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Rating: Obsessed with drugs and sex, hounded day and night by intrusive journalists, the Rolling Stones experienced one of their most complex and difficult periods in the early seventies. Having emerged, not unscathed, from some major successes, "Beggars Banquet", "Let It Bleed", the Stones didn't seem capable of repeating exploits of such magnitude: they were more often in gossip magazines, reliable or not, than in record stores. It was Mick Jagger’s brazenness that was especially in crisis: stories of women scattered here and there, used as objects to be consumed and then discarded, stories of drugs consumed fleetingly in some motel, and inspiration, it was said, inevitably waning. And yet, as rarely happens in life but always in music, the dark period magically transforms into pure gold, pearls to sell to the highest bidder and extravagances as sublime as they are epoch-making. Thus was born, amid a thousand doubts and uncertainties, the greatest album by the Rolling Stones: "Sticky Fingers". The cover is already legendary: the (scandalous) zipper of Mick Jagger designed by the genius Andy Warhol. And the music, ladies and gentlemen, what music: blues rock that sends shivers down your spine, guitar riffs worthy of the best Keith Richards, grit, anger, a desire to amaze, but above all a strong willingness to play the game and respond to the many critiques directed at the group by journalists and critics.
"Yes, we use drugs," the Stones seem to want to say, and "Brown Sugar" and "Sister Morphine" are precisely the best examples of what it means to intelligently respond to critiques and provocations. But in reality, every track is flawless. It’s hard to think that certain songs could be equaled by other bands: "Sway" is a sorrowful ballad, at times even tragic, seasoned with absolutely excellent musical solos (strings, guitars, a drumming that gives you goosebumps); "Wild Horses" is the sweetest and most discreet piece of the entire album, and it’s perhaps one of the peaks of Rolling Stone poetry; and then so much, so much blues, "Can't You Hear Me Knocking", "I Got The Blues" and the folk of "Dead Flowers" (with a clear citation of Baudelaire). It’s impossible to choose the best track, it would be a pretentious and outdated game. What is certain is that "Sticky Fingers" possesses a rhythm and a capacity, almost tribal, to envelop and embrace you even after countless listens, all thanks to a perfect fusion of rock, blues, and folk, thanks to Mick Jagger's voice (rarely so sensual), the brilliance of Keith Richards, and the youthful maturity of Mick Taylor, who had already amply demonstrated, in "Let It Bleed", that he wasn't to make one miss the late Brian Jones too much. The perfection of "Sticky Fingers" is also due to the meticulousness with which the Stones created the album, setting up a series of musics and a long train of rebellious and scandalous lyrics (in comparison, the sexual allusions of "The Last Time" seem like mere child's play), and farsighted musical dedications, more or less hidden within the album (Gene Vincent, Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley), in honor of those who, rather than altering rock, practically invented it. It’s no coincidence that the last track of the album is the flamboyant "Moonlight Mile", a ballad suspended between Earth and Heaven, and a way to distance themselves from rock and approach Nirvana. But maybe the Stones never believed in anything, except themselves.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Brown Sugar (03:50)
Gold Coast slave ship bound for cotton fields
Sold in a market down in New Orleans
Scarred old slaver, know he's doing alright
Hear him whip the women just around midnight
Brown sugar, how come you taste so good?
Brown sugar, just like a young girl should, uh huh
Drums beating, cold English blood runs hot
Lady of the house wond'ring where it's gonna stop
House boy knows that he's doing alright
You shoulda heard him just around midnight
Brown sugar, how come you taste so good, now?
Brown sugar, just like a young girl should, now
Ah, get along
Brown sugar, how come you taste so good, babe?
Ah, got me feelin' now
Brown sugar, just like a black girl should, yeah
Now, I bet your mama was a tent show queen
And all her boyfriends were sweet sixteen
I'm no schoolboy, but I know what I like
You shoulda heard me just around midnight
Brown sugar, how come you taste so good, babe?
Ah, brown sugar, just like a young girl should, yeah
I said yeah, yeah, yeah, woo
How come you, how come you taste so good?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, woo
Just like a, just like a black girl should
Yeah, yeah, yeah, woo
02 Sway (03:52)
(M. Jagger/K. Richards)
Did you ever wake up to find
A day that broke up your mind
Destroyed your notion of circular time
It's just that demon life has got you in its sway
It's just that demon life has got you in its sway
Ain't flinging tears out on the dusty ground
For all my friends out on the burial ground
Can't stand the feeling getting so brought down
It's just that demon life has got me in its sway
It's just that demon life has got me in its sway
There must be ways to find out
Love is the way they say is really strutting out
Hey, hey, hey now
One day I woke up to find
Right in the bed next to mine
Someone that broke me up with a corner of her smile, yeah
It's just that demon life has got me in its sway
It's just that demon life has got me in its sway
It's just that demon life has got me in its sway
It's just that demon life has got me...
It's just that demon life has got me...
03 Wild Horses (05:43)
Childhood living is easy to do
The things you wanted I bought them for you
Graceless lady, you know who I am
You know I can't let you slide through my hands
Wild horses couldn't drag me away
Wild, wild horses, couldn't drag me away
I watched you suffer a dull aching pain
Now you decided to show me the same
No sweeping exits or offstage lines
Could make me feel bitter or treat you unkind
Wild horses couldn't drag me away
Wild, wild horses, couldn't drag me away
I know I dreamed you a sin and a lie
I have my freedom, but I don't have much time
Faith has been broken, tears must be cried
Let's do some living, after we die
Wild horses couldn't drag me away
Wild, wild horses, we'll ride them some day
Wild horses couldn't drag me away
Wild, wild horses, we'll ride them some day
04 Can't You Hear Me Knocking (07:15)
(M. Jagger/K. Richards)
Yeah, you got satin shoes
Yeah, you got plastic boots
Y'all got cocaine eyes
Yeah, you got speed-freak jive
Can't you hear me knockin' on your window
Can't you hear me knockin' on your door
Can't you hear me knockin' down your dirty street, yeah
Help me baby, ain't no stranger
Help me baby, ain't no stranger
Help me baby, ain't no stranger
Can't you hear me knockin', ahh, are you safe asleep?
Can't you hear me knockin', yeah, down the gas light street, now
Can't you hear me knockin', yeah, throw me down the keys
Alright now
Hear me ringing big bell tolls
Hear me singing soft and low
I've been begging on my knees
I've been kickin', help me please
Hear me prowlin'
I'm gonna take you down
Hear me growlin'
Yeah, I've got flatted feet now, now, now, now
Hear me howlin'
And all, all around your street now
Hear me knockin'
And all, all around your town
05 You Gotta Move (02:33)
(F. McDowell)
You gotta move
You gotta move
You gotta move, child
You gotta move
Oh, when the Lord gets ready
You gotta move
You may be high
You may be low
You may be rich, child
You may be poor
But when the Lord gets ready
You gotta move
You see that woman
Who walks the street
You see that police
Upon his beat
But then the Lord gets ready
You gotta move
You gotta move
06 Bitch (03:38)
(M. Jagger/K. Richards)
Feeling so tired, can't understand it
Just had a fortnight's sleep
I'm feeling so tired, I'm so distracted
Ain't touched a thing all week
I'm feeling drunk, juiced up and sloppy
Ain't touched a drink all night
I'm feeling hungry, can't see the reason
Just ate a horse meat pie
Yeah when you call my name
I salivate like a Pavlov dog
Yeah when you lay me out
My heart is beating louder than a big bass drum, alright
Yeah, you got to mix it child
You got to fix it must be love
It's a bitch
You got to mix it child
You got to fix it but love
It's a bitch, alright
Sometimes I'm sexy, move like a stud
Kicking the stall all night
Sometimes I'm so shy, got to be worked on
Don't have no bark or bite, alright
Yeah when you call my name
I salivate like a Pavlov dog
Yeah when you lay me out
My heart is bumpin' louder than a big bass drum, alright
I said hey, yeah I feel alright now
Got to be a...
Hey, I feel alright now
Hey hey hey
Hey hey yeah...
10 Moonlight Mile (05:55)
(M. Jagger/K. Richards)
When the wind blows and the rain feels cold
With a head full of snow
With a head full of snow
In the window there's a face you know
Don't the nights pass slow
Don't the nights pass slow
The sound of strangers sending nothing to my mind
Just another mad mad day on the road
I am just living to be dying by your side
But I'm just about a moonlight mile on down the road
Made a rag pile of my shiny clothes
Gonna warm my bones
Gonna warm my bones
I got silence on my radio
Let the air waves flow
Let the air waves flow
Oh I'm sleeping under strange strange skies
Just another mad mad day on the road
My dreams is fading down the railway line
I'm just about a moonlight mile down the road
I'm hiding sister and I'm dreaming
I'm riding down your moonlight mile
I'm hiding baby and I'm dreaming
I'm riding down your moonlight mile
I'm riding down you moonlight mile
Let it go now, come on up babe
Yeah, let it go now
Yeah, flow now baby
Yeah move on now yeah
Yeah, I'm coming home
'Cause, I'm just about a moonlight mile on down the road
Down the road, down the road
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Other reviews
By tiziocaio
The Stones take the 'banana' cover of the Velvet Underground album and give it their own interpretation in their style.
The entire album is enjoyable even in the car, and we know that combining enjoyment and quality doesn’t always happen.
By azzo
How much has it influenced the last thirty years of my life.
Rock 'n' roll, for me, is that 'One, two, three, four,' slurred, slow and endless from Jagger at the beginning of 'Sway'.
By bubaboop
"Just 'Sticky Fingers' would have been worth the thrill of living it in the 'moment.'"
"This classic big classic album... if you live for rock, this is a steak to savor bite by bite, leaving nothing on the plate."
By Giuseppe13
Sticky Fingers has (never) received the proper recognition, apart from the great initial success.
Mick Taylor represented the best guitar sound of the group, an incredibly underrated talent.
