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Weirdly the record is in the key of F, but they played it in ‘73 and ‘77 in E. I’m wondering if they sped the tape up to take up less space on the record a la Fingerprint File.

The Stones have done that with several song, i.e. they dropped the key down by a half or whole tone. Obviously better to sing for Mick avoiding voice fatigue or even vocal cord problems. Other examples are "Happy" (from B down to A), "Beast Of Burden" (whole tone down) or lately "Angry" (half a tone) or "Whole Wide World" (half a tone lower).

Yes, and that makes sense. What doesn't make sense is writing the song in F in the first place.

Well, sure it does. LOL there's no law that says ALL BLUES BASED CHUCK BERRY CHUGGERS MUST BE IN A or whatever. Perhaps they made a note to purposely use a different key because so many chuggers are in E or A or even E ones transposed to B (IORR is a perfect example, although, I think someone said this eons ago, that was more to do with Keith making it "his" imprint). It doesn't sound sped up. That's a whole step. That would be quite noticeable.

In F there's a tonality aligned with C, plus no open strings on chords (in this particular guitar playing), so you get a "tighter" sound. Under My Thumb and Gimme Shelter are in C# - that's quite odd for a rock'n'roll band, but both play around with B and A chords so they aren't too far out there. There's a way to roam around with quite different chords when in E for a ballad, like Ab minor to C# minor, at times making the Ab a major even to give it a bit of edge, which can lead to a B minor to a B 7th... lots of room.

Chuck Berry style songs don't exactly have a lot of room in that aspect (and are in A# quite often it seems, as Keith said about Johnnie Johnson, piano keys, in this case, the black keys that are sharps or flats, which is why Chuck wasn't Chuck Berry without Johnnie) so perhaps by putting it in a wonky key creates "something different" for them.

Mick wrote it. Maybe he wrote it on piano. I've never seen anything specifically about its writing other than Keith saying "That's all Mick" or whatever. Which is quite funny because it sounds like something Keith would do in his sleep.

Agreed with the tonality, to me it sounds like they recorded it in F. It gets a bit more oomph than in E. The boogie pattern in F is all played on the 8th position, and I don't hear any open string licks or riffs you would expect and that Keith plays live in E.

Mathijs

Side note: there's an article from the time:

Jagger arrived, and they started working on an excellent song written by Taylor, with Chuck Berry-ish rhythm guitar from Richard. The title: '@#$%&'. Jagger explained: "It's your groupie song, innit?". He said he wanted suitable "clean" lyrics for it, to get radio airplay.

'@#$%&' went from an all-out, frantic rock and roll arrangement to a sort of 'Tumbling Dice' tempo, with extra punch at the chorus. At one point the band ran through it together, and later it was decided that only Richard and Watts would play for the first verse.


Make of that as you wish.

A load of bollocks, that article.

@#$%& is all Mick's. Keith Richards, 1973


I just wrote it... That's real, and if girls can do that, I can certainly write about it, because it's what I see. I'm not saying all women are star-@#$%&, but I see an awful lot of them, and so I wrote a song called that. Mick Jagger, 1978

Mathijs

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TravelinMan

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TravelinMan

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TravelinMan
Weirdly the record is in the key of F, but they played it in ‘73 and ‘77 in E. I’m wondering if they sped the tape up to take up less space on the record a la Fingerprint File.

The Stones have done that with several song, i.e. they dropped the key down by a half or whole tone. Obviously better to sing for Mick avoiding voice fatigue or even vocal cord problems. Other examples are "Happy" (from B down to A), "Beast Of Burden" (whole tone down) or lately "Angry" (half a tone) or "Whole Wide World" (half a tone lower).

Yes, and that makes sense. What doesn't make sense is writing the song in F in the first place.

Well, sure it does. LOL there's no law that says ALL BLUES BASED CHUCK BERRY CHUGGERS MUST BE IN A or whatever. Perhaps they made a note to purposely use a different key because so many chuggers are in E or A or even E ones transposed to B (IORR is a perfect example, although, I think someone said this eons ago, that was more to do with Keith making it "his" imprint). It doesn't sound sped up. That's a whole step. That would be quite noticeable.

In F there's a tonality aligned with C, plus no open strings on chords (in this particular guitar playing), so you get a "tighter" sound. Under My Thumb and Gimme Shelter are in C# - that's quite odd for a rock'n'roll band, but both play around with B and A chords so they aren't too far out there. There's a way to roam around with quite different chords when in E for a ballad, like Ab minor to C# minor, at times making the Ab a major even to give it a bit of edge, which can lead to a B minor to a B 7th... lots of room.

Chuck Berry style songs don't exactly have a lot of room in that aspect (and are in A# quite often it seems, as Keith said about Johnnie Johnson, piano keys, in this case, the black keys that are sharps or flats, which is why Chuck wasn't Chuck Berry without Johnnie) so perhaps by putting it in a wonky key creates "something different" for them.

Mick wrote it. Maybe he wrote it on piano. I've never seen anything specifically about its writing other than Keith saying "That's all Mick" or whatever. Which is quite funny because it sounds like something Keith would do in his sleep.

Agreed with the tonality, to me it sounds like they recorded it in F. It gets a bit more oomph than in E. The boogie pattern in F is all played on the 8th position, and I don't hear any open string licks or riffs you would expect and that Keith plays live in E.

Mathijs

Side note: there's an article from the time:

Jagger arrived, and they started working on an excellent song written by Taylor, with Chuck Berry-ish rhythm guitar from Richard. The title: '@#$%&'. Jagger explained: "It's your groupie song, innit?". He said he wanted suitable "clean" lyrics for it, to get radio airplay.

'@#$%&' went from an all-out, frantic rock and roll arrangement to a sort of 'Tumbling Dice' tempo, with extra punch at the chorus. At one point the band ran through it together, and later it was decided that only Richard and Watts would play for the first verse.


Make of that as you wish.

A load of bollocks, that article.

@#$%& is all Mick's. Keith Richards, 1973


I just wrote it... That's real, and if girls can do that, I can certainly write about it, because it's what I see. I'm not saying all women are star-@#$%&, but I see an awful lot of them, and so I wrote a song called that. Mick Jagger, 1978

Mathijs

I think the “written by Taylor” part was either Jagger joking when the interviewer asked who wrote it or he meant to write Jagger’s name. But it does surprise me he says Richards plays the rhythm alone with Watts.

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Palace Revolution 2000

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TravelinMan
Weirdly the record is in the key of F, but they played it in ‘73 and ‘77 in E. I’m wondering if they sped the tape up to take up less space on the record a la Fingerprint File.

The Stones have done that with several song, i.e. they dropped the key down by a half or whole tone. Obviously better to sing for Mick avoiding voice fatigue or even vocal cord problems. Other examples are "Happy" (from B down to A), "Beast Of Burden" (whole tone down) or lately "Angry" (half a tone) or "Whole Wide World" (half a tone lower).

Yes, and that makes sense. What doesn't make sense is writing the song in F in the first place.

Well, sure it does. LOL there's no law that says ALL BLUES BASED CHUCK BERRY CHUGGERS MUST BE IN A or whatever. Perhaps they made a note to purposely use a different key because so many chuggers are in E or A or even E ones transposed to B (IORR is a perfect example, although, I think someone said this eons ago, that was more to do with Keith making it "his" imprint). It doesn't sound sped up. That's a whole step. That would be quite noticeable.

In F there's a tonality aligned with C, plus no open strings on chords (in this particular guitar playing), so you get a "tighter" sound. Under My Thumb and Gimme Shelter are in C# - that's quite odd for a rock'n'roll band, but both play around with B and A chords so they aren't too far out there. There's a way to roam around with quite different chords when in E for a ballad, like Ab minor to C# minor, at times making the Ab a major even to give it a bit of edge, which can lead to a B minor to a B 7th... lots of room.

Chuck Berry style songs don't exactly have a lot of room in that aspect (and are in A# quite often it seems, as Keith said about Johnnie Johnson, piano keys, in this case, the black keys that are sharps or flats, which is why Chuck wasn't Chuck Berry without Johnnie) so perhaps by putting it in a wonky key creates "something different" for them.

Mick wrote it. Maybe he wrote it on piano. I've never seen anything specifically about its writing other than Keith saying "That's all Mick" or whatever. Which is quite funny because it sounds like something Keith would do in his sleep.

Agreed with the tonality, to me it sounds like they recorded it in F. It gets a bit more oomph than in E. The boogie pattern in F is all played on the 8th position, and I don't hear any open string licks or riffs you would expect and that Keith plays live in E.

Mathijs

Side note: there's an article from the time:

Jagger arrived, and they started working on an excellent song written by Taylor, with Chuck Berry-ish rhythm guitar from Richard. The title: '@#$%&'. Jagger explained: "It's your groupie song, innit?". He said he wanted suitable "clean" lyrics for it, to get radio airplay.

'@#$%&' went from an all-out, frantic rock and roll arrangement to a sort of 'Tumbling Dice' tempo, with extra punch at the chorus. At one point the band ran through it together, and later it was decided that only Richard and Watts would play for the first verse.


Make of that as you wish.

A load of bollocks, that article.

@#$%& is all Mick's. Keith Richards, 1973


I just wrote it... That's real, and if girls can do that, I can certainly write about it, because it's what I see. I'm not saying all women are star-@#$%&, but I see an awful lot of them, and so I wrote a song called that. Mick Jagger, 1978

Mathijs

I think the “written by Taylor” part was either Jagger joking when the interviewer asked who wrote it or he meant to write Jagger’s name. But it does surprise me he says Richards plays the rhythm alone with Watts.

Isn't the writer just referring to the Bass not coming in until verse 2? A production trick that Keith used several times.

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TravelinMan

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TravelinMan
Weirdly the record is in the key of F, but they played it in ‘73 and ‘77 in E. I’m wondering if they sped the tape up to take up less space on the record a la Fingerprint File.

The Stones have done that with several song, i.e. they dropped the key down by a half or whole tone. Obviously better to sing for Mick avoiding voice fatigue or even vocal cord problems. Other examples are "Happy" (from B down to A), "Beast Of Burden" (whole tone down) or lately "Angry" (half a tone) or "Whole Wide World" (half a tone lower).

Yes, and that makes sense. What doesn't make sense is writing the song in F in the first place.

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TravelinMan

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Meise

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TravelinMan
Weirdly the record is in the key of F, but they played it in ‘73 and ‘77 in E. I’m wondering if they sped the tape up to take up less space on the record a la Fingerprint File.

The Stones have done that with several song, i.e. they dropped the key down by a half or whole tone. Obviously better to sing for Mick avoiding voice fatigue or even vocal cord problems. Other examples are "Happy" (from B down to A), "Beast Of Burden" (whole tone down) or lately "Angry" (half a tone) or "Whole Wide World" (half a tone lower).

Yes, and that makes sense. What doesn't make sense is writing the song in F in the first place.

Mick likes to write in F.

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Kurt

There certainly are a lot of F words in it so to me it makes sense...

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TravelinMan
Who is playing the buried licks in the outro?

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DandelionPowderman

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TravelinMan
Who is playing the buried licks in the outro?

Sounds very much like Keith, phrasing-wise.

Those licks just always were there - I've never bothered to listen closely. I did that now