Probable line-up:

Drums: Charlie Watts & Keith Richards
Bass: Keith Richards
Acoustic guitars: Keith Richards & Brian Jones
Electric guitar: Keith Richards
Lead vocal: Mick Jagger
Background vocals: Mick Jagger, Keith Richards & Jimmy Miller
Maracas: Mick Jagger
Piano: Ian Stewart
Organ: Bill Wyman
 

I was born in a crossfire hurricane
And I howled at my ma in the driving rain

But it's all right now, in fact it's a gas
But it's all right
I'm Jumping Jack Flash, it's a gas, gas, gas

I was raised by a toothless, bearded hag
I was schooled with a strap right across my back

I was drowned, I was washed up and left for dead
I fell down to my feet and I saw they bled
Yeah, yeah, I frowned at the crumbs of a crust of bread
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was crowned with a spike right through my head

Come on, yeah

Jumping Jack Flash, it's a gas
 
 

TrackTalk

Mick and I were in my house (laughs) in England in the country... and we'd been up all night and it was 6:30 in the morning, a dismal day, you know, English, grey. And we were just both crashing, Mick was on the couch and I was in an armchair with a guitar and we were, like, on the verge. And suddenly this sound of these boots (laughs) went by the window, clump clump clump - really, I mean, you had to be there to hear it - and woke Mick up, What was that? And I said - I looked out the window and I thought, Oh, that's Jack, that's jumpin' Jack. You know and then we started to play with those words. But I mean, really, it was sort of virtually woke up out of a stupor by this guy's boots, he was my gardener, he was a great guy but he's another story. And but... I just said, That's Jack. Well he's leaping about a bit. Yeah, I said, it's jumpin' Jack and then flash came and suddenly we were wide awake and we started to work, you know. You never know when they're going to come.

Jumpin' Jack Flash comes from this guy Jack Dyer, who was my gardener. He'd lived out in the country all his life. I'll put it this way: Jack Dyer, an old English yokel. I once said, Have you ever been to town? And town, to an Englishman, means London, right? And he says, Oh Yeah, I was up there V.E. Day, when the war finished. That cathedral is something. He meant Chichester, the local big town, seven miles away... Mick says, Flash. He'd just woken up. And suddenly we had this wonderful alliterative phrase. So he woke up and we knocked it together.

And the only guitar in the house was tuned that way. It's really Satisfaction in reverse. Almost an interchangeable riff, except it's played on chords instead of a Gibson Maestro Fuzztone.

We got to the studio early once and... in fact I think it was a rehearsal studio, I don't think it was a recording studio. And there was just myself, Brian and Charlie - the Stones NEVER arrive at the same time, you know - and Mick and Keith hadn't come. And I was just messing about and I just sat down at the piano and started doing this riff, da-daw, da-da-daw, da-da-daw... and then Brian played a bit of guitar and Charlie was doing a rhythm. We were just messing with it for 20 minutes, just filling in time, and Mick and Keith came in and we stopped and they said, Hey, that sounded really good, carry on, what is it?
- Oh, that was just something we were messing with.
- That sounds good.
And then the next day all I can really remember... we recorded it and Mick wrote great lyrics to it and it turned out to be a really good single.

There was nothing about love, peace and flowers in Jumpin' Jack Flash.

Jumpin' Jack Flash was recorded at Olympic; we were doing it deliberately for a single. Keith is playing my floor tom-tom on it to give the boom-da, boom-da sound. Now you'd just programme it and loop it or something daft like that. The sound on Jumpin' Jack Flash is very close together, because we do sit close to each other in the studio, much to most engineers' amazement nowadays. Nobody does that any more, really.

I want the Stones being the Stones and that's what we think Jumpin' Jack Flash is. The Stones really sell sounds. You're in the studios with them and everything seems to be drifting to no purpose and then it all comes together quite suddenly.

Jumpin' Jack Flash was in open E, and there's a certain ring that you need there. And what's always fascinating about open stringing is you can get these other notes ringing sympathetically, almost like a sitar, in a way. Unexpected notes ring out, and you say, Ah, there's a constant. That one can go all the way through this thing.

(I used a) Gibson Hummingbird (acoustic) tuned to open D, six string. Open D or open E, which is the same thing - same intervals - but it would be slackened down some for D. Then there was a capo on it, to get that really tight sound. And there was another guitar over the top of that, but tuned to Nashville tuning. I learned that from somebody in George Jones' band in San Antonio in (1964)... (The high-strung guitar) was an acoustic, too. Both acoustics were put through a Phillips cassette recorder. Just jam the mic right in the guitar and play it back through an extension speaker.

It's funny. Through the years so many people have told me I put the Stones back where they belonged. But I had nothing to do with the fact - they'd already written Jumpin' Jack Flash. They were already quite willing to go back there. I'm sure the chemistry worked. Being a drummer, I was very rhythm-minded.

Jumpin' Jack Flash is the most basic thing we have done this time, although that may or may not be in the album (Beggars Banquet).

I shall be pleased if it is a hit, but that applies at any time. I think it is a good record but I'm not going to turn round and say people are out of their skulls if they don't buy it. It has a nice catchy chorus line and it's a good performance number... We've had some lousy records which have gone to Number One, and some funny ones - I think this disc is better than those.

(T)he more I hear Jumping Jack the more I realize I was wrong (to think Child of the Moon was the more commercial side). It has that same appeal as Satisfaction and now I'm really getting to love it - it really is a gas, gas, gas!

It's about having a hard time and getting out. Just a metaphor for getting out of all the acid things.

Back to Main Page.