The Rolling Stones "Rolled Gold+: The Very Best of the Rolling Stones (2007 edition)"

Rolled Gold: The Very Best of the Rolling Stones is a compilation album by The Rolling Stones released without the band's authorisation by its former label Decca Records in 1975. It is a double album that reached No. 7 on the UK chart and was a strong seller over the years.

In 2007, the original collection was expanded to 40 songs from the original's 28 tracks. Released in the UK on 12 November 2007, it is an expanded rerelease of the original 1975 collection which reached No. 7 on the UK chart.

The set debuted at No. 26 on the UK chart on 18 November 2007, and has sold over 125,000 copies so far according to Music Week.

The album is available in double CD, quadruple vinyl LP, and USB flash drive editions; the USB edition was the first album to be released in the UK in this format. It is also available via digital download. Cover design by Alex Trochut.

Revised track listing

All tracks are written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards except where noted.

Disc one

1. "Come On" Berry June 1963 1:49
2. "I Wanna Be Your Man" Lennon-McCartney November 1963 1:44
3. "Not Fade Away" Petty/Hardin February 1964 1:48
4. "Carol" Berry June 1964 1:48
5. "Tell Me" June 1964 3:49
6. "It's All Over Now" Womack/Womack June 1964 3:27
7. "Little Red Rooster" Dixon November 1964 3:07
8. "Heart of Stone" December 1964 2:51
9. "Time Is on My Side" Meade/Norman September 1964 2:59
10. "The Last Time" February 1965 3:42
11. "Play with Fire" Nanker Phelge February 1965 2:13
12. "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" May 1965 3:44
13. "Get Off of My Cloud" September 1965 2:55
14. "I'm Free" September 1965 2:24
15. "As Tears Go By" Jagger/Richards/Oldham December 1965 2:46
16. "Lady Jane" June 1966 3:09
17. "Paint It Black" May 1966 3:24
18. "Mother's Little Helper" July 1966 2:46
19. "19th Nervous Breakdown" February 1966 3:59
20. "Under My Thumb" April 1966 3:43
21. "Out of Time" April 1966 5:37
22. "Yesterday's Papers" January 1967 2:05
23. "Let's Spend the Night Together" January 1967 3:37
24. "Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow?" September 1966 2:34

Total length: 1:02:41

Disc two

1. "Ruby Tuesday" January 1967 3:15
2. "Dandelion" August 1967 3:32
3. "She's a Rainbow" December 1967 4:14
4. "We Love You" August 1967 4:24
5. "2000 Light Years from Home" December 1967 4:47
6. "Jumpin' Jack Flash" May 1968 3:43
7. "Street Fighting Man" August 1968 3:15
8. "Sympathy for the Devil" December 1968 6:20
9. "No Expectations" December 1968 3:56
10. "Let It Bleed" December 1969 5:28
11. "Midnight Rambler" December 1969 6:55
12. "Gimme Shelter" December 1969 4:33
13. "You Can't Always Get What You Want" December 1969 7:28
14. "Brown Sugar" April 1971 3:50
15. "Honky Tonk Women" July 1969 3:01
16. "Wild Horses" June 1971 5:42

Total length: 1:14:23

Songs that are on the 2007 collection, but were not on the 1975 collection are:

"Tell Me"

"Heart of Stone"

"Play with Fire"

"I'm Free"

"Mother's Little Helper"

"Dandelion"

"2000 Light Years from Home"

"No Expectations"

"Let It Bleed"

"You Can't Always Get What You Want"

"Brown Sugar"

"Wild Horses"

The Rolling Stones "Don't Stop (Single & Video)"

"Don't Stop" is a single by rock band the Rolling Stones featured on their 2002 compilation album Forty Licks.

Credited to singer Mick Jagger and guitarist Keith Richards, "Don't Stop" was largely the work of Jagger. Writing began during Jagger's preparations for his 2001 album Goddess in the Doorway. At the time of release, he commented, "For me, doing a solo album or a Stones album is all the same, with one proviso: that when I'm writing for the Rolling Stones I don't mind if the song sounds like the ones the Stones do, whereas if I'm writing, but not recording with the Rolling Stones, I don't want the song to contain too many of the clichés that one associates with the Rolling Stones, so I try quite hard to avoid them. Before the release of Forty Licks, I wrote 'Don't Stop' in the same period that I was writing the songs for my solo album, and I just put it to one side and said to myself, 'This sounds very much like the Rolling Stones to me. It might be very useful in the coming months, but I'll leave it for now and I won't record it because I think it's going to be better for the Stones.'"

A straightforward rocker featuring a trademark opening riff from Richards, "Don't Stop" tells of a rough love affair between the singer and his lover:

The way you bit my lip and you drew first blood

It warmed my cold, cold heart

And you wrote your name right on my back

Boy, your nails were sharp

Well I'm losing you, I know your heart is miles away

There's a whisper there where once there was a storm

And all that's left is that image that I've filed away

And some memories have tattered as they've torn

Recording began on "Don't Stop" in the early summer of 2002 at Guillaume Tell Studios, in Suresnes, France. On the recording, Richards said at the time, "['Don't Stop' is] basically all Mick. He had the song when we got to Paris to record. It was a matter of me finding the guitar licks to go behind the song, rather than it just chugging along. We don't see a lot of each other. I live in America, he lives in England. So when we get together, we see what ideas each has got: 'I'm stuck on the bridge.' 'Well, I have this bit that might work.' A lot of what Mick and I do is fixing and touching up, writing the song in bits, assembling it on the spot. In 'Don't Stop', my job was the fairy dust." With Jagger on lead vocals, both Richards and Ronnie Wood accompany on guitars. "Don't Stop" is one of the many later Stones songs to feature Jagger on rhythm guitar. Wood provides the two solos near the middle and at the end. Charlie Watts plays drums, Darryl Jones bass, and Chuck Leavell keyboards.

Released on 16 December 2002, "Don't Stop" reached number 36 on UK Top 75 Singles and number 21 on the 'Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. The song was performed heavily during the 2002–2003 Licks Tour in support of Forty Licks. The song was also included on Honk (album).

Track listing

1. "Don't Stop" (Edit) – 3:29
2. "Don't Stop" (New Rock Mix) – 4:00
3. "Miss You" (Remix) – 8:35

The Rolling Stones "Rain Fall Down (Single & Video)"

"Rain Fall Down" is a song from the Rolling Stones' 2005 album A Bigger Bang. It was released on 5 December 2005 as the second single from the album, reaching #33 in the UK, and currently remains their last top 40 hit in the UK. The single also reached #21 on Billboard's Hot Dance Club Play chart on February 2006.

Track listing

7" VS1907, CD VSCDX1907

1. "Rain Fall Down" – 4:54
2. "Rain Fall Down" (will.i.am Remix)
3. "Rain Fall Down" (Ashley Beedle's 'Heavy Disco' Vocal Re-Edit)

CD VSCDX1907 0094634858021 (Netherlands)

1. "Rain Fall Down" (will.i.am Remix) – 4:04
2. "Rain Fall Down" (Radio Edit) – 4:00
3. "Rain Fall Down" (Ashley Beedle's 'Heavy Disco' Radio Edit) – 4:04

12" VST1907

1. "Rain Fall Down" (will.i.am Remix)
2. "Rain Fall Down" (Ashley Beedle's 'Heavy Disco' Vocal Re-Edit)

The Rolling Stones "Anybody Seen My Baby? (Single & Video)"

"Anybody Seen My Baby?" is a song by the English rock band the Rolling Stones featured on their 1997 album Bridges to Babylon. It peaked at number 22 on the UK Singles Chart to become the band's 38th top-forty hit in their home country. The song was more successful abroad, topping the RPM Top Singles chart in Canada and reaching the top 20 in several European countries, including Hungary and Spain. In the United States it peaked at number three on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart.

Written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, the song also carries writing credits for k.d. lang and Ben Mink. The song is known for its chorus, which sounds strikingly similar to lang's 1992 hit song "Constant Craving". Jagger and Richards claimed to have never heard the song before, only having discovered the similarity prior to the Stones' release. As Richards reported in his autobiography Life, "My daughter Angela and a friend were at Redlands and I was playing the record and they start singing this totally different song over it. They were listening to k.d. lang's 'Constant Craving.' It was Angela and her friend that recognized it." The two gave Lang credit, along with her co-writer Mink. Lang said she was "completely honored and flattered" by receiving the songwriting credit.

Coincidentally, "Has Anybody Seen My Baby" is reported to have been the title of a song written and recorded by Brian Jones after leaving the Rolling Stones. "Anybody Seen My Baby?" would go on to be the only track from Bridges to Babylon to appear on the Stones' 2002 career retrospective Forty Licks.

"Anybody Seen My Baby?" features wide-ranging inspirations, including sampling of hip-hop artist Biz Markie, making it the only song by The Rolling Stones to include sampling. Bass and keyboards on the song are performed by Jamie Muhoberac. Waddy Wachtel plays acoustic guitar and Jagger, Richards, and Wachtel play electric guitars. The song has a distinctive R&B feel, driven by Muhoberac's bass.

The song was a worldwide hit in 1997, reaching the top 20 in several Europe countries, number one on Canada's Top Singles and Alternative 30 charts, and number three on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Tracks chart in the United States.

The music video is perhaps best remembered for featuring Angelina Jolie. She appears as a stripper who leaves mid-performance to wander New York City.

The Rolling Stones "You Got Me Rocking (Single & Video)"

"You Got Me Rocking" is a song by the English rock and roll band The Rolling Stones, on their 1994 album Voodoo Lounge.

Begun early in 1993, "You Got Me Rocking" was initially a blues flavoured number; bootlegs have Jagger and Richards working the song as a slower, blues flavoured ramble, with Jagger shouting the hook "you got me rocking". Changed to a straightforward rocker in the vein of "Start Me Up", the song quickly evolved into a powerful rock single as Richards made the transition from piano to guitar. The lyrics moved to a more upbeat tone, as singer Mick Jagger presents redemption from a series of career ending instances of various professionals:

I was a hooker losing her looks; I was a writer can't write another book;

I was all dried up dying to get wet; I was a tycoon drowning in debt.

The lyrics can be interpreted as an answer to the Rolling Stones' critics, who often deride the band for their advancing age. Recording on "You Got Me Rocking" lasted from mid-summer to early winter 1993, when final touches were put on. The song was released as a single in the UK in September 1994, where it reached No. 23. It was also released as a single in the US but reached only No. 113 in 1995.

The B-side is the little-known "Jump on Top of Me" which also appears on the soundtrack to Prêt-à-Porter. "You Got Me Rocking" appeared on the soundtrack to The Replacements in 2000.

"You Got Me Rocking" is notable as it remains one of the Stones' most enduring live songs, a rarity for a late-career song. The song was performed some fifty times during the 2005–2006 A Bigger Bang Tour.

A recording from the 1997–1998 Bridges to Babylon Tour opened the 1998 live album No Security. It was also included on the Stones' 2002 career retrospective, Forty Licks.

Track listing

7" VS1518

1. "You Got Me Rocking"
2. "Jump on Top of Me"

Cassette VSC1518

1. "You Got Me Rocking"
2. "Jump on Top of Me"

CD VSCDE1518

1. "You Got Me Rocking"
2. "Jump on Top of Me"

CD VSCDT1518

1. "You Got Me Rocking"
2. "Jump on Top of Me"
3. "You Got Me Rocking" (Perfecto Mix)
4. "You Got Me Rocking" (Sexy Disco Dub Mix)

CD VSCDG1518 - digipak

1. "You Got Me Rocking"
2. "Jump on Top of Me"
3. "You Got Me Rocking" (Perfecto Mix)
4. "You Got Me Rocking" (Sexy Disco Dub Mix)

The Rolling Stones "Love Is Strong (Single & Video)"

"Love Is Strong" is the opening track, and first single, by The Rolling Stones from their 1994 album Voodoo Lounge. It was moderately successful worldwide, peaking at No. 14 in the band's native United Kingdom and No. 2 in Canada and Finland but stalling at No. 91 on the US Billboard Hot 100. Despite this, it peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Album Rock Tracks chart.

Written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, "Love Is Strong" is a brooding number about an encounter between the singer and an unnamed person which leads the singer to a "love/lust at first sight" immediate attraction and longing for the couple to unite despite the obstacles.

Your love is strong and you're so sweet;

You make me hard, you make me weak;

Love is strong and you're so sweet,

And some day, baby, we've got to meet...

What are you scared of, baby?; It's more than just a dream;

I need some time; We make a beautiful team...

The song was written in Ireland by Richards and originally had the name "Love is Strange". Popular bootlegs of the sessions abound, as Ron Wood, Richards, Ivan Neville and producer Don Was worked the song while Jagger was supporting his record Wandering Spirit. Later takes have Richards changing the title to "Love is Strong"; although the final release was significantly altered by Jagger's added lyrics and use of a harmonica, a trademark instrument for him rarely utilized in the Stones' middle period work. Jagger said at the time of its release, "We ran through it a bunch of times and I was playing harmonica, and I started singing through the harmonica mike, so you get this strange sort of sound. And then I started singing down an octave, so you get this kind of breathy, sexy tone... It was good to put harmonica on a track like this. You always think of playing it on a 12-bar blues, and it's kind of fun to put it on one which isn't. It's good to work with another sequence."

Recording began in September, 1993 at Wood's home studio in Ireland and continued at A&M Recording Studios in Los Angeles in 1994.

Released as the first single from the album, "Love Is Strong" performed below expectations, barely making it into the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in the US. It became the lowest charting first single ever by the band and marked a change in the composition of the singles chart as well as the Stones role on it. Despite this, the song remains one of the band's well-known songs from the 1990s. Five years earlier "Mixed Emotions" was a Top 5 pop chart single. Considerable promotional expense was spent on the Voodoo Lounge CD release, as it was the first on Virgin Records, including a popular music video directed by David Fincher and edited by Robert Duffy at Spot Welders; the black and white video shows giant versions of the Stones, as well as a few residents locked in romantic embraces, rambling about New York City.

The single's weaker-than-expected lead dampened CD sales, despite positive critical reviews and a Grammy Award win for Best Short Form Music Video. In time, the track proved popular in Europe going to No. 14 in the UK and received significant airplay in the US, but only peaked at No. 91 on the Billboard Hot 100. The commercial response in Canada was considerably stronger, where the song reached No. 2 on the RPM Singles Chart on 19 September 1994, behind "You Better Wait" by Journey frontman Steve Perry.

The Rolling Stones performed the song at the 1994 MTV Video Music Awards. Although it had disappeared from several recent concert tours setlists in favour of the more live friendly "You Got Me Rocking" (the follow-up single from Voodoo Lounge), the Stones reintroduced "Love Is Strong" to their A Bigger Bang Tour setlist on 22 July 2007 at their Brno, Czech Republic show and at their Hamburg show in August.

It was included on their 2002 career compilation album Forty Licks.

Track listing

7" single (VS1503)

1. "Love Is Strong" (Album Version)
2. "The Storm"

Cassette single (VSC1503)

1. "Love Is Strong" (Album Version)
2. "The Storm"

US cassette single (4 km 38446)

1. "Love Is Strong" (Album Version)
2. "The Storm"
3. "Love Is Strong" (Teddy Riley Extended Remix)

CD single (VSCDE1503)

1. "Love Is Strong" (Album Version)
2. "The Storm"

CD – "Special Collectors" edition (VSCDT1503)

1. "Love Is Strong" (Album Version)
2. "The Storm"
3. "So Young"
4. "Love is Strong" (Bob Clearmountain Remix)

CD – remix edition (VSCDX1503)

1. "Love Is Strong" (Teddy Riley Radio Remix)
2. "Love Is Strong" (Teddy Riley Extended Remix)
3. "Love Is Strong" (Teddy Riley Extended Rock Remix)
4. "Love Is Strong" (Teddy Riley Dub Remix)
5. "Love Is Strong" (Joe The Butcher Club Remix)
6. "Love Is Strong" (Teddy Riley Instrumental)

The Rolling Stones "Hang Fire (Single &Video)"

"Hang Fire" is a song by rock and roll band The Rolling Stones from their 1981 album Tattoo You.

Written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, "Hang Fire" is a fast-paced, up-tempo rock and roll track, which belies the happy beat with sharp, satirical lyrics directed squarely at England's economic decline through the 1970s.

In the sweet old country where I come from, Nobody ever works, Yeah nothing gets done/We hang fire, we hang fire.

The lyrics lament an unemployed working class Englishman who would rather bet the horses than try to marry into the upper class, the only way to get ahead in English society.

You know marrying money is a full time job/I don't need the aggravation/I'm a lazy slob.

The song is one of the few times the band wrote an overtly political song, and it is notable that it was never released as a single in England, even though the band was touring Europe during the single's North American release. The lyrical irony and commentary on English society harks back to some of the group's more socially contentious songs of the sixties such as "Mother's Little Helper", "19th Nervous Breakdown" and "Street Fighting Man".

Richards was asked about the track in a 1981 Rolling Stone magazine interview where he admits the track relates to England and the "ugly politicians" who had caused the country to decline when the "money got tight".

The title expression "hang fire" (by formal definition) means to do nothing, to delay, wait, hold back, or hesitate. The phrase originally denoted the instance when a gun, using an antique type of ignition such as percussion cap, or flintlock, would fail or markedly delay to fire when the trigger was pulled.

"Hang Fire" was first written and recorded during the Some Girls sessions in Paris. Released as the third single from Tattoo You, the song became a radio hit in the US, where it reached No. 20 on the singles chart. The song was played heavily on the Stones' tours of 1981 and 1982, but has been played scarcely since. Its B-side, "Neighbours", would become an airplay hit and a video was also made for the song.

"Hang Fire" is heard in edited form in the 2010 movie The Bounty Hunter.

The Rolling Stones "Miss You (Single & Video)"

"Miss You" is a song written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. It was released as a single by the Rolling Stones on Rolling Stones Records in May 1978, one month in advance of their album Some Girls, and peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and number three on the UK Singles Chart. An extended version, called the "Special Disco Version", was released as the band's first dance remix on a 12-inch single.

"Miss You" was written by Mick Jagger jamming with keyboardist Billy Preston during rehearsals for the March 1977 El Mocambo club gigs, recordings from which appeared on side three of double live album Love You Live (1977). Keith Richards is credited as co-writer as was the case for all Rolling Stones originals written by either partner or in tandem.

Jagger and Ronnie Wood insist that "Miss You" wasn't conceived as a disco song, while Richards said, "'Miss You' was a damn good disco record; it was calculated to be one." In any case, what was going on in discotheques did make it to the recording. Charlie Watts said, "A lot of those songs like 'Miss You' on 'Some Girls' ... were heavily influenced by going to the discos. You can hear it in a lot of those four-to-the-floor and the Philadelphia-style drumming."

For the bass part, Bill Wyman started from Preston's bass guitar on the song demo. Chris Kimsey, who engineered the recording, said Wyman went "to quite a few clubs before he got that bass line sorted out", which Kimsey said "made that song".[6] Wyman recalled: "When I did the riff for 'Miss You' – which made the song, and every band in the world copied it for the next year: Rod Stewart, all of them – it still said Jagger/Richard. When I wrote the riff for 'Jumpin' Jack Flash', it became Jagger/Richard, and that's the way it was. It just became part and parcel of the way the band functioned."

Unlike most of Some Girls, "Miss You" features several studio musicians. In addition to Sugar Blue who, according to Wood, was found by Jagger busking on the streets of Paris,[8] Ian McLagan plays understated Wurlitzer electric piano, and Mel Collins provides the tenor saxophone solo for the instrumental break.

The 12-inch single version of the song runs over eight minutes and features additional instrumentation and solos, particularly on guitar. It was remixed by Bob Clearmountain, then an up-and-coming mixer and engineer. This song, the first edit the Stones did for a 12-inch single, also contains tape repeats and an additional set of lyrics in the second verse, after the line "Hey, let's go mess and fool around you know, like we used to". The extended version can be found on the "Don't Stop" CD single and in edited form on the album Rarities 1971–2003 and on the 1990 CD single version of "Angie".

"Miss You" became the Rolling Stones' eighth and final number one hit in the United States on its initial release in 1978. It hit the top on 5 August 1978, ending the seven-week reign of "Shadow Dancing" by Andy Gibb. It also reached number three in the United Kingdom. The song was originally nearly nine minutes long, but was edited to nearly five minutes for the album version, and to three-and-a-half minutes for the radio single. In order to properly edit the radio single without audible bumps and glitches, a separate mix was constructed and then edited for continuity. The B-side of the single was another album track, "Far Away Eyes", a tongue-in-cheek country tune sung by Jagger in a pronounced drawl.

A live recording was captured during the Rolling Stones' 1989-1990 Steel Wheels/Urban Jungle Tour and released on the 1991 live album Flashpoint. Other live versions have been recorded and/or filmed, including a November 1981 performance included on Let's Spend the Night Together (1983), July 1995 performances released on Totally Stripped (2016), a July 2013 performance on Hyde Park Live, and a March 2016 performance included as a bonus track on Havana Moon.

In 2010, Rolling Stone magazine rated "Miss You" number 498 in its list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

The Rolling Stones "It's Only Rock 'n Roll (But I Like It) (Single & Video)"

"It's Only Rock 'n Roll (But I Like It)" is the lead single from English rock band the Rolling Stones' 1974 album It's Only Rock 'n Roll. Writing is credited to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and the single reached the top ten in the UK charts and top 20 in the United States.

Recorded in late 1973 and completed in the spring of 1974, "It's Only Rock 'n Roll (But I Like It)" is credited to the Rolling Stones songwriting team Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, although future Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood collaborated with Jagger on it. The song was originally recorded one night in a studio at Wood's house, "The Wick" in Richmond, London. David Bowie was backing singer to Jagger's lead, and Willie Weeks played bass with Kenney Jones on drums. The song on the album is similar to that original recording, with the Stones keeping the original rhythm track.

The meaning of the lyrics was summed up by Jagger in the liner notes to the 1993 compilation Jump Back; "The idea of the song has to do with our public persona at the time. I was getting a bit tired of people having a go, all that, 'oh, it's not as good as their last one' business. The single sleeve had a picture of me with a pen digging into me as if it were a sword. It was a lighthearted, anti-journalistic sort of thing."

If I could stick my pen in my heart, And spill it all over the stage;

Would it satisfy ya, would it slide on by ya, Would you think the boy is strange? Ain't he strange?

If I could win ya, if I could sing ya, a love song so divine,

Would it be enough for your cheatin' heart, If I broke down and cried? If I cried?

I said I know it's only rock 'n roll but I like it

Jagger also has said that as soon as he wrote it, he knew it was going to be a single. He said it was his answer to everyone who took seriously what he or the band did. According to Richards there was opposition to it being a single but they persisted, saying it had to be the next single. He said that to him "that song is a classic. The title alone is a classic and that's the whole thing about it."

The song was promoted by a music video directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, showing the band dressed in sailor suits and playing in a tent which eventually fills with bubbles. This video was one of Mick Taylor's last appearances as a member of the band as he decided to leave in December 1974. Ronnie Wood, who does not appear in the video, played acoustic guitar on the recording, alongside Keith Richards on electric guitar.

The froth was detergent and, according to Richards, the idea for the sailor suits came about at the last minute because none of the members wanted to get their own wardrobe ruined. Jagger said the entire filming process was "most unpleasant" and was also extremely lengthy. The cameras and lights could not be inside the tent for fear of electrocution. Because of this risk, in order for the video to be filmed at all, the band had to be insured for quite a reasonable sum. Richards is quoted as saying: "Poor old Charlie (Watts) nearly drowned... because we forgot he was sitting down."

Released in July 1974, "It's Only Rock 'n Roll (But I Like It)" reached number sixteen in the United States and number ten on the UK Singles Chart. The B-side was the ballad "Through the Lonely Nights", which was not featured on any album until the 2005 compilation Rarities 1971-2003.

The Rolling Stones regularly perform the song in concert, although in a different key from the studio recording: on their concert albums Love You Live (1977) and Live Licks (2004), the song is in B, whereas the studio track is in E. According to Richards, the song was recorded in the wrong key, but they did not realise this until they played it live.

The Rolling Stones "Sympathy For The Devil (Single & Video)"

"Sympathy for the Devil" is a song by English rock band the Rolling Stones, written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. It is the opening track on their 1968 album Beggars Banquet.

It is considered one of the best songs of the popular music era, and it is ranked number 32 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list. It is also the 14th best ranked song on critics' all-time lists according to Acclaimed Music.

"Sympathy for the Devil" is credited to Jagger and Richards, though the song was largely a Jagger composition. The working title of the song was "The Devil Is My Name", having earlier been called "Fallen Angels". Jagger sings in first person narrative as the Devil, boasting his role in each of several historical atrocities. The singer then ironically demands our courtesy towards him, implicitly chastising the listener for our collective culpability in the listed killings and crimes. In the 2012 documentary Crossfire Hurricane, Jagger stated that his influence for the song came from Baudelaire and from the Russian author Mikhail Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita (which had just appeared in English translation in 1967). The book was given to Jagger by Marianne Faithfull and she confirmed the inspiration in an interview with Sylvie Simmons from the magazine Mojo in 2005.

In a 1995 interview with Rolling Stone, Jagger said, "..that was taken from an old idea of Baudelaire's, I think, but I could be wrong. Sometimes when I look at my Baudelaire books, I can't see it in there. But it was an idea I got from French writing. And I just took a couple of lines and expanded on it. I wrote it as sort of like a Bob Dylan song." It was Richards who suggested changing the tempo and using additional percussion, turning the folk song into a samba.

Furthermore, Jagger stated in the Rolling Stone interview: "it's a very long historical figure — the figures of evil and figures of good — so it is a tremendously long trail he's made as personified in this piece." By the time Beggars Banquet was released, the Rolling Stones had already raised some hackles for sexually forward lyrics such as "Let's Spend the Night Together", and their cover of the Willie Dixon's blues "I Just Want to Make Love to You" etc. There were also claims they had dabbled in Satanism (their previous album, while containing no direct Satanic references in its music or lyrics, was titled Their Satanic Majesties Request). "Sympathy" brought these concerns to the fore, provoking media rumours and fears among some religious groups that the Stones were devil worshippers and a corrupting influence on youth.

The lyrics focus on atrocities in mankind's history from Satan's point of view including the trial and death of Jesus Christ ("Made damn sure that Pilate washed his hands to seal his fate"), European wars of religion ("I watched with glee while your kings and queens fought for ten decades for the gods they made"), the violence of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the 1918 execution of the Romanov family during World War I ("I stuck around St. Petersburg when I saw it was a time for a change/Killed the Tsar and his ministers/Anastasia screamed in vain"), and World War II ("I rode a tank, held a general's rank when the blitzkrieg raged, and the bodies stank"). The song was originally written with the line "I shouted out 'Who killed Kennedy?'" After Robert F. Kennedy's death on 6 June 1968, the line was changed to "Who killed the Kennedys?". And the answer is "when after all it was you and me", which is a way of saying that "the devil is not the other one, but eventually each one of us."

The song may have been spared further controversy when the first single from the album, "Street Fighting Man", became even more controversial in view of the race riots and student protests occurring in many cities in Europe and in the United States.

The recording of "Sympathy for the Devil" began at London's Olympic Sound Studios on 4 June 1968 and continued into the next day; overdubs were done on 8, 9 and 10 June. Personnel included on the recording include Nicky Hopkins on piano, Rocky Dijon on congas and Bill Wyman on maracas. Marianne Faithfull, Anita Pallenberg, Brian Jones, Charlie Watts, producer Jimmy Miller, Wyman and Richards performed backup vocals, singing the "woo woos". Richards plays bass on the original recording, and also electric guitar. Brian Jones plays a mostly mixed out acoustic guitar, although in isolated tracks of the studio cut, it is audible playing along with the piano.

In the 2003 book According to the Rolling Stones, Watts commented:

"Sympathy" was one of those sort of songs where we tried everything. The first time I ever heard the song was when Mick was playing it at the front door of a house I lived in in Sussex ... he played it entirely on his own ... and it was fantastic. We had a go at loads of different ways of playing it; in the end I just played a jazz Latin feel in the style that Kenny Clarke would have played on "A Night in Tunisia" – not the actual rhythm he played, but the same styling.

On the overall power of the song, Jagger continued in Rolling Stone:

It has a very hypnotic groove, a samba, which has a tremendous hypnotic power, rather like good dance music. It doesn't speed up or slow down. It keeps this constant groove. Plus, the actual samba rhythm is a great one to sing on, but it's also got some other suggestions in it, an undercurrent of being primitive—because it is a primitive African, South American, Afro-whatever-you-call-that rhythm (candomblé). So to white people, it has a very sinister thing about it. But forgetting the cultural colors, it is a very good vehicle for producing a powerful piece. It becomes less pretentious because it's a very unpretentious groove. If it had been done as a ballad, it wouldn't have been as good.

The backing "who who-woo-woo' vocals, which helped to make the song's sound stand out, came about by accident thanks to Jimmy Miller and Anita Pallenberg. Pallenberg was in the engineering booth with Miller while Jagger was belting out an early vocal take of the song. According to Pallenberg, Miller was half talking to himself as Jagger sang, saying stuff like "Come on Mick, give it your all, who are you singing about? - Who, who?" He then repeated "Who who" several times after that as Jagger sang on, and Pallenberg realized how wonderful that all sounded. After the take, she told Jagger what transpired in the booth and suggested that "who who" be used in the song as a backing vocal chant. The Stones then gave it a go and after the first take, 'Who who" became "woo-woo", with most of this caught on film by director Jean-Luc Godard for his One Plus One (aka Sympathy for the Devil) movie.

In an interview with Creem, Jagger said, "[When people started taking us as devil worshippers], I thought it was a really odd thing, because it was only one song, after all. It wasn't like it was a whole album, with lots of occult signs on the back. People seemed to embrace the image so readily, [and] it has carried all the way over into heavy metal bands today. Some people have made a living out of doing this; for example, Jimmy Page."

Of the change in public perception the band experienced after the song's release, Richards said in a 1971 interview with Rolling Stone, "Before, we were just innocent kids out for a good time, they're saying, 'They're evil, they're evil.' Oh, I'm evil, really? So that makes you start thinking about evil ... What is evil? Half of it, I don't know how many people think of Mick as the devil or as just a good rock performer or what? There are black magicians who think we are acting as unknown agents of Lucifer and others who think we are Lucifer. Everybody's Lucifer."

Hunter S. Thompson and his attorney Oscar Zeta Acosta kept replaying the song hundreds of times during their drug-induced Chevy ride to Las Vegas in 1971 in order to maintain focus whilst high on class A drugs. In Thompson’s novel, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and the film of the same name, the song is referenced several times.

Contrary to a widespread misconception, it was "Under My Thumb" and not "Sympathy for the Devil" that the Stones were performing when Meredith Hunter was killed at the Altamont Free Concert. Rolling Stone magazine's early articles on the incident typically misreported that the killing took place during "Sympathy for the Devil", but the Stones in fact played "Sympathy for the Devil" earlier in the concert; it was interrupted by a fight and restarted, Jagger commenting, "We're always having—something very funny happens when we start that number." Several other songs were performed before Hunter was killed.

The Rolling Stones "Gimme Shelter (Video)"

"Gimme Shelter" is the opening track to the 1969 album Let It Bleed by the Rolling Stones. Greil Marcus, writing in Rolling Stone magazine at the time of its release, praised the song, stating that the band has "never done anything better".

Although the first word was spelled "Gimmie" on that album, subsequent recordings by the band and other musicians have made "Gimme" the customary spelling.

It is on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list, and is also the 33rd best ranked song on critics' all-time lists according to Acclaimed Music.

"Gimme Shelter" was written by the Rolling Stones' lead vocalist Mick Jagger and guitarist Keith Richards, the band's primary songwriting team. Richards began working on the song's signature opening riff in London whilst Jagger was away filming Performance with Richards' then-girlfriend, Anita Pallenberg. In his autobiography Life, Richards revealed that the tension of the song was inspired by his jealousy at seeing the relationship between Pallenberg and Jagger, and his suspicions of an affair between them.

As released, the song begins with Richards performing a guitar intro, soon joined by Jagger's lead vocal. Of Let It Bleed's bleak world view, Jagger said in a 1995 interview with Rolling Stone magazine:

Well, it's a very rough, very violent era. The Vietnam War. Violence on the screens, pillage and burning. And Vietnam was not war as we knew it in the conventional sense. The thing about Vietnam was that it wasn't like World War II, and it wasn't like Korea, and it wasn't like the Gulf War. It was a real nasty war, and people didn't like it. People objected, and people didn't want to fight it ... That's a kind of end-of-the-world song, really. It's apocalypse; the whole record's like that.

Similarly, on NPR in 2012:

It was a very moody piece about the world closing in on you a bit ... When it was recorded, early '69 or something, it was a time of war and tension, so that's reflected in this tune. It's still wheeled out when big storms happen, as they did the other week [during Hurricane Sandy]. It's been used a lot to evoke natural disaster.

However, the song's inspiration was not initially Vietnam or social unrest, but Keith Richards seeing people scurrying for shelter from a sudden rain storm. According to him:

I had been sitting by the window of my friend Robert Fraser's apartment on Mount Street in London with an acoustic guitar when suddenly the sky went completely black and an incredible monsoon came down. It was just people running about looking for shelter – that was the germ of the idea. We went further into it until it became, you know, rape and murder are 'just a shot away'.

The recording features guest vocals by Merry Clayton, recorded at a last-minute late-night recording session during the mixing phase, arranged by her friend and record producer Jack Nitzsche. After the first verse is sung by Jagger, Merry Clayton enters and they share the next three verses. A harmonica solo by Jagger and guitar solo by Richards follow. Then, with great energy, Clayton repeatedly sings "Rape, murder! It's just a shot away! It's just a shot away!", almost screaming the final stanza. She and Jagger then repeat the line "It's just a shot away" and finish with repeats of "It's just a kiss away". When speaking of her inclusion in the recording, Jagger stated in the 2003 book According to the Rolling Stones that the Rolling Stones' producer Jimmy Miller thought of having a female singer on the track and told fellow producer Jack Nitzsche to contact one: "The use of the female voice was the producer's idea. It would be one of those moments along the lines of 'I hear a girl on this track - get one on the phone.'" Summoned from bed around midnight by Nitzsche, Clayton - heavily pregnant - made her recording with just a few takes and then returned home to bed. It remains the most prominent contribution to a Rolling Stones track by a female vocalist.

At about 2:59 into the song, Clayton's voice cracks under the strain; once during the second refrain on the word "shot", then on the word "murder" during the third refrain, after which Jagger is faintly heard exclaiming "Woo!" in response to Clayton's powerful delivery. Upon returning home, Clayton suffered a miscarriage, attributed by some sources to her exertions during the recording.

Merry Clayton's name was erroneously written on the original release, appearing as 'Mary'. Her name is also listed as 'Mary' on the 2002 Let It Bleed remastered CD.

The song was recorded in London at Olympic Studios in February and March 1969; the vocals were recorded in Los Angeles at Sunset Sound Recorders and Elektra Studios in October and November that same year. Nicky Hopkins played piano, Jimmy Miller played percussion, Charlie Watts played drums, Bill Wyman played bass, Jagger played harmonica and sang backup vocals with Richards and Clayton. Guitarist Brian Jones was present during the early sessions but did not contribute, Richards being credited with both rhythm and lead guitars on the album sleeve. For the recording, Richards used an Australian-made Maton SE777, a large single-cutaway hollowbody guitar, which he had previously used on "Midnight Rambler". The guitar barely survived the recording before literally falling apart. "[O]n the very last note of 'Gimmie Shelter,'" Richards told Guitar World in 2002, "the whole neck fell off. You can hear it on the original take."

"Gimme Shelter" quickly became a staple of the Rolling Stones' live shows. It was first performed sporadically during their 1969 American Tour and became a regular addition to their setlist during the 1972 American Tour. A version recorded in Oakland, CA is on the bootleg Live'r Than You'll Ever Be. Other concert versions appear on the Stones' albums No Security (recorded 1997, released 1998), Live Licks (recorded 2003, released 2004), Brussels Affair (recorded 1973, released 2011), and Hyde Park Live (2013). A May 1995 performance recorded at Paradiso (Amsterdam) was released on the 1996 "Wild Horses" (live) single, on the 1998 "Saint of Me" single (included in the 45-CD 2011 box set The Singles 1971–2006), and again on Totally Stripped in 2016.

The song appeared in Ladies and Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones, a film of the Stones' 1972 North American Tour, as well as on its 2010 official DVD release. It is also featured on the concert DVD/Blu-ray sets Bridges to Babylon Tour '97–98 (1998), Four Flicks (2003), The Biggest Bang (2007), Sweet Summer Sun: Hyde Park Live (2013), Totally Stripped (2016), and Havana Moon (2016).

The female contributor to the song live is Lisa Fischer, the only woman to appear in all their tours since 1989.

In their 2012 50th anniversary tour, the Rolling Stones sang this song with Mary J. Blige,Florence Welch, and Lady Gaga.

"Gimme Shelter" was never released as a single. Nevertheless, it has been included on many compilation releases, including Gimme Shelter, Hot Rocks 1964–1971, Forty Licks, and GRRR!

French filmmaker Michel Gondry directed a music video for the song, which was released in 1998. The video features a sixteen-year old Brad Renfro, playing a young man escaping with his brother from a dysfunctional home and the abuse they suffered at the hands of their abusive alcoholic father, and then from society as a whole.

The Rolling Stones "Honky Tonk Women (Single & Video)"

"Honky Tonk Women" is a 1969 hit song by the Rolling Stones. It was a single-only release, available from 4 July 1969 in the United Kingdom, and a week later in the United States (although a country version called "Country Honk" was later included on the album Let It Bleed). It topped the charts in both nations. The song is on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list, and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

The song was written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards while on holiday in Brazil from late December 1968 to early January 1969, inspired by Brazilian "caipiras" (inhabitants of rural, remote areas of parts of Brazil) at the ranch where Jagger and Richards were staying in Matão, São Paulo. Two versions of the song were recorded by the band: the familiar hit which appeared on the 45 single and their collection of late 1960s singles, Through the Past, Darkly (Big Hits Vol. 2); and a honky-tonk version entitled "Country Honk" with slightly different lyrics, which appeared on Let It Bleed (1969).

Thematically, a "honky tonk woman" refers to a dancing girl in a western bar who may work as a prostitute; the setting for the narrative in the first verse of the rock-and-roll version is Memphis, Tennessee: "I met a gin soaked bar-room queen in Memphis", while "Country Honk" sets the first verse in Jackson, Mississippi: "I'm sittin' in a bar, tipplin' a jar in Jackson".

The band initially recorded the track called "Country Honk," in London in early March 1969. Brian Jones was present during these sessions and may have played on the first handful of takes and demos. It was his last recording session with the band. The song was transformed into the familiar electric, riff-based hit single "Honky Tonk Women" sometime in the spring of 1969, prior to Mick Taylor's joining the group. In an interview in the magazine Crawdaddy!, Richards credits Taylor for influencing the track: "... the song was originally written as a real Hank Williams/Jimmie Rodgers/1930s country song. And it got turned around to this other thing by Mick Taylor, who got into a completely different feel, throwing it off the wall another way." However, in 1979 Taylor recalled it this way: "I definitely added something to Honky Tonk Women, but it was more or less complete by the time I arrived and did my overdubs."

"Honky Tonk Women" is distinctive as it opens not with a guitar riff, but with a beat played on a cowbell. The Rolling Stones' producer Jimmy Miller played the cowbell for the recording.

The concert rendition of "Honky Tonk Women" on Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! (1970) differs significantly from the studio hit, with a markedly dissimilar guitar introduction and the first appearance on vinyl of an entirely different second verse. During the North American leg of the 1989 Steel Wheels tour, a pair of 60-foot tall inflatable Honky Tonk women were cued to appear and bob to the music just before the first chorus. There was an animated live visual for this song when it was performed in concert around 2002 and 2003. It featured a topless woman riding on the Rolling Stones tongue who was seen in the beginning of the concert.

The single was released in the UK the day after the death of founding member Brian Jones, with "You Can't Always Get What You Want" as the single's B-side. In the UK, it remained on the charts for seventeen weeks, peaking at number one for five weeks. It remains the band's last single to reach number one in their home country. The song also topped the US Billboard Hot 100 for four weeks from 23 August 1969. It was later released on the compilation album Through the Past, Darkly (Big Hits Vol. 2) in September. Billboard ranked it as the No. 4 song overall for 1969.

At the time of its release, Rolling Stone magazine hailed "Honky Tonk Women" as "likely the strongest three minutes of rock and roll yet released in 1969". It was ranked number 116 on the list of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time in April 2010. The song was later put into the track listing for the video game Band Hero. In 2014, the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

Releases on compilation albums and live recordings

• Through the Past, Darkly (Big Hits Vol. 2) (1969)
• Hot Rocks 1964–1971 (1971)
• Rolled Gold: The Very Best of the Rolling Stones (1975)
• 30 Greatest Hits (1977)
• Singles Collection: The London Years (1989)
• Forty Licks (2002)
• Singles 1968–1971 (2005)
• GRRR! (2012)

Concert versions of "Honky Tonk Women" are included on the albums Live'r Than You'll Ever Be (1969), 'Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out!' (recorded 1969, released 1970), Love You Live (recorded 1976, released 1977), Live Licks (recorded 2003, released 2004), Hyde Park Live (2013), Sticky Fingers (Deluxe and Super Deluxe editions) (recorded 1971, released 2015), Totally Stripped (recorded 1995, released 2016), and Havana Moon (2016). The song has appeared in numerous Stones concert films and boxed sets, including Stones in the Park, Some Girls: Live In Texas '78, Let's Spend the Night Together, Stones at the Max, Voodoo Lounge Live, Bridges to Babylon Tour '97–98, Four Flicks, The Biggest Bang, Sweet Summer Sun: Hyde Park Live, and Havana Moon. Some of the live versions include a Paris verse not included on the original single.

The Rolling Stones "Let's Spend The Night Together (Single & Video)"

"Let's Spend the Night Together" is a song written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, and originally released by the Rolling Stones as a double A-sided single together with "Ruby Tuesday" in January 1967. It also appears as the opening track on the American version of their album Between the Buttons. The song has been covered by various artists, including David Bowie in 1973.

The song was recorded in December 1966 at the RCA Records studio in Hollywood, California, where the group recorded most of their 1965–1966 hits. Recording engineer Glyn Johns recounts that while mixing "Let's Spend the Night Together", Oldham was trying to get a certain sound by clicking his fingers. Two policemen showed up, stating that the front door was open and that they were checking to see if everything was all right. At first, Oldham asked them to hold his earphones while he snapped his fingers but then Johns said they needed a more wooden sound. The policemen suggested their truncheons and Mick Jagger took the truncheons into the studio to record the claves-like sound that can be heard during the quiet break at one minute 40 seconds into the song.

Released in the United Kingdom as a single on 13 January 1967, "Let's Spend the Night Together" reached number three on the UK Singles Chart as a double A-side with "Ruby Tuesday". In the United States, the single was released in January and became the opening track of the American edition of the Stones' album Between the Buttons. Both songs entered the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart on 21 January. However, by 4 March, "Ruby Tuesday" reached number one, while "Let's Spend the Night Together" stalled at number 55. Due to the sexually charged nature of the lyrics, "Let's Spend the Night Together" received less airplay in the US. In the Cash Box chart, which was based on sales only, the song reached number 28. In other countries worldwide, both sides of the single charted separately. In Ireland for example, "Ruby Tuesday" peaked at number six, while "Let's Spend The Night Together" charted separately at number 14, as Ireland's national broadcaster, RTÉ, considered "Ruby Tuesday" to be more suitable for radio airplay.

The song features piano by Rolling Stones contributor Jack Nitzsche, organ by Brian Jones, drums by Charlie Watts, piano, electric guitar and bass by Richards, lead vocals by Jagger and backing vocals from both Jagger and Richards. Usual bassist Bill Wyman does not appear on the recording.

On The Ed Sullivan Show, the band was initially refused permission to perform the number. Sullivan himself even told Jagger, "Either the song goes or you go". A compromise was reached to substitute the words "let's spend some time together" in place of "let's spend the night together"; Jagger agreed to change the lyrics but ostentatiously rolled his eyes at the TV camera while singing them, as did Bill Wyman. As a result of this incident, Sullivan announced that the Rolling Stones would be banned from performing on his show again. However, the Stones did appear on the show again and performed three songs on 23 November 1969.

In April 2006, for their first-ever performance in China, authorities prohibited the group from performing the song due to its "suggestive lyrics".

"Let's Spend the Night Together" was released on the US edition of the Stones' 1967 studio album Between the Buttons and on the following compilation albums:

• Flowers (1967)
• Through the Past, Darkly (Big Hits Vol. 2) (1969)
• Hot Rocks 1964–1971 (1971)
• Rolled Gold: The Very Best of the Rolling Stones (1975)
• 30 Greatest Hits (1977)
• Singles Collection: The London Years (1989)
• Forty Licks (2002)
• Singles 1965–1967 (2004)
• GRRR! (2012)
• A live version appears on Still Life (1982).