Lovely later day Keith song. Very atmospheric slow burning soul song. Keith's breathless deep singing really shines. A great groove.

Can't say I'm too fond of this one. Interesting is about as far as I'd go with the description. Not enough good melodic content to be a great ballad and not enough memorable riffing to be a rock tune.

It does have a strangely hypnotic vibe and I guess it's pretty effective in evoking a kind of dark feeling but it just kind of trudges along without really going anywhere. I think someone like Mick Taylor could have saved this one with some screaming melodic and bluesy guitar.

Nice to see Pierre get a writing credit on this one. Didn't Keith say it was based of one of his guitar riffs? Also interesting that Jagger is nowhere to be seen here but still gets his obligatory credit.

Perhaps this one is about Linda Keith or maybe the Stratocaster she gave to Hendrix.

peace

Freddie Sessler told me Keith wrote it for him. But then that's Freddie!

"I think someone like Mick Taylor could have saved this one with some screaming melodic and bluesy guitar."


I am not sure Mick T (or anybody else) would improve it. It is more likely they would spoil it, the same way as Clapton spoils JJ Cale's stuff (in my opinion). The beauty of this is the simplicity.

A great track, but has nobody noticed the main riff is Aladdin Story instrumental.
Listen closely
Cheers
Alex

Keith has a great voice on this song and that's all............

__________________________

Quote
Silver Dagger
An intriguing song with fabulous, other-worldly atmospherics that like some shapeshifting science fiction creature of the imagination refuses to be tied down to a single form.

Thief In The Night rolls in like a fog moving slowly across the waterfront of a major city - dimming, obscuring and then revealing again tones and textures of this late night/early morning peon to unrest from a fevered mind.

Wonderful imagery, Mike!!

Drew

Quote
Silver Dagger

Quote
with sssoul

Quote
drewmaster
Thanks Plink! It's a safe bet that Anita played a role in this one ...

Hm well ... Great lyrics aren't usually about just one person/situation, but this one
was widely said to refer to a particular situation with Patti; and then in Life
Keith said it was about a very early girlfriend, way before any Stones crossed paths with Anita.

Could be the south London Indian girl he refers to from around 62 who used to come see the Stones with some friends.

Well, here's what the man himself wrote:

"Thief in the Night" had a dramatic, deadline-busting journey to the mastering studio. I got the title from the Bible, which I read quite often; some very good phrases in there. It's a song about several women and actually starts when I was a teenager. I knew where she lived and I knew where her boyfriend lived, and I would stand outside a semidetached house in Dartford. Basically the story goes on from there. Then it was about Ronnie Spector, then it was about Patti and it was also about Anita.

Mick put a vocal on the song, but he couldn't feel it, he couldn't get it, and the track sounded terrible. Rob couldn't mix it with this vocal, so we tried to fix it one night with Blondie and Bernard, barely able to stand from fatigue, snatching sleep in turns. We came back and found the tape had been sabotaged in the meantime. All kinds of skulduggery went on. Eventually Rob and I had to steal the two-inch master tapes of the half mixes of "Thief in the Night" from Ocean Way studios in LA, where we'd recorded it, and fly them to the East Coast, where I had now returned homewards to Connecticut. Pierre found a studio on the north shore of Long Island where we remixed it to my liking for two days and two nights, with my vocal. Sometime during one of those nights Bill Burroughs died, so in homage to his work I sent angry Burroughsian cut-ups to Don Was, the producer in the middle--you rat, this is going to be finished my way, nobody else's way, with screaming headline cuttings and headless torsos. Batten down the hatches; we're going to war. I just had a beef with Don. I love the man and we got over it right away, but I was sending him terrible messages. When you're coming to the end of a record, anybody who gets in the way of what you want to do is the Antichrist. This was near to the deadline, so the quickest way to get the tapes back to LA was to take them by speedboat from Port Jefferson, Long Island, to Westport, the nearest harbor to my house on the Connecticut coast. We did this at midnight, under a very nice moon, roaring across the Long Island Sound, successfully avoiding the lobster pots with a swerve here and a shout there. Next day Rob got them to New York and they were flown back to LA to the mastering studio to be inserted into the album.

Exceptionally for a Stones song, Pierre de Beauport got a writing credit on the track, along with me and Mick.

The big problem now was that it was looking as if I was going to be singing three songs on the album, which was unheard-of. And to Mick unacceptable.

Keith follows this with a quote from Don Was.

I firmly believed in Keith's right to have a third vocal on the record, but Mick was having none of it. I'm sure Keith is totally unaware of all that it took to get "Thief in the Night" on that record. Because it was a total standoff between these two guys, neither one was backing down, and we were going to miss the release date and the tour was going to start without a new album out there.

And the night before the deadline, I had a dream, and I called Mick up and I said, I know your point about him singing three songs, but if two were at the end of the record and they were together as a medley, if there wasn't a lot of space between the two songs, then they would be seen as one big Keith thing at the end of the record. And for the people you're concerned about, who don't love Keith songs, they could just stop after your last vocal, and for those people who love Keith stuff, it would be one last Keith, so view it not as a third song, but as a medley, and we'll leave a space before it begins, and we'll leave very little space between the two songs. And he went with that. And I'm sure Keith has no idea, or Jane, no one knows what happened. So that gave Mick an out, basically, because it was a standoff. And so those two became one song.

Drew

Nice follow up Drew! Curious what Jagger would have put on the record instead of this one, if anything.

Somewhere out there is a tape of Mick singing this one, that would indeed be interesting to hear.

peace

Thanks Drew great read............reading this...............maybe if they added Mick far way in the backing vocals it would have been a Stones song and I probably would have appreciate the song............

__________________________




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2015-06-09 01:13 by NICOS.

Always look forward to Keith's spots on a new record...this one to me was just Winos filler

I read somewhere where Keith was told to come over to a girls house he liked and she had set him up and that she was already gone with somebody else. She gave him some humble pie but I think he said he wonders if she thought now that was a good move. I think he was about 12 to 15 years old.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2015-06-09 05:13 by frtylicks.

"Thief in the Night" is a great song. I prefer some of the live versions over the studio version.

I am surprised that they haven't done any of the Richards lead vocal songs from 'Bridges to Babylon' in so long. It seemed like he believed in the songs,bringing 2 of them back in heavy rotation on the '99 tour. Maybe if he goes back to playing a ballad / slower tempo song,this one could be brought back.

Neither Mick nor Keith tell the whole truth about what their songs are really about. They both make up stories which are slightly accurate, as if they want to keep the true subject matter private and personal. Thief in the Night is about the same woman who is in the song Eileen, a platonic girlfriend, never even kissed her. I asked Keith to do Thief at Petco Park but he hadn't rehearsed it so he did Slipping Away instead. Similar lyrics, same woman.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2015-06-09 08:29 by chatoyancy.

The first and last "real" song in ages. I also thought of Rambler. Pierre wrote the riff I think? And the song is about Patti's fling with that young priest, I think. Which makes me think of Sopranos (Carmela and the young priest).

The song is not about Patti's fling with a priest. Bockris was wildly speculating when he said that. Patti would never have a fling with a priest.

Quote
drewmaster

Quote
Silver Dagger

Quote
with sssoul

Quote
drewmaster
Thanks Plink! It's a safe bet that Anita played a role in this one ...

Hm well ... Great lyrics aren't usually about just one person/situation, but this one
was widely said to refer to a particular situation with Patti; and then in Life
Keith said it was about a very early girlfriend, way before any Stones crossed paths with Anita.

Could be the south London Indian girl he refers to from around 62 who used to come see the Stones with some friends.

Well, here's what the man himself wrote:

"Thief in the Night" had a dramatic, deadline-busting journey to the mastering studio. I got the title from the Bible, which I read quite often; some very good phrases in there. It's a song about several women and actually starts when I was a teenager. I knew where she lived and I knew where her boyfriend lived, and I would stand outside a semidetached house in Dartford. Basically the story goes on from there. Then it was about Ronnie Spector, then it was about Patti and it was also about Anita.

Mick put a vocal on the song, but he couldn't feel it, he couldn't get it, and the track sounded terrible. Rob couldn't mix it with this vocal, so we tried to fix it one night with Blondie and Bernard, barely able to stand from fatigue, snatching sleep in turns. We came back and found the tape had been sabotaged in the meantime. All kinds of skulduggery went on. Eventually Rob and I had to steal the two-inch master tapes of the half mixes of "Thief in the Night" from Ocean Way studios in LA, where we'd recorded it, and fly them to the East Coast, where I had now returned homewards to Connecticut. Pierre found a studio on the north shore of Long Island where we remixed it to my liking for two days and two nights, with my vocal. Sometime during one of those nights Bill Burroughs died, so in homage to his work I sent angry Burroughsian cut-ups to Don Was, the producer in the middle--you rat, this is going to be finished my way, nobody else's way, with screaming headline cuttings and headless torsos. Batten down the hatches; we're going to war. I just had a beef with Don. I love the man and we got over it right away, but I was sending him terrible messages. When you're coming to the end of a record, anybody who gets in the way of what you want to do is the Antichrist. This was near to the deadline, so the quickest way to get the tapes back to LA was to take them by speedboat from Port Jefferson, Long Island, to Westport, the nearest harbor to my house on the Connecticut coast. We did this at midnight, under a very nice moon, roaring across the Long Island Sound, successfully avoiding the lobster pots with a swerve here and a shout there. Next day Rob got them to New York and they were flown back to LA to the mastering studio to be inserted into the album.

Exceptionally for a Stones song, Pierre de Beauport got a writing credit on the track, along with me and Mick.

The big problem now was that it was looking as if I was going to be singing three songs on the album, which was unheard-of. And to Mick unacceptable.

Keith follows this with a quote from Don Was.

I firmly believed in Keith's right to have a third vocal on the record, but Mick was having none of it. I'm sure Keith is totally unaware of all that it took to get "Thief in the Night" on that record. Because it was a total standoff between these two guys, neither one was backing down, and we were going to miss the release date and the tour was going to start without a new album out there.

And the night before the deadline, I had a dream, and I called Mick up and I said, I know your point about him singing three songs, but if two were at the end of the record and they were together as a medley, if there wasn't a lot of space between the two songs, then they would be seen as one big Keith thing at the end of the record. And for the people you're concerned about, who don't love Keith songs, they could just stop after your last vocal, and for those people who love Keith stuff, it would be one last Keith, so view it not as a third song, but as a medley, and we'll leave a space before it begins, and we'll leave very little space between the two songs. And he went with that. And I'm sure Keith has no idea, or Jane, no one knows what happened. So that gave Mick an out, basically, because it was a standoff. And so those two became one song.

Drew

Great research Agent Drew. I'm gonna call up the Chief now and recommend your promotion to the Fingerprint File Office of Great Music Biz Detection Work.

Thank you, Drewmaster - great info that is new to me . IMO, the circumstances under which the track was created and ended up on the album are quite a bit more interesting than which woman or women may or may not have been the inspiration behind it.

@ Naturalust, Nico, Mike, and Plink ... it's my pleasure ... delighted you enjoyed it!

Naturally Mick didn't want the song on the record. He's not on it! Maybe if he sang on it...Anyway the platonic girlfriend didn't want to be mentioned in the book, so Keith didn't mention her.

Quote
chatoyancy
Anyway the platonic girlfriend didn't want to be mentioned in the book, so Keith didn't mention her.

In that case why are you taking it upon yourself to mention her, Chatoyancy, and repeatedly at that?
Just curious :E

Quote
Naturalust
Can't say I'm too fond of this one. Interesting is about as far as I'd go with the description. Not enough good melodic content to be a great ballad and not enough memorable riffing to be a rock tune.

It does have a strangely hypnotic vibe and I guess it's pretty effective in evoking a kind of dark feeling but it just kind of trudges along without really going anywhere. I think someone like Mick Taylor could have saved this one with some screaming melodic and bluesy guitar.

Nice to see Pierre get a writing credit on this one. Didn't Keith say it was based of one of his guitar riffs? Also interesting that Jagger is nowhere to be seen here but still gets his obligatory credit.

Perhaps this one is about Linda Keith or maybe the Stratocaster she gave to Hendrix.

peace

There is nothing to save. It's brilliant.

Did people ask Muddy or Willie Dixon to write more melodic or heavy-rocking blues tunes? This blues is perfect as it is. Hypnotic vibe indeed, and a lovely chorus, imo. I'm actually glad there isn't a big lead guitar in it. It would have disturbed its vibe.

Quote
DandelionPowderman
There is nothing to save. It's brilliant.

Did people ask Muddy or Willie Dixon to write more melodic or heavy-rocking blues tunes? This blues is perfect as it is. Hypnotic vibe indeed, and a lovely chorus, imo. I'm actually glad there isn't a big lead guitar in it. It would have disturbed its vibe.

No, but contrary to popular belief even Muddy and Willie Dixon had a few duds. The chorus does nothing for me, probably why I don't like the tune actually. It just doesn't go anywhere, after the first bit you've got all you're going to and it just drags on with more of the same. Not sure what's so brilliant about that. Live versions are a bit better but I understand why Jagger couldn't feel or get this one. To each his own.

peace

Boring song...as Losing my touch.

I agree with Jagger... I would have left 'Thief in the night' and the awful 'You dont have to mean it' off of the record. I would have left a few more off as well. 'How can I stop' is lovely though....



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2015-06-11 00:39 by strat72.

Quote
drewmaster
Mick put a vocal on the song, but he couldn't feel it, he couldn't get it, and the track sounded terrible. Rob couldn't mix it with this vocal, so we tried to fix it one night with Blondie and Bernard, barely able to stand from fatigue, snatching sleep in turns. We came back and found the tape had been sabotaged in the meantime. All kinds of skulduggery went on. Eventually Rob and I had to steal the two-inch master tapes of the half mixes of "Thief in the Night" from Ocean Way studios in LA, where we'd recorded it, and fly them to the East Coast, where I had now returned homewards to Connecticut. Pierre found a studio on the north shore of Long Island where we remixed it to my liking for two days and two nights, with my vocal[/b][/color]

I wonder exactly what he means by "found the tape had been sabotaged in the meantime. All kinds of skulduggery went on". Sabotaged? Skullduggery? Certainly he's not accusing Mick of doing anything... devious.

I find it hilarious that nzentgraf doesn't mention Keith's Connecticut sessions. More fiction?

Keith's book is partly fiction but it's colorful.

Quote
Naturalust

Quote
DandelionPowderman
There is nothing to save. It's brilliant.

Did people ask Muddy or Willie Dixon to write more melodic or heavy-rocking blues tunes? This blues is perfect as it is. Hypnotic vibe indeed, and a lovely chorus, imo. I'm actually glad there isn't a big lead guitar in it. It would have disturbed its vibe.

No, but contrary to popular belief even Muddy and Willie Dixon had a few duds. The chorus does nothing for me, probably why I don't like the tune actually. It just doesn't go anywhere, after the first bit you've got all you're going to and it just drags on with more of the same. Not sure what's so brilliant about that. Live versions are a bit better but I understand why Jagger couldn't feel or get this one. To each his own.

peace

Of course, it's a matter of taste.

But sometimes brilliant blues, soul and gospel songs don't have to go anywhere. They are there already

Quote
Naturalust
Also interesting that Jagger is nowhere to be seen here but still gets his obligatory credit.

peace

I remember a 98 interview where Keef said this song was a "50/50" effort with Mick... which surprised me cause I really thought it had Keith written all over it.
I mean "Saint Of Me" had Mick written all over it : a catchy simple song, a bit on the silly side etc...

Quote
dcba

Quote
Naturalust
Also interesting that Jagger is nowhere to be seen here but still gets his obligatory credit.

peace

I remember a 98 interview where Keef said this song was a "50/50" effort with Mick... which surprised me cause I really thought it had Keith written all over it.
I mean "Saint Of Me" had Mick written all over it : a catchy simple song, a bit on the silly side etc...

Must have been a 33/33-effort...