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NICOS
Great tune indeed as is the whole aftermath record.........

Too right Nicos. Never understood people not liking songs like High and Dry, Think or What To Do which are the usual suspects for so called 'weaker' tracks.

It's a great bloody album all the way through and it gave notice that the Stones were now a world force when it came to writing their own songs. It's really important for that reason. And it arguably showed Brian in his best light as a match for Mick and Keith's growing creativity.

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Silver Dagger

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NICOS
Great tune indeed as is the whole aftermath record.........

Too right Nicos. Never understood people not liking songs like High and Dry, Think or What To Do which are the usual suspects for so called 'weaker' tracks.

It's a great bloody album all the way through and it gave notice that the Stones were now a world force when it came to writing their own songs. It's really important for that reason. And it arguably showed Brian in his best light as a match for Mick and Keith's growing creativity.

Back in the 60's this LP was played to dead on birthday parties were I came from....I have 5 sisters so a fun songs to yell through the house when you are young.......you can consider this record as the best they ever made according the early Stones fans as most of them lost interest in their psycho rock area.........

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Silver Dagger

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NICOS
Great tune indeed as is the whole aftermath record.........

Too right Nicos. Never understood people not liking songs like High and Dry, Think or What To Do which are the usual suspects for so called 'weaker' tracks.

It's a great bloody album all the way through and it gave notice that the Stones were now a world force when it came to writing their own songs. It's really important for that reason. And it arguably showed Brian in his best light as a match for Mick and Keith's growing creativity.

+1, and High And Dry is one of my favourites on Aftermath.

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DandelionPowderman

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Silver Dagger

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NICOS
Great tune indeed as is the whole aftermath record.........

Too right Nicos. Never understood people not liking songs like High and Dry, Think or What To Do which are the usual suspects for so called 'weaker' tracks.

It's a great bloody album all the way through and it gave notice that the Stones were now a world force when it came to writing their own songs. It's really important for that reason. And it arguably showed Brian in his best light as a match for Mick and Keith's growing creativity.

+1, and High And Dry is one of my favourites on Aftermath.

You've mentioned once that there's a song you don't like on the album Dandy. Which one?

Great chops, great vocals, great track

Great write-ups -- threads like this remind me why I love iorr!

Like withsssoul, I saw this and other "misogynistic" songs as, simply, not being about me. With
"Stupid Girl," which I liked a lot, even at age 4 when I first heard it, I liked the beat (my brother
and I would dance and run around to Aftermath), and I already knew stupid girls in nursery school--girls
who wet their pants and cried, girls who made a fuss and made everyone stop having fun, girls who
were tattletales, etc. Not the same stupid girls the Stones were singing about, but ones I could relate
into. In terms of "Under My Thumb," as I've said in another thread, I just switched the gender in
my head. I didn't pay attention to that song until maybe junior high school, and at that point it was a
relevant sentiment about a particular boy--I enjoyed the meanness of it, and the sense of recovering
your equilibrium and power (or imagining that you were). It's a beautifully spiteful song, but I
never thought it was anti-girl.

It is interesting, tho, that the misogynistic songs seem to always have been Mick rather than Keith.
Tho' maybe someone can find an exception.

- swiss

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swiss

It is interesting, tho, that the misogynistic songs seem to always have been Mick rather than Keith.
Tho' maybe someone can find an exception.

- swiss

All About You doesn't exactly paint a flattering portrait of the fairer sex. But then again, Keith is basically singing about one girl.

Drew

Stupid Girl reflects the kinds of women in multiples in the rarified air of pop stars. That's how I take it. Young, attractive women are throwing themselves at you, for reasons that would probably make you scratch your head.

Well the Stones are the opposite of the Beatles so no Girl and no Michelle or Another Girl..........just a Stupid Girl......thanks to ELO.......

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drewmaster

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swiss

It is interesting, tho, that the misogynistic songs seem to always have been Mick rather than Keith.
Tho' maybe someone can find an exception.

- swiss

All About You doesn't exactly paint a flattering portrait of the fairer sex. But then again, Keith is basically singing about one girl.

Drew

I thought he was singing about Mick on that one.

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treaclefingers

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drewmaster

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swiss

It is interesting, tho, that the misogynistic songs seem to always have been Mick rather than Keith.
Tho' maybe someone can find an exception.

- swiss

All About You doesn't exactly paint a flattering portrait of the fairer sex. But then again, Keith is basically singing about one girl.

Drew

I thought he was singing about Mick on that one.

That's what Keith says now, but what he says now, and what the actual truth is are often two seperate things. If you listen to the lyrics of that song it is obviously about a woman, most likely Anita!

Stupid girl? Damn good popish song from The Stones.

Mick could update it now if they were to play it live.

I'm talkin' about all the selfies she takes/look at that stupid girl... her texting while driving's an accident in wait/look at that stupid girl...

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GasLightStreet
Mick could update it now if they were to play it live.

I'm talkin' about all the selfies she takes/look at that stupid girl... her texting while driving's an accident in wait/look at that stupid girl...

Don't give up your day job Gas Light!!

. If you listen to the lyrics of that song it is obviously about a woman, most likely Anita!


I seriously doubt it was Anita, she was pretty damn smart, cultured and sexy in 1966. She didn't get dumb for a few more years... peace

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Naturalust
. If you listen to the lyrics of that song it is obviously about a woman, most likely Anita!


I seriously doubt it was Anita, she was pretty damn smart, cultured and sexy in 1966. She didn't get dumb for a few more years... peace

They were discussing the All About You track. I recall from way back when that was released that Keith said it was about Anita.

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strat72

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treaclefingers

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drewmaster

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swiss

It is interesting, tho, that the misogynistic songs seem to always have been Mick rather than Keith.
Tho' maybe someone can find an exception.

- swiss

All About You doesn't exactly paint a flattering portrait of the fairer sex. But then again, Keith is basically singing about one girl.

Drew

I thought he was singing about Mick on that one.

That's what Keith says now, but what he says now, and what the actual truth is are often two seperate things. If you listen to the lyrics of that song it is obviously about a woman, most likely Anita!

Stupid girl? Damn good popish song from The Stones.

Maybe about Brenda then?

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LeonidP

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Naturalust
. If you listen to the lyrics of that song it is obviously about a woman, most likely Anita!


I seriously doubt it was Anita, she was pretty damn smart, cultured and sexy in 1966. She didn't get dumb for a few more years... peace

They were discussing the All About You track. I recall from way back when that was released that Keith said it was about Anita.

"That song is about a few other things as well. And Anita is one of them.
I was breaking up with her around that time. I'd said, "Look, if we clean
up together, we'll stay together". Well, I cleaned myself up. But she didn't.
And I realized that I couldn't sleep with someone who had a needle beside
the bed. I was too fragile at that point. I loved her, but I had to leave."

--Keith Richards, on writing the song "All About You,"
Loaded Magazine interview, November 1995.

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Doxa

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Silver Dagger

The first overtly misogynistic Stones' song in a long line that stretches from the mid-60s all the way to the last album. I always found that misogyny really odd - how the Stones could denigrate women so much in their lyrics and yet retain such a strong and loyal female base. Different times I guess as I couldn't see one of today's pop bands slagging off girls and getting away with it like the Stones did.

I recall reading Finnish feminist magazine - first of that kind of sort, heavy stuff back then (this was back in the 80's, and I was rather young) - in which there was a critical article discussing rock lyrics, that are, how can we put it nicely, rather 'male oriented' by nature. Anyway, what I find amusing in the article that the Stones got a free pass - songs like "Under My Thumb" and "Stupid Girl" were mentioned - because their 'misogony' was just so explicit that it turned against itself; it could not be taken literally. So the actual effect was more like a liberating one; it put into words - and loud - such things that worked for a feminist cause. Much more terrible from a feminist criticism was the implicit 'chauvenism' of typical or ordinary rock lyricism (hi John, Paul and Bobby!).

Jagger can get away with anything, you know... or he can charm anyone...

- Doxa

There are Finnish feminist magazines?

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71Tele

There are Finnish feminist magazines?

Oh yeah, there are, or at least used to be one, one called AKKAVÄKI ("womenfolk"), the "first constructive magazine for women". My relative was an editor (and also a huge Stones fan!), and she always send a copy to my mother... So I read it for years... Here is a cover of its first volume from 1975 (actually I remember it, and I was something like six/seven):



For non-Finns the logo tells it all... The themes are "time of awakening", "easier birth", "also men are oppressed", etc....

So this was kind of stuff I read when I learned to read...

- Doxa

Silver Dagger's comment about the track being a "mid-60s garage rock masterclass" is right on, given that at least one gritty garage band of the time, The Trolls, from Pueblo, Colorado, covered it the year it was released.

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Doxa

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71Tele

There are Finnish feminist magazines?

Oh yeah, there are, or at least used to be one, one called AKKAVÄKI ("womenfolk"), the "first constructive magazine for women". My relative was an editor (and also a huge Stones fan!), and she always send a copy to my mother... So I read it for years... Here is a cover of its first volume from 1975 (actually I remember it, and I was something like six/seven):



For non-Finns the logo tells it all... The themes are "time of awakening", "easier birth", "also men are oppressed", etc....

So this was kind of stuff I read when I learned to read...

- Doxa

Who needs to read with those kind of pictures... peace

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Silver Dagger
Never understood people not liking songs like High and Dry, Think or What To Do which are the usual suspects for so called 'weaker' tracks.

Are they really? They're my favorite tracks on the album! (Which I have to admit isn't my favorite.)

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swiss
"That song is about a few other things as well. And Anita is one of them.
I was breaking up with her around that time. I'd said, "Look, if we clean
up together, we'll stay together". Well, I cleaned myself up. But she didn't.
And I realized that I couldn't sleep with someone who had a needle beside
the bed. I was too fragile at that point. I loved her, but I had to leave."

--Keith Richards, on writing the song "All About You,"
Loaded Magazine interview, November 1995.

The best thing I've read Keith say about All About You is that it's about both Mick and Anita but primarily about himself.

Back to Stupid Girl, though - well, sort of! When people hear Under Assistant West Coast Promo Man,
Congratulations or Get Off of My Cloud, do they go "ooh what a misandrist lyric"? I think not!
And not merely because they don't know the word misandrist.
A song that criticizes a certain type of male isn't taken as putting down the entire gender,
so why should a lyric criticizing a certain type of female be regarded as misogynist?
I could argue that doing that is in itself essentially anti-feminist (but I won't, don't worry!)

Anyway if songs about a particular person or type of person are to be taken as generalizations about the entire gender,
I believe that even by 1965 the Stones had poured out at least as much about wanting/needing women as despising them.

I also find it very weird that anyone would find it somehow "nicer" for someone to sing a threat
about preferring to see his girlfriend dead than it is to sing that some particular woman is stupid.
What makes it "nicer" - just the fact that it's a Beatle singing it so it must be sweet?

And I too love High & Dry.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2014-12-02 12:21 by with sssoul.

Aftermath is one of my favorite albums, Stupid Girl might refer to the boredom of impersonal hotel groupies but who knows? It fuelled the publicity at the time. This track was as well the b-side of the single Paint It Black and was part of the USA Tour setlist in 1966, and it's fun to read some posts.

There's a certain groove that Stupid Girl, Under My Thumb, Flight 505, Its not easy, and Think all have in common, idk if its that cool fuzz bass or what…my favorite Stones era

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bitusa2012

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GasLightStreet
Mick could update it now if they were to play it live.

I'm talkin' about all the selfies she takes/look at that stupid girl... her texting while driving's an accident in wait/look at that stupid girl...

Don't give up your day job Gas Light!!

I was writing for Mick. You know, a little fairy dust...

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Aquamarine

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Silver Dagger
Never understood people not liking songs like High and Dry, Think or What To Do which are the usual suspects for so called 'weaker' tracks.

Are they really? They're my favorite tracks on the album! (Which I have to admit isn't my favorite.)

Those are great songs, especially What To Do. And I do love Think. High And Dry is hilarious. Great songs. For some reason What To Do reminds me of Elmore James. Perhaps it's the way it rolls. It's just so loose and catchy. Flight 505...

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2015-03-28 15:53 by camper88.

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Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2015-03-28 15:53 by camper88.

A few more words about the lyrics of this track. A great conversation going on here, so I won't let it die yet...

I generally think that what is remarkable in those early Jagger/Richard songs is not actually any kind of 'misogynism', or whatever the 'object' in those lyrics are. I think more important is the over-all way to talk and express feelings - and many times they are that kind of 'dark' feelings - angriness, frustration, bitterness, hate - that weren't at all typical in 'pop' songs. Mostly the music cohered with the 'message'. In that way, the Stones made their own original stamp in the contemporary scene (especially in addition to the Beatles and Dylan), and were a major force in creating a full-born rock culture. Yeah, many times the target is some (poor) female, and what is told about is the (complex) relationship with her and the singer, but I think - like swiss pointed out - it goes beyond the subject and object and touches more generally recognized feelings - Jagger could sing about anybody and we can recognize and share his sentiments - that feel of his.

I think the drive to write like that derives initially from their 'blues training' - the blues cats discussed whatever kind of things and feeling in their songs, and expressed the same point in music. Probably due to some extent they (the Stones) were intentionally controversial - they wanted to push things further, be 'nasty' and go according to the (anti-Beatles) image Andrew Loog Oldham had created them. I think especially AFTERMATH contains such intentionally 'cruel' material, and I am rather sure Jagger would not be too proud of some of that now (who cares about it, anyway). Thinking of "Mother's Little Helper", "Stupid Girl", "Out of Time"...

- Doxa



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2014-12-05 17:03 by Doxa.