Sister Morphine was a Faithfull / Jagger song...

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Doxa
I think StonedRambler is generally right about the tendency on balance of Mick vs. Keith songs since the times of STICKY FINGERS. That of Mick bringing more rather complete written songs to the table than Keith, and Keith's songs started be more like riff ideas to be developed into songs in a studio.

If we take STICKY FINGERS, more or less 'pure' Mick songs are "Brown Sugar", "Sway", "Dead Flowers", "Sister Morphine" and "Moonlight Mile". He most likely had a huge contribution in creating a jam-based "Bitch" as well. Keith wrote the music of "Wild Horses", the riff or song part of "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" and probably the guitar base of "I Got The Blues".

It's pretty amazing change from the times of AFTERMATH in which every song musically was more or less written by Keith. The contrast in this sense is much more dramatical between AFTERMATH and STICKY FINGERS than between STICKY FINGERS and A BIGGER BANG.

- Doxa

Thanks Doxa, you explained very good what I wanted to say

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DandelionPowderman

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Doxa
I think StonedRambler is generally right about the tendency on balance of Mick vs. Keith songs since the times of STICKY FINGERS. That of Mick bringing more rather complete written songs to the table than Keith, and Keith's songs started be more like riff ideas to be developed into songs in a studio.

If we take STICKY FINGERS, more or less 'pure' Mick songs are "Brown Sugar", "Sway", "Dead Flowers", "Sister Morphine" and "Moonlight Mile". He most likely had a huge contribution in creating a jam-based "Bitch" as well. Keith wrote the music of "Wild Horses", the riff or song part of "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" and probably the guitar base of "I Got The Blues".

It's pretty amazing change from the times of AFTERMATH in which every song musically was more or less written by Keith. The contrast in this sense is much more dramatical between AFTERMATH and STICKY FINGERS than between STICKY FINGERS and A BIGGER BANG.

- Doxa

Yeah, something happened round 1968/69. Then again, Exile came - with many great Keith-tunes.

I get it wasn't that black and white.





[www.youtube.com]

Could it be that Mick started playing the guitar more around 68? The first documented instance I can recall of him playing it is when he played a very early SFTD on Charlie’s doorstep. Was he playing any guitar (of real note) from AFTERMATH-TSMR?

I can see it being a situation where when Mick didn’t really know how to play, so he needed Keith’s help to flesh out ideas. As he became more proficient in the guitar he didn’t need Keith input as much when it came to developing an idea he had because he could now do it himself.

Fast forward to today and he can basically develop 90% of the song and needs Keith to just add some final touches to it.

-Cam

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maumau
Sister Morphine was a Faithfull / Jagger song...

Yeah, it was, but I never recall Marianne claiming having had anything to do with composing the song, but having a contribution in inspiring the theme of the lyrics and writing some phrases on them (of which she, rightly but surprisingly, got a credit later on). So as far as I know the music of "Sister Morphine" is all Mick's - he wrote a fitting musical scheme to fit for Marianne's idea.

- Doxa

In all the interviews I've seen/read (also on the last doc on her: "Fleur d'ame) Faithfull claims the song as hers as far as the lyrics, not just an idea or the inspiration, but the whole lyrics and the story is about, and yes that Mick came up with the melody. So if that is true, that makes it a Faithfull / Jagger song in terms of composition.

The fact that, surprisingly as you say and I agree, she got credit for that song makes think her version is true.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2018-12-05 18:54 by maumau.

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maumau
In all the interviews I've seen/read (also on the last doc on her: "Fleur d'ame) Faithfull claims the song as hers as far as the lyrics, not just an idea or the inspiration, but the whole lyrics and the story is about, and yes that Mick came up with the melody. So if that is true, that makes it a Faithfull / Jagger song in terms of composition.

The fact that, surprisingly as you say and I agree, she got credit for that song makes think her version is true.

Yeah, I also lean on thinking that Marianne had a bigger role in lyrics than what Mick claims her to have (I recall in some interview Mick pointing out at some phrase, 'yeah, that might have been Marianne's bit', or something to the effect). But that she wrote all of the lyrics, that also can be a rhetorical exaggaration from her side to make a point, not so unusual for her... I guess the truth is somewhere there in the middle....

- Doxa



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2018-12-05 19:13 by Doxa.

Yes you might be right. In the last doc however she goes deep into explaining the story behind the song. Anyway, very common to retouch the past at one's on benefit, wonder if it is not more Mick's problem in this case though

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DandelionPowderman
Isn't it pretty well-documented that SFTD wasn't quite finished?

Jagger had the basic chords, melody and lyrics written. So the song was there about finished even before Jagger entered to a studio. Ask Charlie Watts. What after that happened was a thing called arrangement. Like what happened with "Brown Sugar". What I have learned from this site is that one should never confuse those two - if so, a person like Mick Taylor or Brian Jones would be credited for writing something... Despite the creative magic of many Stones tracks actually coming from what the guys do with songs sketches in a studio...

My personal opinion is that the traditional way to credit writing by just pointing out (a) music in terms of melody and basic chord structure and (b) lyrics doesn't quite fit in determining the creative process of The Rolling Stones. But to make Mick Jagger and Keith Richards very rich men that suits very well (even though I think they don't see themselves any longer in terms of that but more like being credited for their boss/producer-like role in leading the creative process, which is to say, anything to happen in a Rolling Stones session is automatically a Jagger/Richards deal... it is up to their generousity if they sometimes think that someone else deserves a co-writing credit).

Generally, to make some sense of this vocabulary, I guess we should distinguish between writing in the sense of deserving a writing credit for a song (be the criterion whatever) and that of writing in the sense of adding there something else (such as some guitarist adding there a lick or a solo, or, say, Bill Wyman coming up with a bassline, etc). Legally (moneywise) the latter would belong to the sphere of 'arrangement'. I think the confusion many times derives from the supposition that guitar parts are many times thought to be more constutive for a song than what the other instruments offer.

- Doxa



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2018-12-06 13:28 by Doxa.

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Doxa

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DandelionPowderman
Isn't it pretty well-documented that SFTD wasn't quite finished?

Jagger had the basic chords, melody and lyrics written. So the song was there about finished even before Jagger entered to a studio. Ask Charlie Watts. What after that happened was a thing called arrangement. Like what happened with "Brown Sugar". What I have learned from this site is that one should never confuse those two - if so, a person like Mick Taylor or Brian Jones would be credited for writing something... Despite the creative magic of many Stones tracks actually coming from what the guys do with songs sketches in a studio...

My personal opinion is that the traditional way to credit writing by just pointing out (a) music in terms of melody and basic chord structure and (b) lyrics doesn't quite fit in determining the creative process of The Rolling Stones. But to make Mick Jagger and Keith Richards very rich men that suits very well (even though I think they don't see themselves any longer in terms of that but more like being credited for their boss/producer-like role in leading the creative process, which is to say, anything to happen in a Rolling Stones session is automatically a Jagger/Richards deal... it is up to their generousity if they sometimes think that someone else deserves a co-writing credit).

Generally, to make some sense of this vocabulary, I guess we should distinguish between writing in the sense of deserving a writing credit for a song (be the criterion whatever) and that of writing in the sense of adding there something else (such as some guitarist adding there a lick or a solo, or, say, Bill Wyman coming up with a bassline, etc). Legally (moneywise) the latter would belong to the sphere of 'arrangement'. I think the confusion many times derives from the supposition that guitar parts are many times thought to be more constutive for a song than what the other instruments offer.

- Doxa

The chords weren't even ready! How can that be arrangement only?

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DandelionPowderman

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Doxa

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DandelionPowderman
Isn't it pretty well-documented that SFTD wasn't quite finished?

Jagger had the basic chords, melody and lyrics written. So the song was there about finished even before Jagger entered to a studio. Ask Charlie Watts. What after that happened was a thing called arrangement. Like what happened with "Brown Sugar". What I have learned from this site is that one should never confuse those two - if so, a person like Mick Taylor or Brian Jones would be credited for writing something... Despite the creative magic of many Stones tracks actually coming from what the guys do with songs sketches in a studio...

My personal opinion is that the traditional way to credit writing by just pointing out (a) music in terms of melody and basic chord structure and (b) lyrics doesn't quite fit in determining the creative process of The Rolling Stones. But to make Mick Jagger and Keith Richards very rich men that suits very well (even though I think they don't see themselves any longer in terms of that but more like being credited for their boss/producer-like role in leading the creative process, which is to say, anything to happen in a Rolling Stones session is automatically a Jagger/Richards deal... it is up to their generousity if they sometimes think that someone else deserves a co-writing credit).

Generally, to make some sense of this vocabulary, I guess we should distinguish between writing in the sense of deserving a writing credit for a song (be the criterion whatever) and that of writing in the sense of adding there something else (such as some guitarist adding there a lick or a solo, or, say, Bill Wyman coming up with a bassline, etc). Legally (moneywise) the latter would belong to the sphere of 'arrangement'. I think the confusion many times derives from the supposition that guitar parts are many times thought to be more constutive for a song than what the other instruments offer.

- Doxa

The chords weren't even ready! How can that be arrangement only?

[youtu.be]
In the first minute Mick is showing Brian the chords, even before Keith comes along.
Then one minute later you can see bow Mick gives Keith and Brian a sign to switch to B Major



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2018-12-06 15:50 by StonedRambler.

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DandelionPowderman



The chords weren't even ready! How can that be arrangement only?

The basic chords, as the melody, were there as we can hear/see from the first scene of the movie, Mick learning/playing those to/with Brian, and Keith joining in. True that some chordial (is that a word?) readjustment and enrichening happened during the recording process but that's what competent studio hacks like Nicky Hopkins supposed to do. Still belonging to the sphere of "arrangement" in traditional (not very good) terms.´Similar thing is like claiming that what Hopkins does in the distinctive piano part of "She's A Rainbow" is arranging the vague melody he hears Mick or Keith to hum. What he actually does there is him interpreting/writing the whole thing (musical context) with fitting chords and other means. But for some reason I haven't heard anyone giving him much credit for writing that if there is bit chance of Mick or Keith having something to do with it.... I guess it is like Charlie Chaplin humming the melody of "Smile" in the front of an orchestra, and they arranging, by writing all the chord changes and everything, to a final form. But still the composition is all Charlie Chaplin. And no dispute of that.

(Also for some reason I have had this picture (I have learned here) that when Keith Richards does something, no matter how little, just, say, adding back up vocals or some lick, or suggesting, say, a rhythm change, that always seems to be a case of 'writing' and a reason to give him credit (something, of course, he always gets without even doing anything due to their funny agreement with Mick). But if that is someone else (pl. Mick), no matter how much having influence on the outcome, that is just 'arranging', and no way a reason to give credit...)

- Doxa



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2018-12-06 16:08 by Doxa.

There are no hard and fast rules about any of this. They’ve softened somewhat in the last 20 years, but Mick and Keith have historically been miserly about song credits. Jimmy Page was comparatively more generous. Bonham received bylines, and I doubt he was writing chord progressions or melody lines.

Jagger has the chords for SFTD and is using guitar voicings starting at 12 fret for E then down to D and A but the song really takes off when Keith joins in playing Open E and the rest is history.

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OpenG
Jagger has the chords for SFTD and is using guitar voicings starting at 12 fret for E then down to D and A but the song really takes off when Keith joins in playing Open E and the rest is history.

Could very well be, but in terms of songwriting credits it does not matter at all - if Mick brings a song to the Stones, it will be Jagger/Richards if it gets released by the Stones, the same happens when Keith introduces a song to the Stones - the same way as it worked in the Lennon/McCartney partnership.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2018-12-06 19:58 by retired_dog.

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OpenG
Jagger has the chords for SFTD and is using guitar voicings starting at 12 fret for E then down to D and A but the song really takes off when Keith joins in playing Open E and the rest is history.

The Open E chords Keith plays are not even on the record... The song took off when they dropped the folk ballad thing and made a samba out of it. Mick wrote the lyrics, the melody and the chords - that is all songwriting is about. Everything else is arrangement, like Doxa explained. All I wanted to say is that Jagger wrote some really good songs in the end of the 60s that he mainly wrote alone and Keith more often brought his ideas and riffs to the studio to let them develop into songs. And that's still their approaches nowadays.

new album?

yay! hoppys been gone a few weeks...
missed the sticky but here it is!!!!
new album!! yay!
when?
right before the tour or after the first few gigs?
my predictions from last year this time seem like they are not
coming true in the past so i have some future ones that also won't
probably come true but that's half the fun at this point....rock on old soldiers.
a chubby checker cover album wouild do surprisingly well at this point.

Yes I know - I was just referring to the Goddard footage - You have to admit Mick and Brian's guitar at the start does not really move you - Its when Keith comes by for me that was the difference of that little footage and those creamy guitar licks Keith plays later in the footage when he is standing by the amp.

There is no doubt about Mick being the writer of SFTD.

But to say that he brought a "finished" song to the sessions is a stretch, imo.

He didn't know how it would sound, and we don't know how much he added to it/altered it in the studio.

We only have clips to document this, not the whole process.

It was very nice to witness how the song developed in One Plus One, though.

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hopkins
new album?

yay! hoppys been gone a few weeks...
missed the sticky but here it is!!!!
new album!! yay!
when?
right before the tour or after the first few gigs?
my predictions from last year this time seem like they are not
coming true in the past so i have some future ones that also won't
probably come true but that's half the fun at this point....rock on old soldiers.
a chubby checker cover album wouild do surprisingly well at this point.

You didn't miss anything hopkins other than a bunch of deflating news regarding the progress of the supposed new album.
Meanwhile, discussions about New Wave and the evolution of Sympathy have filled the void.
Stay tuned as the next detour could be about anything other than the supposed new album of originals...
But to get you up to date: 14 years and counting....238 pages and counting...and maybe a new single before the new tour if we're lucky.

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

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OpenG
Jagger has the chords for SFTD and is using guitar voicings starting at 12 fret for E then down to D and A but the song really takes off when Keith joins in playing Open E and the rest is history.

I also agree that what Keith did at that clip gave a special dimension to what Mick and Brian were playing. A nice arrangemnt idea by Keith even though it didn't made the record... Usually a more accomplished guitar player has that ability in him - to make a song sound better.

But if think what making a song really take off by a fantastic guitar arrangement is I think there is another nice Dylanisque effort a'la "Sympathy For The Devil" from the same year... Namely, just listen to what Jimi Hendrix did to Dylan's "All Along The Watchtower".... transforming a catchy little folk song into an epic rock classic, giving us, among others, some of the most genius guitar things ever heard (that intro and those short solos, man...). He actually added there one distinguished chord: basically Dylan just strums Am and F, slightly and quickly touching one single note of G as a brigde between those two main chords, but Hendrix emphasizes that middle chord (Bm-A-G), and thereby giving the whole chord sequence an altogether different musical nature and feel - the one we all know now when we think about "Watchtower". The result of re-arranging the chord structure was so striking that even Dylan himself adopted that version to play from then on...

But still no one has any doubts that "All Along The Watchtower" is a pure Bob Dylan song, no?

- Doxa



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2018-12-06 21:25 by Doxa.

That's not fair, Hairball, much more than that occurred.

Universal executives were told to plan for a June release next year. Universal marketing went into action planning a release strategy of three singles between late January and May to build interest and proposed bundling the album with ticket sales.

This wasn't just Soldatti, but Bjornulf getting the same news. This was what Universal expected. The Stones booked a studio in Paris to complete the album. All was proceeding according to plan. And then...

...all of a sudden it was 2017 all over again. There is no album, it's early days. All they have is jam sessions. Apparently they were lying to their record label. A major label with a Grammy-winning producer who runs his own boutique label at the helm. All these professional, highly compensated individuals failed to communicate the album was no where close to finished. Honest.

As for the studio session this year, Honest Keith says, "Don't hold your breath." Meantime, Mick is in Paris and Ronnie says he's joining him. Bernard was just in the studio and Darryl noted he couldn't make it, but would be at the Paris session. But Keith says, "Don't hold your breath, it's probably not happening."

After that it's all speculation. Does Mick work out demos at Le Fork and then record with Ronnie and Charlie before seeing if Keith wants to bother overdubbing? Will we get an EP next year while the rest of it ends up a Mick Jagger solo album with Ronnie and Charlie as the back-up band? Will Keith quit the band next year to pursue a solo career hoping to sell another 10,000 units of his next solo album tentatively titled, Bucktoothed Mind chockful of soulful dirges that will make poor Mick quake in fear wishing he could do the same instead of writing pop songs no one likes? Who knows? Stay tuned...or more likely, don't because there's nothing to hear unless it's on instagram.

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Rocky Dijon the name says it all, abusive cynical it’s so easy to see why people lose interest in this site, because people like you continually shove their boring opinions relentlessly down everyone’s throats. I enjoy Micks albums enormously, and I enjoy Keith’s enormously, and they are different and complimentary. They are better together IMO. But find other things to say! I loved Doxa’s writing about Sticky, fascinating! More please!

The name does say it all. You're right. God in Heaven, what have I done?

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Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2018-12-06 22:11 by Rocky Dijon.

The 6th of December...And we don't know if they are in the studio or not...It's encouraging!

Go ahead, Dijon, your contribution is much appreciated.

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guyrachel
Rocky Dijon the name says it all, abusive cynical it’s so easy to see why people lose interest in this site, because people like you continually shove their boring opinions relentlessly down everyone’s throats. I enjoy Micks albums enormously, and I enjoy Keith’s enormously, and they are different and complimentary. They are better together IMO. But find other things to say! I loved Doxa’s writing about Sticky, fascinating! More please!

What on earth is this? What did I miss?

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Doxa

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DandelionPowderman
Isn't it pretty well-documented that SFTD wasn't quite finished?

Jagger had the basic chords, melody and lyrics written. So the song was there about finished even before Jagger entered to a studio. Ask Charlie Watts. What after that happened was a thing called arrangement. Like what happened with "Brown Sugar". What I have learned from this site is that one should never confuse those two - if so, a person like Mick Taylor or Brian Jones would be credited for writing something... Despite the creative magic of many Stones tracks actually coming from what the guys do with songs sketches in a studio...

My personal opinion is that the traditional way to credit writing by just pointing out (a) music in terms of melody and basic chord structure and (b) lyrics doesn't quite fit in determining the creative process of The Rolling Stones. But to make Mick Jagger and Keith Richards very rich men that suits very well (even though I think they don't see themselves any longer in terms of that but more like being credited for their boss/producer-like role in leading the creative process, which is to say, anything to happen in a Rolling Stones session is automatically a Jagger/Richards deal... it is up to their generousity if they sometimes think that someone else deserves a co-writing credit).

Generally, to make some sense of this vocabulary, I guess we should distinguish between writing in the sense of deserving a writing credit for a song (be the criterion whatever) and that of writing in the sense of adding there something else (such as some guitarist adding there a lick or a solo, or, say, Bill Wyman coming up with a bassline, etc). Legally (moneywise) the latter would belong to the sphere of 'arrangement'. I think the confusion many times derives from the supposition that guitar parts are many times thought to be more constutive for a song than what the other instruments offer.

- Doxa

Ronnie Wood said, I learned if I want a credit for a song that I callaborated to say right away, but if you wait for them to recognize it, forget it. For this reason I now say it right away, in this way there are no problems.

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DandelionPowderman

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guyrachel
Rocky Dijon the name says it all, abusive cynical it’s so easy to see why people lose interest in this site, because people like you continually shove their boring opinions relentlessly down everyone’s throats. I enjoy Micks albums enormously, and I enjoy Keith’s enormously, and they are different and complimentary. They are better together IMO. But find other things to say! I loved Doxa’s writing about Sticky, fascinating! More please!

What on earth is this? What did I miss?

Not sure, but it made me laugh. I think some of it is misunderstood humor since I had just done a post sending up the madness of the new album and all of our (including my own) reactions to it. I'm not upset, though I'm not sure if guyrachel knows the "abusive, cynical" name was one Mick or Keith thought of in the first place.

Do not mess with Rocky Dijon’s encyclopediac memory. That’s a dated term now, isn’t it, no more encyclopedia books, let’s see....
Immediate google head, mind like a steel trap (don’t like that one)
Dude forgets nothing (sounds more like me)

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35love
Do not mess with Rocky Dijon’s encyclopediac memory. That’s a dated term now, isn’t it, no more encyclopedia books, let’s see....
Immediate google head, mind like a steel trap (don’t like that one)
Dude forgets nothing (sounds more like me)

I wish I forgot nothing! Too many concussions and poor choices in my past, but thank you just the same.

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