Composers: Mick
Jagger, Keith Richards & Ron Wood
Recording date:
October-December 1977,
October-December 1980 & April-June 1981
Recording locations: Pathé
Marconi Studios, Paris, France; Rolling Stones Mobile
Unit, Paris, France;
& Atlantic
Studios, New
York City, USA
Producers: The
Glimmer Twins
Associate
producer & chief engineer:
Chris
Kimsey
Performed
onstage: 1981-82,
1995
Probable line-up:
Drums: Charlie
Watts
Bass:
Bill Wyman
Electric
guitars: Keith
Richards & Ron Wood (incl. solos)
Vocals: Mick
Jagger
Harmonica:
Mick
Jagger
Piano:
Ian
Stewart
TrackTalk
There's a... guitar player called Hop Wilson. I got songs that I wrote like Black Limousine from him, those kind of licks.
Black Limousine came about from a
slide
guitar riff that was inspired in part by some Hop Wilson licks
from a record
that I once owned, mislaid for years, found again and finally
lost again...
And there was another guy called Big Moose, who I've never heard
of before
or since... He was an old slide guitar guy who had one
particular lick
that he would bring in every now and again. I thought, That's
really
good, I'm going to apply that - and so subconsciously I
wrote the whole
song around that one little lick, building on it, resolving it
and taking
it round again... That was something that clicked musically
straight away
with the guitars and drums and Mick, and then we immediately got
into sparring
about the lyrics for it, since it was obviously crying out for
some words.
Once again the riff was taken care of and I let Mick do the
words... Mick's
got his own style and that's why I let him interpret it in his
own way.
It's only fair really. But I let that song slip through my
fingers. I fought
until I was blue in the face to get the credit, going on and on:
I wrote
that, I wrote that. One of the lessons I had to learn was
that if you
want to get a credit, it has to happen there and then in the
studio, as
you're recording it.
That's the most played track after Start
Me Up. Can you imagine that? A straight blues... Black
Limousine
is just a fast mid-tempo blues of no specific nature. I don't
think it's
particularly wonderful. I almost left it off the album. I just
managed
to get room for it in the last minute.
(That song does have a more generous view
of relationships with women.) Yeah, because time marches on,
etc. And also,
I guess, because the women in our lives at the moment have made
a change
in our attitudes toward it. I guess because everything that
comes out from
the Stones is just as it comes out. I mean, you just turn on the
tap and
it POURS out. That's how we used to feel about it, and that's
how we feel
about it now. This is purely a guess, because I haven't really
thought
about it, but it seems logical that the people you're with are
the ones
who are gonna influence you most, whWether you intend it or not.
Mick might
intend to sit down and write a real Stones song - you know: Blechhh!
You
cruddy piece of shit, you dirty old scrub box! But
obviously, that's
not the way he's feeling now. It's not the way I'm feeling now.