Composers:
Mick Jagger & Keith Richards
Recording date:
July 1970 & December 1971-March 1972
Recording locations: Olympic
Sound Studios, London & Sunset Sound Studios, Los Angeles, USA
Producer: Jimmy
Miller Chief
engineers: Glyn
Johns, Andy Johns & Joe
Zagarino
Performed onstage: 1995,
1997-99, 2006-07

Probable line-up:
Drums: Jimmy
Miller
Bass: Mick Taylor
(or Bill Wyman)
Electric guitar: Mick
Taylor
Lead vocals: Mick
Jagger
Background vocals: Clydie
King, Joe Green, Venetta
Field & Jesse Kirkland
Piano: Billy
Preston
Organ: Billy
Preston
Saw you stretched out in room ten-o-nine
With a smile on your face and a tear right
in your eye
Oh, couldn't seem to get a line on you
My sweet honey love
Berber jewelry jangling down the street
Make you shut your eyes at every woman that
you meet
Could not seem to get high on you
My, my sweet honey love
May the good Lord shine a light on you
(Yeah) Make every song your favorite tune
May the good Lord shine a light on you
(Yeah) Warm like the evening sun
Well you're drunk in the alley, baby, with
your clothes all torn
And your late night friends leave you in the
cold gray dawn
There just seemed too many flies on you
I just can't brush them off
Angels beating all their wings in time
With smiles on their faces and a gleam right
in their eye
Oh, thought I heard one sigh for you
Come on up, come on up now, come on up now
Yeah
Come on up now...
Come on up
Yeah, yeah, yeah...
TrackTalk
I liked Shine a Light. I played bass on that. There are quite a few things I played bass on. I used the band's Fender Jazz bass for these because Bill wasn't there; he was late, and nobody bothered to wait. That used to happen a lot, actually. I don't mean that Bill was late a lot; we didn't always get there at the same time. If we felt like playing, we would.
There's another gospel song (in addition to
I Just Want to See His Face) on that album - Shine a Light with
Billy Preston. When I was very friendly with Billy in the '70s I sometimes
used to go to church with him in Los Angeles. It was an interesting experience
because we don't have a lot of churches like that in England. I hadn't
had a lot of first-hand experience of it. I think it was James Cleveland's
church we used to go to. It's still there. In fact, Billy and I were going
to go there on this trip (1992), but the trouble with church is I can never
get up on Sunday morning to get there. It's always a bit early for me.
But I used to go. One time I saw Aretha and Erma Franklin in that church.
It makes you feel a bit small sometimes when you hear these people's voices,
so big and powerful.