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19th Nervous Breakdown

Composers: Mick Jagger & Keith Richards
Recording date: 3rd – 10th December 1965
Recording location: RCA Studios, Los Angeles, USA
Producer: Andrew Oldham
Engineer: Dave Hassinger

Lead vocals: Mick Jagger
Lead electric guitar: Keith Richards
Rhythm electric guitar: Brian Jones
Bass: Bill Wyman
Drums: Charlie Watts
Background vocals: Mick Jagger & Keith Richards
Piano: Ian Stewart

First release: 4 February 1966 (7” single)
Label: Decca F 12331

Different version(s)
Recordings 3rd - 10th December 1966: Los Angeles, RCA Studios, Hollywood
Producer: Andrew Oldham
Sound engineer: Dave Hassinger.
19th Nervous Breakdown I (MJ/KR) -same backing track as version II with earlier, rougher vocals
19th Nervous Breakdown II (MJ/KR) -7“-version


19th Nervous Breakdown

You're the kind of person you meet at certain dismal, dull affairs
Center of a crowd, talking much too loud, running up and down the stairs
Well it seems to me that you have seen too much in too few years
And though you've tried, you just can't hide, your eyes are edged with tears

You better stop
Look around

Here it comes, here it comes
Here it comes, here it comes
Here it comes your 19th nervous breakdown

When you were a child you were treated kind but never brought up right
You were always spoiled with a thousand toys but still you cried all night
Your mother who neglected you owes a million dollars tax
And your father's still perfecting ways of making sealing wax

You better stop
Look around

Here it comes, here it comes
Here it comes, here it comes
Here it comes your 19th nervous breakdown

Oh who's to blame?
That girl's just insane
Well nothing I do don't seem to work
It only seems to make matters worse
So please

You were still in school when you had that fool who really messed your mind
And after that you turned your back on treating people kind
On our first trip I tried so hard to rearrange your mind
But after a while I realized you were disarranging mine

You better stop
Look around

Here it comes, here it comes
Here it comes, here it comes
Here it comes your 19th nervous breakdown

Oh who's to blame?
That girl's just insane
Well nothing I do don't seem to work
It only seems to make matters worse
So please

When you were a child you were treated kind but never brought up right
You were always spoiled with a thousand toys but still you cried all night
Your mother who neglected you owes a million dollars tax
And your father's still perfecting ways of making sealing wax

You better stop
Look around

Here it comes
Here it comes your 19th nervous breakdown
Here it comes your 19th nervous breakdown
Here it comes your 19th nervous breakdown
Here it comes your 19th nervous breakdown
Here it comes your 19th nervous breakdown
Here it comes your 19th nervous breakdown

Note: Info taken from TIOMS, NZentgraf and the WW-Internet



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2016-09-12 11:10 by NICOS.

Yes, one of their great early compositions. Very good lyrics, witty and sharp and a nice upbeat rolling pop-song.

In Toronto in 2005 they played a bluesy version of the song, because Mick did not think
the original version survived the 60s that well (youtube.
I am not convinced the bluesy version is really an improvement. It's interesting nonetheless.
Lots of guitar work to enjoy.


Bill did some nice "breakdowns" on his bass on the original.
Together with Get Off Of my Cloud and Satisfaction I see this song as part of a trilogy
about modern life in the mid 60s in England.

Just as long as the guitar plays, let it steal your heart away

The song that created an absolute punk rock riot in 1966.

(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction changed the entire pop scene with its spiky rebellion charged lyrics which was quickly followed up by the baiting, semi-anti-religious Get Off Of My Cloud.

Now these snotty nosed young upstarts infuritated the establishment even further by singing about mental disorder and throwing in that cherry bomb drug reference line about "on our first trip". Wow - talk about kicking authority with both feet.

But enough about those brilliant youth galvanising lyrics - what about that killer Keith riff and Brian's edgy rhythm playing. And as outros go was there ever a better one than Bill's dive bombing bass.

One of the finest songs the Stones ever wrote.

Classic

Delirious, hyper-kinetic fun, bursting through the rafters with energy; 19th Nervous Breakdown sparkles and it soars. Love that moment towards the end when the recording breaks down for just a moment. My only quibble is the repeated 2nd/4th verse; couldn’t Mick come up with a different set of lyrics for the final go-round?

Drew

The Stones at their absolute best! What a glorious track

And ain't this version at the Double Door, Chicago in 1997 one of the best. What a surprise to have it at that half tempo too.

Quote
Silver Dagger
And ain't this version at the Double Door, Chicago in 1997 one of the best. What a surprise to have it at that half tempo too.

Wish I could agree, Mike, but much as I love the original, this version to me is actually quite dreadful. It's got the energy of a beached whale and everyone sounds quite out of tune.

Drew

19th Nervous Breakdown and Mother's Little Helper should be warhorses in concert!

Quote
LeonidP
19th Nervous Breakdown and Mother's Little Helper should be warhorses in concert!

+1

...one of their best...!.

One of my favorite Sixties Stones tracks. It reached nr 2 in the Single Top Charts in the USA, UK and The Netherlands in 1966.

Jack Nitzsche was involved



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2016-09-05 18:32 by runaway.

Great song loved it when it was first released.
I've always felt this classic song has been overlooked and don't
Get the praise it deserves.

Best title ever and the young Lucifer's vocal performance is satanic perfection.

The original is one of their true 60s-gems, a classic indeed.
To slow it down wasn´t a good idea. It worked with I Just Wanna Make Love To You but not with Breakdown... I wonder if they would be able to do a live version in the original tempo nowadays.

100% essential Stones classic.

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Rip this joint, gonna save your soul, round and round and round we go......

Great song.

The brief "social commentary" phase (e.g. 19th NB, Mother's Little Helper, Have You Seen Your Mother, Cloud) is a bit neglected in my opinion. Very evocative of a particular time and place which for me personally is just tantalisingly out of reach and therefore all the more interesting (i.e. I was in existence then but have no proper memory of that period).

Love this track!

It stood out to me more than any other after opening night at Soldier Field in '97... Haven't found a really great version captured from '97 or '98, but I have a rough VHS boot of Buffalo '97 that I bought since I was there too... Probably the best version I've heard from that tour... Mick welcomed all the folks who came down from Canada during his chit-chat, and they ripped on it!

I heard the slow version from later, but thought the slower pace didn't do it justice at all...

Wonder what chestnut or cover will be bestowed on us next month? Oh, the possibilities...

classic song from a classic stones period, one of the many great songs from that period that the stones neglected in concert post 1969.

how stuff like you got me rocking and miss you can become warhorses while some of the best songs they made never came close is criminal.

Some nice homework..............




[www.youtube.com]

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Quote
NICOS
Some nice homework..............




[www.youtube.com]

Very nice indeed!

Drew

Quote
HMS
The original is one of their true 60s-gems, a classic indeed.
To slow it down wasn´t a good idea. It worked with I Just Wanna Make Love To You but not with Breakdown... I wonder if they would be able to do a live version in the original tempo nowadays.

Right on the mark. The slow version demonstrates the art of (nearly) falling apart, it drags on and on and never really goes anywhere. However, the reason why slowing down I Just Wanna Make Love To You worked considerably better may be that Muddy Water's original recording was in the same slow tempo.

Is that Bill on the "Pipeline" run at the end?

Quote
Wry Cooter
Is that Bill on the "Pipeline" run at the end?

The tremolo run? That's classic Brian, I believe (like on Mona and many others).

Bill once explained how he played the diving bass line and was inspired by Bo Diddley,
like Bryan was on Mona.
I'll try to find the interview with Bill, but it was decades ago...

Just as long as the guitar plays, let it steal your heart away

It's a dead issue, being played live. It's too fast a tempo for them now. And I'd hate to hear their hired bass player ruin the Bo-Diddley bass bombs night after night. Certain songs remain in the that maniacal era of their youth, like Get Off of My Cloud, which sounds putrid when they slow it down to waltz time.

Quote
NICOS
Some nice homework..............




[www.youtube.com]

Wow! Impressive! Very well done!

Found Bill's quote on the brilliant timeisonourside.com website, but it does not say
what year it's from:

Quote
Bill Wyman
I played a small-bodied Framus on that one. Not the red Framus bass that I used a lot onstage around that time but the one with the brown and yellow stripes across it that looked like a humbug. It was semi-acoustic. Andrew (Oldham) or Keith said something like, Why don't you do something at the end there, some kind of a lick that will fill up the space between the vocals and the band? I came up with that Bo Diddley thing really, I just bounced the string with the top of my finger on the pickup, and ran my finger down the string. That is what created that so-called "dive-bombing" sound. Can't do it on guitars I own now.

Just as long as the guitar plays, let it steal your heart away

I love this song so much and also one of the first Rolling Stones songs that i knew as a kid from just listening to AM radio in the sixities .Pretty wild that as i kid in early grade school from just listening to the radio in dad's car or playing around on the radio at home that i knew this song .One of the finest tracks from the early days of the Rolling Stones .Great compostion and great lyrics from the Glimmer Twins and also Keith's killer fuzz guitar line and Bills run of notes also !!!!!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2016-09-06 13:43 by TheGreek.