Probable line-up:

Drums: Charlie Watts
Bass: Bill Wyman
Electric guitars: Keith Richards & Ron Wood
Lead vocals: Mick Jagger
Background vocals: Mick Jagger, Keith Richards & Ron Wood
Percussion (incl. cowbell) & handclaps: ---
 

If you start me up
If you start me up, I'll never stop

I've been running hot
You've got me (...) my top

You make a grown man cry

Spread out the oil, the gasoline
I walk smooth, ride in a mean, mean machine
Start it up

If you start me up
Kick on the starter, give it all you got
I can't compete
With the riders in the other heats

If you rough it up
If you like it, you can slide it up

Don't make a grown man cry

My eyes dilate, my lips go green
My hands are greasy, she's a mean, mean machine
Start it up

Start me up
Ah give it all you've got - you've got to never, never, never stop
Start me up
Ah don't trip me up, just start me up

Never, never, never...

Ride like the wind at double speed
I'll take you places that you've never, never seen

Start it up
Love the day when we will never stop, never stop...
Start me up
Never stop, never stop

You, you, you make a grown man cry
You, you (you) make a dead man come
 
 

TrackTalk

One of the great luxuries of the Stones is they have an enormous, great big can of stuff. I mean, what anybody hears is just the tip of an iceberg. You know, down there is vaults of stuff. But you have to have the patience and the time to actually sift through it.

It was from Emotional Rescue. It was just SITTING there, and no one had taken any notice of it. There were like 40 takes. What happened, I think, is we made it into a reggae song after, like, take 12, and said, well, maybe another time. I used take 2. And I found it, put it together... it was one of Keith's sort of tunes... I wrote the lyrics, put it on, and Keith said, I can't believe it, it's just wild.

I knew that (song) was there, and I knew it was so good. It's really what inspired me to say I'm sure I can put an album together with what's already there. That was my ground base, that song.

It was Keith's great riff, and I wrote the rest. The funny thing was that it turned into this reggae song after two takes. And that take on Tattoo You was the only take that was a complete rock and roll take. And then it went to reggae completely for about 20 takes. And that's why everyone said, Oh, that's crap. We don't want to use that. And no one went back to Take 2, which was the one we used, the rock track.

Start Me Up was a reggae track to begin with, totally different. It was one of those things we cut a lot of times; one of those cuts that you can play forever and ever in the studio. Twenty minutes go by and you're still locked into those two chords... (laughs)... Sometimes you become conscious of the fact that, Oh, it's "Brown Sugar" again, so you begin to explore other rhythmic possibilities. It's basically trial and error. As I said, that one was pretty locked into a reggae rhythm for quite a few weeks. We were cutting it for Emotional Rescue, but it was nowhere near coming through, and we put it aside and almost forgot about it. Then, when we went back in the can to get material for Tattoo You, we stumbled on a non-reggae version we'd cut back then and realized that was what we wanted all along.

Somewhere in the middle of a break, just to break the tension, I just... (mimics hitting guitar chord) and we hit the - Charlie and I hit the rock and roll version. And five years later, when somebody sifted all the way through these - after about 70 takes of Start Me Up and found that one in the middle, you know, it was just buried in there. Nobody remembered cutting it (laughs), nobody remembered doing it. You know, it was like time out kind of thing. And so we leapt on it and we did a few overdubs on it and... It was like a GIFT, you know, like all songs are gifts really.

I have the impression that it was a riff that Mick brought along, like Don't Stop for Forty Licks - very much a Mick kind of idea, although in the end Start Me Up became a Mick and Keith-welded song with contributions from both of them. It was one of those genuine collaborations between the two of them, with a little magic from both sides happening instantly.

Got something I want you to hear, (Keith) said. Memphis Minnie - and some other things. The tape started, indecipherable. Ah, it's not wound properly. Keith shook the recorder and it rattled as if it were about to fall apart. After a couple of shakes it was working fine, playing a tape of blues from the 20s and 30s - Minnie Douglas, Curley Weaver, Butterbeans and Susie. I went into my much-rehearsed speech about how the old bluesmen had been ripped off... The bellman arrived with our food and I was so relaxed and vaguely nauseated from the heroin that I took one bite of my hamburger and put it down. Keith didn't eat either. Lucille Bogan sang Shave 'Em Dry, which begins, I got nipples on my titties as big as the end of yo' thumb, I got something 'tween my legs can make a dead man come - and goes on from there to get dirty.

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