Composers: Mick
Jagger & Keith Richards
Recording date:
March-July 1997
Recording location: Ocean
Way Recording Studios, Los Angeles, USA
Producers: Don
Was, Rob Fraboni & The Glimmer Twins Chief
engineers:
Rob
Fraboni & Dan Bosworth
Mixer: Rob
Fraboni Performed
onstage: 1997-99, 2002-03
Line-up:
Drums: Charlie
Watts
Bass: Darryl
Jones
Electric guitars:
Keith Richards & Ron Wood
Lead vocal: Keith
Richards
Background vocals: Keith
Richards, Bernard Fowler & Blondie
Chaplin
Piano: Clinton
Clifford
Organ: Clinton
Clifford
Saxophone: Joe
Sublett
Trumpet: Darrell
Leonard
Percussion: Jim
Keltner
TrackTalk
You Don't Have to Mean It was a Buddy Holly tune, it was like Buddy Holly and I was playing drums on that (laughs) (when we wrote it). It hasn't come out like that but it's come out a bit like that, because I can't really play the drums and I would play it very badly but I was playing this kind of reggae beat on the bass drum because that was the only beat I could play... and then sort of went on from there.
You Don't Have to Mean It had a totally
different feel at first. It was more Buddy Holly-ish, which people have
spotted in there. It had that sort of vibe to it, and then gradually went
in the reggae direction. It's kind of its own permutation of reggae; it's
got a backbeat on the 2 and 4, but it's still reggae.
I would never ignore that... rhythm and that
life that I've lived when I can. I've been living there 25 years so it
rubs off anyway, you are trying to get the Jamaican out of me. When I'm
talking to the band I still go like, This is mine in a blood gut
(laughs).
But it started off as a Tex-Mex sort of song, it sounded very Buddy Holly
but it didn't roll off the tongue right. It was something jamming up the
beat and sort of fiddling around, instead of Yeah, it's on beat, it's
reggae stuff. That's where it really can express itself but at the
same time there's a backbeat on it. It's a mixture, it's a funny mixture,
but it's a lovely song to sing.
Yeah. I think I really got it right on this
one. Even my Jamaican brethren say so.
I particularly like the way Keith delivers
this one and we've been rehearsing it (for the tour) and it just is a natural.