Time Waits for No One

Composers: Mick Jagger & Keith Richards
Recording date: February, April-May & August 1974
Recording locations: Musicland Studios, Munich, West Germany; Rolling Stones Mobile Unit, Mick Jagger's home, Newbury, England;

& Island Recording Studios, London, England

Producers: The Glimmer Twins        Chief engineers: Keith Harwood, Andy Johns & Glyn Johns
Never performed onstage

Probable line-up:

Drums: Charlie Watts
Bass: Bill Wyman
12-string acoustic guitar: Mick Taylor
Electric guitars: Keith Richards & Mick Taylor
Lead electric guitar: Mick Taylor
Lead vocal: Mick Jagger
Backing vocals: Mick Jagger & Keith Richards
Piano: Nicky Hopkins
Hi-fly guitar synthesizer: Mick Taylor
Chimes: Ray Cooper
Congas & other percussion: Ray Cooper

Yes, star crossed in pleasure
Stream flows on by
Yes, as we're sated in leisure
We watch it fly, yes

And Time waits for no one
And he won't wait for me
And Time waits for no one
And he won't wait for me

Time can tear down a building

Or destroy a woman's face
Hours are like diamonds
Don't let them waste

And Time waits for no one

No favors has he
Time waits for no one
And he won't wait for me

Hey, ah ah
Ta
Ta li, ta li, ta li
Ah li, ah li, ah li, ah li, ah li, ah li...

Men, they built hours to their passing, yes

Till their fame everlasting
Here he comes chopping and reaping
Hear him laugh at their cheating

And Time waits for no man
And he won't wait for me
Yes, Time waits for no one
And he won't wait for me

Drink in your summer

Gather your corn
The dreams of the night time
Will have vanished by dawn

And Time waits for no one
And he won't wait for me
Time waits for no one
And he won't wait for me

No, no, no, not for me
No, not for me

Ta li, ta li..

 
 

TrackTalk

(Can You Hear the Music? and Time Waits for No One) were my particular riff but got taken up by others in the band. Those songs got turned into something I didn't even imagine. Whereas something like Angie turned out pretty much as I expected.

- Keith Richards, 1974-75


(We used a guitar synthesizer called a) hi-fly. It's a white flat box that looks like a bathroom scale when you put it on the floor, and you can get a lot of different sounds out of it.

- Keith Richards, 1974


Well, I co-wrote that particular song but I didn't exactly like that (album) much.

- Mick Taylor, 1993


I liked (that song) a lot.

- Mick  Jagger, 1978


The best one (on that album) - for a guitar solo, anyway - is Time Waits for No One, which is the first song we recorded for It's Only Rock 'N Roll. We hadn't seen each other for about 3 months, and it was done in one or two takes. We had done a bit of a layoff because we'd finished an American tour (sic), and everybody went to different parts of the globe and had a rest. I went to Brazil, which is possibly why there is a little Latin influence there.

- Mick Taylor, 1979


(M)y favorite (Stones song) in terms of my own guitar playing is Time Waits for No One. I love that solo. I think it's probably the best thing I did with the Stones. It's not one of their hits; it was an album track. But it's quite lyrical and it's a bit different from a lot of other Stones songs. I'd done something that I'd never done. Because of the structure of the song. It pushed my guitar playing in a slightly different direction. It's more - I don't like to use the term Carlos Santana-esque because it sounds too pretentious, but I kind of played in a different mode. I was playing over a C maj 7 to an F maj 7, which aren't chords the Stones used that much. You know, they had their rock and roll songs and they had their ballads as well, and they were very different. And mostly the ballads were usually written by me.

- Mick Taylor, 2012



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