In this song close up, we take a more detailed look at three Jagger-Richards

songs, all of which ultimately, ended up being recorded by the Rolling Stones.

The songs are, As Tears Go By, Heart of Stone, and The Last Time.

We start in our discussion, with As Tears Go By.

Now At the end of 1965 in the US, December of 1965,

The Rolling Stones have a number six hit with their version of

As Tears Go By backed with a song called Gotta Get Away.

But the song is initially released, first by Marianne Faithfull.

Now, Marianne Faithfull is an interesting character.

She was managed by Andrew Loog Oldham, and that's why Jagger and

Richards were writing the song for her, but she became Mick's significant other,

his girlfriend for much of the 1960's.

They had a very, very tight relationship, the two of them together.

Always seen together.

And so Marianne Faithfull plays an important role in

the big drug bust that we'll talk about in 1967, and all that.

So, you can see that there's already this kind of, a beginning of a relationship.

She's sort of coming into the Rolling Stone's circle anyway

her track was released in June of 1964.

And the Marianne Faithful version employs orchestral strings.

I'm going to make a big deal out of the fact that the stones version uses sort of

chamber strings, like a small kind of chamber group, kind of a string octet,

I think it is, on that recording.

Can't be sure but I think that's what it is.

But here, the Marianne Faithful version does employ strings,

but not those chamber strings.

It also employs orchestral woodwinds timpani, you can hear, I think,

in the background there, choral backup vocals, and a rock rhythm section.

So it doesn't make a clear reference to classical music,

the way the Rolling Stones version does.

It's really more the way those instruments are used as the way they typically

would've been used by somebody like Phil Specter for a wall of sound kind of thing.

It's a kind of a big backing, a big kind of pad or

a big kind of sonic backdrop behind the lead vocals.

But not with the particular emphasis on the classical music connection.

The form of the song in both, in both versions,

in both the Marianne Faithfull version from the first half of 65.

And the Stones version or the, the Marianne Faithful version from the middle

of 64, and the Stones version from the end of 65.

Both of them used the same form.

It's a simple verse form that starts with an intro, and then you get a verse,

a verse, a verse again, with the music play, with the melody done instrumentally.

A verse, and

then a coda which is essentially the verse material hummed as it goes out.

And so that Marianne Faithfull version is very much a kind of female singer,

middle of the road ballad kind of tune.

The lyrics deal well, they portray an elderly

person who watches children play and reflects on lost youth.

It's, I don't, I, when I, when I laugh about that,

I don't mean that there's anything funny about the topic.

It's just that Marianne Faithfull was You know, a teenager or

just barely out of her teenage years when she was singing this song.

And she's, she's mentioned in in, in interviews since that it was kind of

a little strange that she would be writing a song where she.

Or she'd be singing a song where she would be reflecting as an old person in

a park, you know?

Feeding the pigeons, watching the kids play and thinking about, you know,

wanting to have back those, those days of youth.

The one thing that I, I take out of those lyrics is that, you know,

we, we think about The Beatles are Yesterday or Eleanor Rigby or

some of those tunes where the lyrics start to get much more serious.

Here's a lyric where where Keith Richards and

Mick Jagger really sort of focus in on kind of a philosophical topic.

It's not about teen love.

It's not about sexual conquest or something like that.

It has kind of a philosophical lyric.

So, it's important and it's early.

It's early.

We're talking about a song that was released in June of 1964.

So, it must have been written at least a couple of months before that.

At least weeks before that.

So, it's pretty early for them to be dealing with a kind of a serious topic.

Well, there's the Marianne Faithful version.

What we hear in the Stone's version now is a version that sounds like

The Rolling Stones answer to Paul McCartney and The Beatles' Yesterday.

That is a kind of a song with a solo voice and an acoustic guitar and

chamber strings, just as Yesterday had been for The Beatles.

In fact, there are more Beatles connection.

The strings in in The Stones version of as tears go by,

are arranged by a guy by the name of Mike Leander.

Mike Leander would end up arranging the strings for

The Beatles' She's Leaving Home,

when George Martin was unavailable to do that arrangement.

Of course, Mike Leander arranged a lot of things in studios around London,

that's kind of what he, what he did.

So the, the thing is that the, the, the, the knock on, on As Tears Go By and

The Stones version, is they're just sort of, once again, imitating The Beatles.

But we have to realize that this song, As Tears Go By, was actually written and

done by Marianne Faithful before The Beatles had ever recorded Yesterday.

So in many ways, they may have been influenced by,

by the instrumentation of Yesterday.

But to, to write a song that was a little bit more serious with the lyrics and

kind of classical overtones and that, that's something that they did be,

before The Beatles did Yesterday.

So I think we need to give Jagger and Richards a credit for that.

Let's move on to the second song that i want to talk about here in this close up.

And that is the song, Heart of Stone.

One of these ones that was recorded in that first trip to RCA in November of 64.

Produced by Andrew Oldham and engineered by Dave Hassinger.

They'd done an earlier version at Regent Sound in July and August in 1964.

And that earlier version is kind of interest because many sources

say Jimmy Page played guitar in that earlier demo version.

If you want to hear the earlier demo version,

it's actually been released on the album Metamorphosis.

So there's a guitar solo in there, and the guitar solo is played by Jimmy Page.

It's seems to be true because Keith Richards was quoted as saying that

when they did their own version of it at RCA,

he basically copped Jimmy Page's solo, note for note.

There's another source that says that not only is Jimmy Page on that record, but

John McLaughlin is on that record, too.

John McLaughlin being the guy who was a kind of an R&B, jazz guitar player around

London in the 1960's, and then became a very famous jazz fusion guitarist.

So it's it's it's an interesting tune from that point of view.

Shows sort of how in the mix of other musicians,

The Rolling Stones were in London there.

The lyrics are the confessions of a man who breaks women's hearts.

He, of course, has a heart of stone.

But then he encounters a woman who confuses her,

him, because she seems to have a heart of stone, too.

And so then it becomes a kind of a competition between these two hearts

of stone.

And anyway, I'll let you, I'll let you listen to the lyrics and,

and think about that theme.

The form is a simple verse form.

It's an intro, followed by a verse, another verse, another verse, and a coda.

So, a pretty simple form.

What I hear in this song is a real strong country influence.

That's a drum, that's a drum I bang a lot with regard to The Rolling Stones.

The, the almost equal importance of country music to rhythm and

blues music and their, and their influences.

I hear a country influence, but if you listen to the demo recording,

you cannot argue against a country influence.

They have a pedal steel guitar playing in the background, and

the pedal steel guitar then takes a solo [LAUGH] during, during one of the versus.

So, I mean, it's like their putting emphasis on the,

on the pedal steel guitar in the demo version.

Now when they actually decide to release it,

I think they decide to crank the country element of it back a little bit.

But what they bring in with the released version

is something that's not in the demo version.

It's these little guitar hooks, that kind of hook the tune up.

Hook the verses up and stuff,

are done an octave lower on something that sounds to me like a baritone guitar.

A baritone guitar is a guitar that's tuned lower than a standard guitar but

not as low as a bass guitar.

And was pretty popular sort of in, sort of, surf guitar and

other kinds of sort of guitar-oriented music in the late 50s, early 1960s.

So they put the baritone guitar in and take the pedal steel guitar out.

But for me the important thing is to sort of is to,

is to point to the the, the various influences that you see in this tune.

And for me, you know,

there's a little bit of Chuck Berry in the fact that they're telling a story here.

This, it, wha and in fact, these, a lot of these Mick, Mick Jagger and

Keith Richards songs start to become sort of storyish, song story at this point.

And that, that feeds into the idea that they're getting more ambitious

about the lyrics.

The lyrics should say something.

They should go somewhere.

They should do something and so that's what they're, they're trying to do here

but you hear a little bit of Chuck Berry, you hear a little bit of country music.

You hear a little bit of guitar surf music sa, shadows, kind of thing going on here.

So it's a, it's a great sort of bringing together of a lot of things and

I think that demo really informs it, things a lot.

Well, we come to the, the third song that I want to focus on, The Last Time.

That song is backed with Play with Fire The Last Time was recorded in January and

February at De Lane Lea Studios in London.

Now that's that's a studio that, that the group had, had not used much.

I'm not quite sure why were, weren't at Regent, but then back at RCA they,

they kind of finished the song up with Dave Hassinger and Jack Nitzsche and the,

the whole gang there.

Both those songs were recorded together, The Last Time and Play With Fire.

Let me just say a word about the song, Play With Fire.

It's not a Jagger-Richards song.

I mentioned before, they had Jagger-Richards on both A sides and

B sides, Play with Fire is a Nanker Phelge.

It's given the whole group is given credit on, on that one.

But still, it's an original song from the Rolling Stones.

I hear a really strong folk influence in that one, but, what,

what to me is interesting is the classical harpsichord, that you hear in that.

And now you're starting to see those kinds of, of ways of ref,

referencing classical music is a way of not making the music ironic or

there's no sense of parody or anything there.

They're trying to make it a little classier and

give it some timbres that it hasn't had before.

And so for me I think that's noteworthy in Play with Fire,

but let's focus on The Last Time.

The last time a Jagger-Richards tong,

songs with with lyrics that address ending a relationship.

Now, what could the influences a song ending a relationship be?

There probably a lot of songs about ending relationships in rock music.

Most most immediately, there are a ki, kind of a str, string of

Beatles songs from about this time that, that deal with with ending relationships.

And maybe, also Bob Dylan's song Don't Think Twice, It's Alright.

Now that's, maybe in my case,

a kind of a subjective connection between these two songs.

The Bob Dylan song Don't Think Twice, It's Alright is maybe one of the most brilliant

kind of breakup songs ever, you know?

And on one hand, he keeps talking about all these things that

are wrong with the relationship and why he's leaving, but then he basically adds,

but don't think twice, it's all right.

Don't worry, it's going to be fine.

But he's leaving, you know?

He's walking down this, he's walking down the road.

Leaves in the middle of the morning.

Well, I, he like, before the sun comes up, he leaves in the middle of the night

before the sun comes up, because he doesn't want to face her as he walks out.

It, it's a great breakup song.

So maybe The Last Time is, the, the lyrics are are influenced by that.

But what's really important to point out about the last time

is it's almost exactly a gospel tune which was recorded by

The Staple Singers called This May Be The Last Time.

So, if you don't know that song, you've never heard the,

The Staple Singers' version, I urge you to go out on the Internet and

find find a copy of it that you can hear and you won't believe the similarity.

So is this just a Jagger and Richards kind of cribbing a tune?

Well, no.

They, they, they add a lot to it.

They don't, they just sort of grab the, the catch phrase, the chorus phrase,

this'll be the last time.

So it may be it's more in the manner of an Nanker Pheldge tune,

where they take a tune and base a new tune on it.

And in this case consider it their their own.

The form of the tune is a contrasting verse chorus.

So, we've got an intro, a verse, a chorus, a verse, a chorus,

a verse that's instrumental, and a chorus, a verse, a chorus.

And then it ends with the reintroduction of the guitar lick that began the intro,

and then they kind of vamp on that guitar lick at the end as,

as Mick sings to the fade out.

One last remark about, about The Last Time.

It kind of fits in with a pattern that you might call, you might call 1965,

The Year of the Guitar Hook.

This song starts out with that very identifiable guitar hook.

Right? And, in that way,

it's very similar to the song The Beatles had released in late 1964, I Feel Fine.

Then you get The Last Time.

Then you get The Beatles doing Ticket to Ride.

Then you get the guitar lick at the beginning of Satisfaction.

Then you get the guitar lick at the beginning of Day Tripper.

The Beatles will later do Paperback Writer, and so, there are all these,

sort of, tunes that have these, kind of, guitar lick, hook kinds of things.

And so, The Last Time sort of fits in with that.

Certainly, it's what connects The Last Time and Satisfaction to one another.

Although, the story of whether or not that first lick in Satisfaction should've

been a guitar lick or not is something we'll turn to in a future video this week.

For now, however, let's look at the second half of 1965,

Allen Klein and tour madness.

SCU: “As Tears Go By”, “Heart of Stone”, “The Last Time”

The Music of the Rolling Stones, 1962-1974

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