I read somewhere that Mick Taylor said something to the effect that he wrote all the ballads when he was in the Stones. I presume this is based on his collaborations with Jagger on songs like Moonlight Mile, Time Waits for No One and Shine a Light where Keith was barely present at the session but still got a songwriting credit. I was interested to see if there was any truth to this or it was just Taylor grumbling?

Not true.

Grumbling.

Joking...

Btw, Keith plays two guitars on TWFNO

Haha, no way. Angie and Coming Down Again, to mention just two, are definitely Keith-penned (with or without Jagger).

Where did you read that? Never heard him make any such claims and it would have been silly of him to make them considering he hasn't written anything (very) memorable since leaving the Stones. His best song IMHO being "Special" and unreleased...it does sound a bit like the "Wind Call" 1974 outtake so maybe he got some help from the Stones to shape it together.

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IORR Links : Essential Studio Outtakes CDs : Audio - History of Rarest Outtakes : Audio

On the other hand we should not forget that most of the time he gave those interviews he did not know how to handle the situation; he was in pain for not being rewarded|credited|treated fair for his remarkable contributions to lots of songs....

The quote is on the bottom of this page:

[www.timeisonourside.com]


Where did you read that? Never heard him make any such claims and it would have been silly of him to make them considering he hasn't written anything (very) memorable since leaving the Stones. His best song IMHO being "Special" and unreleased...it does sound a bit like the "Wind Call" 1974 outtake so maybe he got some help from the Stones to shape it together.[/quote]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2014-01-20 20:45 by DandelionPowderman.

If you started your thread with "that he collaborated with some of the ballads when he was in the Stones when Keith wasn't in" I would have believed it ................but all !!!!!

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I am not going to take what Mick Taylor said literally. He really meant he co-wrote some ballads. People don't always speak precisly for posterity which is not even on their mind. Or Mick Taylor's mind

Plus I have never heard this remark by Mick Taylor

I have my doubts about that ballads writing, but Taylor's noodling on them definitely caused our ears to turn red at that time.

Fixed that link : [www.timeisonourside.com]

So he said : "You know, they had their rock and roll songs and they had their ballads as well, and they were very different. And mostly the ballads were usually written by me."

Doesn't really make any sense, why on earth would he have said that. Besides that site should really give the source instead of just the name and year, poor form.

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IORR Links : Essential Studio Outtakes CDs : Audio - History of Rarest Outtakes : Audio

(It's more - I don't like to use the term Carlos Santana-esque because it sounds too pretentious, but I kind of played in a different mode. I was playing over a C maj 7 to an F maj 7, which aren't chords the Stones used that much. You know, they had their rock and roll songs and they had their ballads as well, and they were very different. And mostly the ballads were usually written by me.)

Damn, he should have played that solo in B - locrian, and he had outplayed Santana completely.

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gotdablouse
Fixed that link : [www.timeisonourside.com]

So he said : "You know, they had their rock and roll songs and they had their ballads as well, and they were very different. And mostly the ballads were usually written by me."

Doesn't really make any sense, why on earth would he have said that. Besides that site should really give the source instead of just the name and year, poor form.

It was in a 2011 (I think) interview posted here.

This really doesn't make sense to me at all. I've never heard him say this or anything remotely close. Stories seem to change with him though...just depends on the interview and what frame of mind he's in or (sorry) how sober he is. Stories have differed on how he joined the Stones, can't pin him down on why he left; and there is a French interview from 2009 I believe, where he said that John Mayall was an average musician. Not sure if that's true or not, but it's kind of a thoughtless remark to make about your mentor. Then at the end of the interview he asked the interviewer to give him a kiss!! He may have been a little bit high at the time, who knows. Even though he's my favorite Stone, I often take whatever he says with a grain of salt, which is a bit sad IMO. Or possibly you can just chalk it up to a very bad memory.

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Bellajane
Even though he's my favorite Stone, I often take whatever he says with a grain of salt, which is a bit sad IMO.

Could be said about pretty much any Stones member except Bill Wyman, who is nobody's favourite Stone but everybody loves for his factually accurate and consistent memory.

But yeah, I noticed that too about Mick Taylor, especially his reasons for leaving the Stones. He's mentioned so many on so many occasions. Probably the truth is a combination of them.

True. Also, there's a lot of ground to cover...many, many years. Some of it very hazy! If he stuck to the same story...the truth...he wouldn't have been pestered time and again about leaving, for example. But remarks such as writing all of the ballads is a bit much. Makes you wonder exactly how much credit he really deserves on some of the songs he's claimed to have co- written. Where do you draw the line between working out your (guitar) part and contributing enough to deserve songwriting credit?

Mick Taylor wrote every Stones song he ever played on. During his five years in the Stones, Mick Jagger drained him like a vampire, sapping him of all creativity, so that there was nothing left when he quit.

Seriously, writing credits are often a bit dodgy. Mick Ralphs claims in a recent interview that he wrote the guitar intro to All the Young Dudes (i.e., one of the most memorable parts of the song!) and the guitar intros to various Mott the Hoople songs. But those intros aren't always reflected in the credits.

I recall reading in a Pink Floyd interview few years ago that songwriting royalties are generally divided 60 percent to the music writer and 40 percent to the lyricist. Although Jagger-Richards songs are credited to both of them, do they divide their publishing royalties to reflect who contributed what to each song?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2014-01-20 23:17 by ab.

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Bellajane
Where do you draw the line between working out your (guitar) part and contributing enough to deserve songwriting credit?

Be careful with that can of worms here.


Actually, I find it quite common among famous old rockers of Taylor's generation to be vague, inconsistent, aloof and generally dismissive about their own history and/or importance. Bob Dylan being a well-known example. Even Paul McCartney, who, while very friendly and courteous, can brush away things sometimes. I guess it's the nature of bohemian rock 'n' roll -- you're not supposed to care about your own history too much, that's for geeks like us (and Bill Wyman).

I saw a Swedish documentary about the music of the 1990s recently, and I noticed that many of the (former) stars who were being interviewed in the show were far more mindful about their own history, discography and so on, than ol' rockers like Jagger and Dylan. Now I'm talking about people like Suede, Stereo MCs, Blur, Primal Scream, Anything But The Girl, etc. It was almost like some kind of cultural gap. Perhaps it was coincidence. Probably age had something to do with it. But it made for enjoyable viewing. Being a geeky hard core fan of rock stars living on borrowed time can be a little frustrating at times.

Well this brings us back to that delicate matter of Waiting on a friend. Write probably means co wrote with Jagger. Ballad means ballad not country and folk or Angie.

Winter, Moonlight, Separately, the ballads on iorr - that sort of stuff?

Outrageous! From him given almost zero credit as a songwriter on the stones material(which is a shame), now we go to the other extreme; he wrote all the ballads. Probably somewhere in the middle is the hidden truth.
I wish Keith would have stood up for Taylor like he did for Johnnie Johnson. But he probably helped Johnnie in order to get back at Chuck Berry.
Rock and roll,
Mops

It's not a shame if he didn't write anything, is it?

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DandelionPowderman
It's not a shame if he didn't write anything, is it?

My understanding is that Mick Taylor believes in some instances his input in creating some of the songs was enough that he should have received credits for it; if it is true, the fact that he wasn't officially rewarded for it is shameful.
Rock and roll,
Mops

RE Moonlight Mile it's plausible that either :

- he added a few licks to an already-finished Jagger composition
- or he was one day noodling on an acoustic guitar and Jagger told him "hey this sounds cool". MJ kept the random notes in his head and built the whole song around them, alone.

In either case MT now feels entitled to say he wrote MM with Jag. ><



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2014-01-21 19:25 by dcba.

Somewhere amongst all of this lies the truth and I think it's a combination of factors...MT was present so anything he may have been noodling was fair game to end up in the finished product. It would have been MORE fair to simply give him an occasional writing credit. Maybe because he was so young, it was easier to take advantage of him...

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dcba
RE Moonlight Mile it's plausible that either :

- he added a few licks to an already-finished Jagger composition
- or he was one day noodling on an acoustic guitar and Jagger told him "hey this sounds cool". MJ kept the random notes in his head and built the whole song around them, alone.

In either case MT now feels entitled to say he wrote MM with Jag. ><

MM was based on a Richard's demo called "Japanese Thing" I believe so the idea did originate with Keith. It just depends how much MT added with Jagger to this acoustic idea.

He returned as Jaggers #1 ballad ghostwriter in 2005 with the awesome 'Streets Of Love'
Jagger was so thankful of this extraordinary contribution that he promised Taylor to be a special guest at all concerts starting in 2012 till they stop rolling...

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FP

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dcba
RE Moonlight Mile it's plausible that either :

- he added a few licks to an already-finished Jagger composition
- or he was one day noodling on an acoustic guitar and Jagger told him "hey this sounds cool". MJ kept the random notes in his head and built the whole song around them, alone.

In either case MT now feels entitled to say he wrote MM with Jag. ><

MM was based on a Richard's demo called "Japanese Thing" I believe so the idea did originate with Keith. It just depends how much MT added with Jagger to this acoustic idea.

We have discussed this extensively a couple of weeks before.
As for the quote: if it's really said by Taylor he must have been joking, as he mostly does when being interviewed.

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kleermaker

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FP

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dcba
RE Moonlight Mile it's plausible that either :

- he added a few licks to an already-finished Jagger composition
- or he was one day noodling on an acoustic guitar and Jagger told him "hey this sounds cool". MJ kept the random notes in his head and built the whole song around them, alone.

In either case MT now feels entitled to say he wrote MM with Jag. ><

MM was based on a Richard's demo called "Japanese Thing" I believe so the idea did originate with Keith. It just depends how much MT added with Jagger to this acoustic idea.

We have discussed this extensively a couple of weeks before.
As for the quote: if it's really said by Taylor he must have been joking, as he mostly does when being interviewed.

He's not joking but bitter. Which is understandable.

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rollmops
Outrageous! From him given almost zero credit as a songwriter on the stones material(which is a shame), now we go to the other extreme; he wrote all the ballads. Probably somewhere in the middle is the hidden truth.
I wish Keith would have stood up for Taylor like he did for Johnnie Johnson. But he probably helped Johnnie in order to get back at Chuck Berry.
Rock and roll,
Mops

That's part of the political minefield about 'the Stones' I don't like.
Even if MT did not really write ballads...
With all the money they have and all the fun they had...why not pay the man a million or two since KR & MJ have enough to stay warm for weeks if they would burn their money!
In things like this I rarely see a true warm heart.
At least Mick took initiative to work with him and pay him for that...