The Rolling Stones - "Sticky Fingers" (1971) - Rolling Stones Records
Hello Friends,
Its Kentucky Derby day, our bets are placed and we're on our 4th round of Mint Juleps while we wait for the singing of "My Old Kentucky Home". Meanwhile on the turntable, ladies and gentlemen, its the Rolling Stones.
Sticky Fingers. From the album's title to Andy Warhol's cover art to Bobby Keys's sax solo on "Can't You Hear Me Knocking?" this record oozes dick-swinging sleaze!
Their ninth full-length (and first of the Seventies) every song is an absolute classic. Produced by Jimmy Miller and recorded at the legendary Muscle Shoals Studios in backwater Alabama there's a swampiness to the sound of the entire record. Drugs and death are pretty much present on every song! The ghost of Brian Jones looms large and in its place is some serious Mick Taylor shredding!
Take the opening song, for instance, the hit single "Brown Sugar", a solid rocker with a killer riff that's either about interracial sex or heroin use or, most likely, both! The stage is set friends!
"Sugar" is followed by the slow, demon-swaying blues of "Sway" which is followed by the classic break-up ballad, "Wild Horses". Funny enough, as the story goes, Gram Parsons convinced the Stones to let his band, The Flying Burrito Brothers, record this song. When Mick Jagger & Keith Richards heard his version, they decided that they too should release it. The Burrito Brothers version came out a year ahead of the Stones version.
Next up is the aforementioned, "Can't You Hear Me Knocking?" in all its frenzied, coke-fueled glory! Side One closes out with a cover of the Fred McDowell gospel-blues tune, "You Gotta Move".
And if you thought Side One couldn't be topped, wait until you get to Side Two kids!
The hard-rocking "Bitch" kicks things off followed by the much slower, more intense & bluesy tune, "I Got the Blues"-- which sounds like a classic Otis Redding soul ballad.
Co-written by Marianne Faithfull, the excellent and nightmarish "Sister Morphine" is next. Again, this song it oozes paranoia! Why do we hear sirens? Why does the doctor have no face? Who's Cousin Cocaine? Lock the fucking doors Tiki, I'm scared!
Things come back down to Earth (a little) on "Dead Flowers"-- a junkie love letter with a country-twang, killer chorus and some great F you lines like:
I'll be in my basement room
With a needle and a spoon
And another girl to take my pain away...
The last song, "Moonlight Mile", is the perfect conclusion to this drug-fueled sleazefest! A slow, lamenting ballad about alienation and life on the road. It ain't all fun and games kids! Once the drugs run out and the groupies are gone, you're left with a used and abused sticky version of yourself. Sometimes these moments of clarity, no matter how brief, can be devastating!
As the song goes, "Its just that demon life has got you in its sway!"
And they're off...
RATING: 5 Headfuls of Snow out of 5
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