, alright boys

She's so respectable, she's so respectable
She's so delectable, she's so respectable
Get out of my life, don't take my wife, don't come back
Get out of my life, don't take my wife, don't come back
Get out of my life, go take my wife, don't come back, don’t come back, hey

Produced by The Glimmer Twins

First released on:
The Rolling Stones - “Some Girls” LP
(Rolling Stones Records CUN 39108) UK, June 9, 1978



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013-12-23 11:35 by René.

Total perfection!

The Stones at their very best

Made to be performed on stage as well!

Wow - now you're talking. Just when the punk storm was threatening the Stones very lives in those days, they re-group with their backs against the wall to deliver their best single since Tumbling Dice.

The song is incendiary, it lights up the sky like a beacon and does everything you'd expect a Stones song to do. From the risque lyrics alluding to the Maggie Trudeau affair to Keith's heroin problems this was the sonic equivalent of cinema verite to stick it to the punks. You want sleaze and low down? Well it's here in buckets.

This was the start of a new Stones sound - gone was the old bluesy, dingy basement floor to the floor rock'n'roll and in was a new shiny, more metallic sounding 12 bar sound created with the help of digital delay cooked up in the studio.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013-12-16 11:10 by Silver Dagger.

Pure Rock n Roll!
The punk rockers couldn't play, the Stones could.

I wonder what John Lydon thinks of it.

Good One! Didn't like it at all back in the days....

2 1 2 0

A great back to the basics!! Great great groove by both guitars an bass. Later they tried something similar on let me go and flip the switch.
I don't find so difficult to do something similar to this gem again.....but our friends are so lazy and uninspired................
It is relevant that in this track there are no adictional musicians, it's 100% Rolling Stones at their best

Bursting with energy and confidence, Respectable is one reason Some Girls was such a breath of fresh air after the Stones’ hit-or-miss mid-Seventies output. This is the sound of the band once again firing on all cylinders. Delirious fun.

Drew

One of my favorite Stones' songs. Wish they would play it more live. It has always fired up the show when I've seen them do it.

Great song. Great energy.
Remember the first time I read the actual lyrics and found out they did not sing, as I thought : "We´re taking heroin with the president".

Hmmm? No heroin? With the president?

The best rock track on the album.
And one of the best pure rockers the Stones ever released.

I loved how it was played live in 78!!

.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2015-03-28 16:19 by camper88.

It has nothing to do with President Carter..

It was Bianca Jagger meeting and or SLEEPING with President Ford's
son JACK.

From what I remember back then, Mick was said to be really pissed
with Bianca flirting with the very good looking son of the President.

President Ford was still in office when this happened.

love this song from the very berry licks and the lyrics . the stones at their raunchy best

Quote
DandelionPowderman
Total perfection!

The Stones at their very best

Made to be performed on stage as well!

My favourite track on Some Girls (How do you pick just one from that album?)

What a drag it is gettin' old

The end of an era. The Stones saga had often been referred to in their songs. This was the last great tabloid journalism look at the events in their lives.

Respectable is a great Rocker, and a great track to dance

Absolutely LOVE this one!
I have never quite figured this one out though...

"Get out of my life, don't take my wife, don't come back"

Can someone explain this line to me?
Who's saying this and who is the "wife"?

He is just yelling at everyone including his wife!

In the song Mick is telling Jack and his wife to just get out of his life!!!

I think it was Jack who invited them to the white house. Jagger
as a rolling stone was the one the Ford's wanted to meet in the
1st place.

He then fell for his wife!!! haha.

A single with a feedback - that´s what I call a punk attitude!

Fantastic song!

Stones raunch n roll at its finest. Hilarious video, fits the song perfectly too (albeit with a different mix and vocal track):

Quote
DandelionPowderman
Total perfection!

The Stones at their very best

Made to be performed on stage as well!

Yes, fantastic song + performance ...

I always thought a little inspiration came from here

A kind of key track in SOME GIRLS if the album is considered as a reaction to punk movement or being hit to the balls by the punks or whatever. Here the music, lyrics, attitude is perfect and natural in that task (compared for example to a rather artificial sounding "Lies"). It is also a kind of song that is so much child of its day, and one of the last examples when the band fruitfully could make from something rather 'contemporary' sounding stuff rather immortal (that is, a'classic'). That sort of 'back to basics'attitude, recicling millionth time the three chords they've been born with, making a song of easiest possible elements, only succeeds if you are really into it, inspired by its own terms. And back in 1977/78 they were.

What going 'back to basics' was in Stones sense, was rediscovering the chuckberry DNA from their corps, and give it a new push. It sounded fresh then, and it still does. There is that funny 'lesson' theme in the song for punks - look this is how it originally goes. What makes it special is the way the band sounds. They are way too sublime, too "groovie", too 'musical' to really rock straightforwardly like the 'punks' did (no matter how much Jagger pushes the band) - just think of Charlie Watts doing that? - they approach those simple three chords and simple form of the song with their original blues man, time-marinated touch. There is too much - thankfully - "roll" element instead of "rock" in Keith's vocabulary. A nice coctail.

Surely "Respectable" is not any big song, and will not rate very high in Jagger/Richards song catalogue per se; a small little rocker which being what it is, means a lot. Wonderful, witty lyrics. Jagger was on fire.

- Doxa



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 2013-12-17 01:08 by Doxa.

Sorry, but Charlies drumming is bad and awkward on that live version. Such a shame that just a few years after finding a magic flow and rhythmic feel in mid 60's - early 70's that he'd lose it. That silly over emphasised hi-hat snare thang ruined it.

The stones takes on punkish music are like limp willies compared to the stuff they are partially trying to mimic.





The stones doing punk is just embarrassing.





Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 2013-12-17 01:40 by His Majesty.

Lies is great! An even more interesting riff pattern, as well as Mick being more aggressive. Love it

Quote
His Majesty
. The stones doing punk is just embarrassing.

I agree with that but I think the only 'real' example of the Stones doing punk is "Lies", and to me that sounds phony. The thing is that you can't kick punk out of the rhythm section of the Stones (Charlie, Bill, Keith) no matter how much you try, and especially Charlie is hopeless in that sense... In some SOME GIRLS one can hear how 'lost' the band sometimes is when Mick "Rotten" Jagger tries to kick more speed out of the old machine. There is a certain anomaly or tension there that I have always noticed. The guitar-playing singer is way too busy for the rest of the band.

But I think the best SOME GIRLS 'punkie' songs are like "Respectable" in where there is a certain balance in elements there - Jagger's overdrive is cooled down by the band, or Jagger doesn't try so damn hard.

- Doxa

As to my listening to SOME GIRLS, "Respectable" has been fully OK, but to me one of the minor (or medium) songs of the album. I have liked "Lies" far more; [Added: I don't find it phony.] And the really great songs on the album to me have been and are three: "Miss You", "Far Away Eyes", and "Shattered".

DAMNED, DAMNED, DAMNED is a superb punk album, yes. As outright punk, possibly the best I have. I have not got that many. (The first two of theirs.)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2013-12-17 02:35 by Witness.