And who started it? It seems to me that the term Warhorse is only relevant to the Stones from what I can make out. Just curious.

NickB

You can't always get what you want.....

www.myspace.com/thesonkings

from classical music i.e. brahms, beethoven ,mozart,hayden,bach,.major orchestras would put out there concert schedule and if there were new composers (20th century) people would bitch that they dont know the music so they would have to have warhorses on the program to sell tickets (beethoven 5th sympony for example)so you had to strike a balance with selling tickets and taking some risks with new programing,reminds me of the infamous setlists debate..i hope this helps explain !

Traveller probably knows.....



ROCKMAN

From merriam-webster dictionary:


warhorse

Main Entry: war·horse
Pronunciation: \-?ho?rs\
Function: noun
Date: 15th century
1: a horse used in war : charger
2: a person with long experience in a field; especially : a veteran soldier or public person (as a politician)
3: something (as a work of art or musical composition) that has become overly familiar or hackneyed due to much repetition in the standard repertoire

and God Bless Traveller btw!

Yes, I first discovered "warhorses" about ten years ago on the BBC Proms messageboard in relation to overperformed classical pieces that you have to play in order to put bums on seats (and believe me, Promenaders can complain just as long and as loud as Stones fans about them!)

"War horses" was the working title for 40 Licks, unless I'm much mistaken.

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erikjjf
"War horses" was the working title for 40 Licks, unless I'm much mistaken.

That's when I first heard it too.

I fist heard it as a term relating to stones set lists in the Book Old God's almost dead. They were talking about the 78 tour and they said "It was mick's band during the some girls songs, and Keith's band during the War Horses" or something like that.

Forty Licks was to be Warhorses and it was to be 3 records right?

Never forget that Traveller knows EVERYTHING.

And he's making a list and checking it twice...to see who's naughty or nice.

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skipstone
Forty Licks was to be Warhorses and it was to be 3 records right?

Dont know about 3 discs, but there were tentative plans to release a set of unreleased material instead. However, ABKCO and EMI finally seeing the $$$ signs and coming to an arrangement just a couple of days before the tour press conference certainly made the decision of what to release a lot easier.

I never did find out if it was some official thing or not, credible etc... but the 3 disc 'Warhorses' was basically each record covered all the decades. It was a pretty cool idea I thought. What I can not recall is if there was unreleased tunes listed or even new ones.

I saved it to a file somewhere. I don't know where that is though.

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NickB
And who started it? It seems to me that the term Warhorse is only relevant to the Stones from what I can make out. Just curious.

I think it was Stones Todd, he started it - at least he says so

[www.iorr.org]

I do know I had never heard of that term used in music until, well, just prior to Forty Licks.