So they had done the whole beat pop combo thing, the gnarled blackened minstrel heart of a generation ting, been through their heroin-addled conduits of genius stage, navigated their muddled spell and had just started out on their uninspired soul-soiled efficient chapter only to interrupt it with a rare flash of concentrated and inspired application, courtesy of (Shock! Horror!!) disco and some outright old-fashioned nastiness. Yummy.
Rolling Stones Some Girls (1978); their last mostly great LP, a mere 42 years ago*.
Some Girls opens with a bit of a controversial one, the slinky, slunky, some might say skunky, US #1 ‘Miss You’. I remember folks fulminating about the sheer outrage of the Stones ‘going disco’^ years afterwards. Utter tripe. ‘Miss You’ is just brilliant – deal with it. Like a lot of Some Girls it is pure essence of New York cool^^, four-to-the-floor beat, complete with an ace harmonica solo courtesy of Sugar Blue and 1537-fave Ian McLagan on keys. Definitely, defiantly one of my very favourite Stones singles, I just love the mood of the song.
It gets even better next track over as ‘When The Whip Comes Down’ hurtles crazily around the bend. The lyrics dealing with a gay man moving to NYC and working the streets, an interesting choice for a band as big as the Stones at the time. The music is the key here, whether punk-inspired or not, there’s a venomous edge here that makes me purr – Watts’ drumming is superb, right up in ya grill and the guitar solo is as perfect as it is brief.
The lightly rocked up cover of the Temptations’ ‘Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)’ is classy and heartfelt, you can really hear Ron Wood’s rhythm guitar in the sound. I like it more than the original but for years though this track was just a warning for me to brace myself for the next tune.
‘Some Girls’ is the one for me. Nasty, racially insensitive, sexist and downright jaded I loved this song from the first time I heard its opening second. The song sounds weary, mean, drugged and decadent beyond belief – we’re talking third-helping of dessert levels of decadence here folks! For breakfast!
In fact did I say ‘jaded’? wrong word, ‘glazed’ would be better. You ever wonder what life would be like lived in a short silk kimono travelling endlessly between gigs and lovers in a opiate-induced approximation of the state of a fly encased in amber? It’s all here. ‘Some Girls’ is a monument to a life lived so far beyond mortal realms, ethical considerations and morals, so as to be entirely incomprehensible and terrifying to the rest of us worm food.
Next up ‘Lies’ is fast-paced but ultimately a bit of a lightweight my-woman-done-done-me-wrong number. .After the title track it is a necessary step back towards a more earthly, yet earthy, plane of existence. I like the bright shallow guitar sound often attributed to engineer Chris Kimsey’s championing of the Mesa/Boogie amp and/or Jagger adding third guitar to a number of tunes.
Some Girls makes a rare misstep with ‘Far Away Eyes’ in which Jagger does annoying ironic country, kinda forgetting that he nailed that genre a decade earlier on ‘Dear Doctor’. It’s just gak.
I really like ‘Respectable’s infinitely more relatable hot rockin’ and reelin’ nonsense, I mean come on, who amongst us can honestly say they have never shagged a porn star on the White House lawn?
Well now you're a pillar of society
You don't worry about the things that you used to be
You're a rag-trade girl, you're the queen of porn
You're the easiest lay on the White House lawn
Keith Richards’ ‘Before They Make Me Run’ has really grown on me over the years, despite the song being victim of easily his worst vocal committed to a Stones LP. Recorded after 5 days without sleeping (‘Booze and pills and powders, you can choose your medicine’) and inspired by evil Canadians having busted him for heroin possession in Toronto there is a strung-out plaintive defiance that I like here.
Ditto for ‘Beast Of Burden’, which is a song that I love more and more as time rolls on by. Jagger actually aces this one, parading his defiance and vulnerability simultaneously, to great effect. The melodies and falsetto nonsense here and there gild the lily beautifully.
Some Girls signs off with ‘Shattered’ which sounds rather futuristic and phased, Richards’ guitar growling far away and Wood playing the bass whilst Jagger does his best NYC hip-speak over the top – lyrics written in the back of a New York cab, natch. In retrospect it’s a song that the Stones could have done without, as inferior copies blighted their albums for another decade at least. I like the glossy sheen of it all.
I really like Some Girls, despite appearing 8 years into the 70’s it is the first time the Rolling Stones really sounded like a 70’s band to me, rather than a 60’s band operating in the 70’s. The new rhythms, new sounds, new groove, new inspirations, new guitarist all conspire to make Some Girls a clean break from their past triumphs.
The die-cut cover of Some Girls is undoubtedly another big reason I love this LP. I had no idea it was such a controversial object in its’ time. The record designer Peter Corriston, appropriating a genuine old wig advert by Valmor Products and then appropriating images of celebrities without their permission – all of whom sued, with the exception of George Harrison. The cover was then censored, which having an old original^* I hadn’t realised until now.
1024 Down.
PS: In the privacy of my own brain I would often censor the controversial ‘black girls’ line in the title track to, the factually correct in my experience, ‘Welsh girls just wanna eat chips all night‘. True story.
*which is not to say they aren’t still capable of cutting an excellent track occasionally**, just not on a whole LP basis.
**I’d go to bat for ‘Living In A Ghost Town’, ‘Rough Justice’, ‘Love Is Strong’ and chunks of Dirty Work and Undercover, amongst other bits.
^I remember a Q magazine interview openly sneering at Jerry Hall for saying it was her favourite Stones single.
^^despite being recorded near Paris by a bunch of limeys. Several of the band were living in NYC at the time.
^*bought off a friend from her brother’s collection for £3.50, unbeknownst to him I rather suspect.
Perfect! He did get You Can’t Always Get What You Want played at his funeral so I think that and you vowing never to play Emotional Rescue would have made him very happy indeed
The guys are on form with this album. I don’t even mind the disco beat of Miss You too much although the follow-up album Emotional Rescue was definitely a step too far. I don’t think my Stones-devotee dad ever stopped complaining about ER from the day it was released until the day he died.
I’ve never heard Emotional Rescue – I’ll leave it that way as a tribute to your dad!
My dad saw them play on the steps of Longleat Park house in the 60’s, probably about 100 people there he reckons. He was going to go and say hello, but decided not to bother. Dads eh?
This was the first Rolling Stones album I ever purchased new when it came out and the second Stones album I owned; my first with a thrift store copy of Aftermath. I bought this after seeing them play a smokin’ set of 3-4 songs from the album live on a Saturday Night Live episode in ’78. My folks took me and my sister along to a local department store and allowed us each to buy one LP; 14-year-old me grabbed this one (bras!) and I think my 12-year-old sis picked Something Special by The Sylvers to get the song “Hot Line.”
Reviewing your label photos above, I am happy to report that I like EVERY SINGLE SONG on this record. Even “Faraway Eyes” is great!!
Dang – you had me right up to the bit about ‘Faraway Eyes’! In contrast my first Stones as new (I’d taped my parents singles before that) was ‘Dirty Work’, which I still think is okay.
Yup, bras, Beavis, bras. Heh, heh, heh.
Thanks for sharing some photos from your modelling heyday. Appropriately slinky with an air of insouciance.
Perma-styled, that’s me.
“Their last mostly great LP” I kinda like that tag.
It’s a good one too.
One album I need to get for my Stones collection. For some reason, still don’t have it.
Worth getting, there are some belting tracks here. Worth trying to find one with the original cover too, it’s never been an expensive one.
Yes, I will get this and the original cover. I finally found a sticky fingers with a working zipper.
This post has everything.
1. An excuse to play a rather good Stones album (thank you)
2. A reminder of how godawful tasteless they could be (I actually listened to Faraway Eyes again, curse you!)
3. A story of shady provenance. As the appointed solicitors for Friend’s Brothers Worldwide, you’ll be hearing from us.
Thank you kindly Bruce. It is a good LP, a touch overlooked I think, if you can say that about anything the Stones ever did.
You’ll never make the charges stick! It was actually a male friend who sold me it from his older sister’s collection and I cunningly changed the genders around so you’d never find out! Dang! Must warn Colin Evans to keep his head down, so his sister Joan never finds out.
That spy training has come in handy, Joe.
Great album Joe and I don’t really find any gak on here! lol By the way why did you have to admit publicly about us Evil Canadians? How are we supposed to take over the world when you ‘out’ us like that as everyone thinks were nice??
C’mon man thought we could trust you!!
By the way,
SORRY!
No, I’m sorry for outing the true evil that lurks behind all that politeness and maple syrup. Poor Keith, he hadn’t done anything wrong; well apart from all that illegal heroin stuff, obviously.
I only really like about four tracks on this – Miss You, Imagination, Beast, and Before They Make Me Run – but those tracks are super good.
No room for Whip on your version?
“I really like Some Girls, despite appearing 8 years into the 70’s it is the first time the Rolling Stones really sounded like a 70’s band to me, rather than a 60’s band operating in the 70’s.”
This had never come to me, but you are right! Nice observation. I like the album a lot, even Far Away Eyes, though I can obviously see why so many have a problem with that track.
I am a man of rare insight, tremendous wisdom and probably the most modest person on Earth Matt!
I can’t do Far Away Eyes, just can’t, but the rest of it can stay.
Not heard this but the three songs I know are all ace. So I might need to add this to the collection.
It’s well worth giving it a go. A couple of the CD bonus tracks would have actually improved the original LP too – not that I’ve just admitted to even knowing what a CD is.
Busted!
Haha, you said you like Busted!
The Cheap Trick album? Yes.
I ignored this album because I considered it too disco and by 1978, I was a full paid up member of the Death Before Disco club. I know better now. More proof of my insanity lies in the fact that I like “Girl With the Faraway Eyes.” I think the whole idea of the song was to take a rip at the emerging TV evangelists which were appearing a lot in the American South at the time.
I can just see you dressed up like Travolta.
I had a couple of silk shirts in the late 70s.
Nice!