1979
Does one or the other of us
have to be the boss?
Keith Richards: Rolling Stones
rockabilly
The guitar sound on Little T&A and She's So Cold is our equivalent of that rockabilly thing. I think you'll find that comes from using a lot of analog delay on Ron's guitar or my guitar or both of them, and I dampen it (cover right hand over base of strings). That'll give you that ticka-tacka-ticka. |
Mick Jagger, Charlie Watts & Ron
Wood (1980): "She's So Cold"
Ron: The only obvious thing to me about it is that it fits that rhythm and that feel - she's-so-cold, you know? It comes off the tongue.... Mick: It's really OUR version of she's so cold. Which is, like, very funny because it is an obvious subject. It's like the old cold lady. Ron:When I touch her, my hand froze. Mick: Yeah, when I... No, when I touched her, I looked like an ice cream cone - isn't that it? (Laughs) ... There's another... I heard it on the radio the other day. And there's like three songs all about the same subject, so it's a very traditional one. Charlie:She's So Cold, quite honestly, was a track that Keith had going that I didn't know what was going on it. And I'm the drummer. And Mick wrote lyrics and I never heard a thing until after. Quite honestly. Ron: I remember you and Keith and me and Bill trashing over and over... Mick: Actually I wrote it in an hour (...) Charlie: And I had a great time making the record with Keith. But was he was going to sing or what he wanted on it or what Mick was going to write, it was something I heard months later, in fact. Mick: Well it was a bit like Shattered, in that way, you remember that one? Charlie: Yeah, another one. Mick: It was a bit like Shattered 'cause it was always there... |
Mick Jagger, Charlie Watts, Ron Wood
& Bill Wyman (1980): "All About You"
Charlie: The classic one on this album is the one Keith's done. I mean, I didn't know what... right up until about 2 months before the album... has now come out. Mick: Which one are you talking about, Charlie? Charlie: I mean, I didn't know... Mick: Which song... ? Bill: All About You. Mick: Oh, All About You. Bill: The train song. Mick: Yeah. Charlie: Yeah. Ron: Train Song, that's what we knew it as. Charlie: Yeah, Keith's, yeah... Oh nobody knows... Bill: It's just a track called Train Song. Charlie: And I never knew what Keith was going to (put) on it, I never knew what he wanted... But it was a great track to play. That's being a drummer, you know? Ron: He ended up singing that too, which is quite pleasing. Charlie: Yeah, it's great. But I mean... Mick: It's not me singing it (laughs). Charlie: How he made a song out of it, I don't know. |
Mick Jagger to Chet Flippo (April
1979): China
The Stones want to play China. We'll never get Russia. But the Chinese Government is interested. (They) don't really) know who the Stones are. What we need is a concise, detailed history and description of the band to present to the Chinese Government. Something that explains to China why China NEEDS us... Just haul out the good stuff about us. Quote the right lyrics. Explain why we are what we are. |
Keith Richards (1979): Playing with
the New Barbarians
The thing about being in the Stones - and baby, when you're in the Stones, you're in the Stones - you don't get that much chance to go out on the road and play with othe people, as a part of another band, just to keep your hand in. It was a delicate situation, not to come on too strong. I was there to back Woody up and that's what I tried to do. If you come on upstaging everybody, then there's no boddy point in being there, because you might as well go out on the road on your own. |
Keith Richard: Declaration to the
court (June 8, 1979)
Ever since my arrest in February 1977 in this case, I was grimly determined to change my life and abstain from any drug use. My whole experience in this case and, in particular, the Order of his Honor Judge Graburn have afforded me the opportunity to give positive direction and effect on my life and future career. It was a rewarding experience for me also to have been given an opportunity to assist in my small measure the blind people of Canada. I can truthfully say that the prospect of my ever using drugs again in the future is totally alien to my thinking. My experience has also had an important effect not only on my happiness, but on my happiness at home in which my young son is brought up. |
Anita Pallenberg: Scott Cantrell's
death
(Keith) didn't say anything about the guy, he just got annoyed with my negligence, being so slopy and flopped out... That boy of seventeen who shot himself in my house really ended it for us. And although we occasionally saw each other for the sake of the children, it was the end of our personal relationship. |
Keith Richards (1979): Touring with
his own band
I know I could do it. But there ain't no reason to tour with my own group. There's no reason to tour with anyone but the Stones unless something like the New Barbarians thing were to come up. I ain't got no 5-year plan or anything. |
Mick Jagger, Ron Wood, Bill Wyman
& Charlie Watts (1980): Making an album
Ron: You have to be prepared to lose a lot (of songs), 'cause you get attached to songs. Bill: It's also the ones that get finished the quickest, as well. Mick: Yeah, that's one of my points. You know, the ones who get finished quickest are the ones that are gonna get used... Bill: The other prospect, the whole problem of... if you do 4 or 5 songs in the same key at the same tempo, you can't use 'em all (...) Mick: Yeah, what he's saying is right. Bill: You've got two other really great tracks that you all love, but you can't (use them) all because you've got Where the Boys Go. Mick: You've got four similar things is what Bill is saying. Bill: And the same applies to slow ballads, which we've got lots of really great ones. You can only put so many on an album. One, maybe two if you're lucky. Mick: Some numbers you play a lot, and then there's a number on this record called Down in the Hole which we actually made up (on the spot). And we only cut it twice, I think. Ron: I think we let the tape run. Mick: We did
it twice. And there's other numbers which we did
many times.....When we did Emotional
We'd done it before, all together actually, in Nassau. We all knew the song. But the actual one that we liked was the one that we just did kind of... During the whole thing, I mean I really wish there was someone that could do a lot of this. Cause there's a lot of donkey work making records, you know. You hear about bands making... spending two years making (records.) A lot of it is donkey work 'cause what you do is a really stupid way of making records. Instead of going in with 10 songs saying, These are the 10 songs we all know and like, you know - they're all rehearsed, great, fantastic, here they come... (Again we did) 30! - it's like making a movie. And so... and then you start, Oh, I wish we could use that one!, and Ronnie's going, What about that one? (laughs) ... And so you wither it down from thirty down to ten and it's a very slow process... Ron: (Jokes) And there's guitar lessons for Mick, you know. They take weeks and weeks... |
Chris Kimsey, Keith Richards &
Ian Stewart: Glimmer Twins Battles over Emotional
Rescue
Kimsey: Sometimes Keith will argue just to be different than Mick. When Keith's got a point he's very convincing, but sometimes it's just to create a bit of friction. And that friction helps them creatively. It's all done in humor anyway. It's like a childhood joke that nobody takes seriously. They fought a lot during that album because Keith thought Mick was getting his way too much, and Keith had to fight for what he believed. Keith fights for his half of the Glimmer Twins. Keith: Of course the tracks were too similar! That's why I screamed. I was the maniac on that album, always complaining, always going to battle. It's more difficult to get people to go along with certain ideas now because it's become such a fucking organization. If you're the odd one out who speaks out and says, Look, I know we can do that song better, then they turn around and say, Everybody loves it. And you end up being the agitator, the paranoiac, you know... What's HE on? Ian: Keith seems to have a little chip on his shoulder regarding Mick. Keith wants to assert himself now, which is great, but at times, it seems Keith wants to give Mick a hard time. Mick kept it together for a long time when Keith wasn't interested. A lot has gone down between Mick and Keith. But they're very close. The last few years it seems they're both thinking differently, which is perfectly understandable after all this time. There does exist a slight lack of discussion between them, though, a lack of communication. |
Keith Richards (1988-89): Glimmer
Twin tensions
If things are perceived as a power struggle, then (Mick's) automatically gonna go against (anything I propose), 'cause it's my idea. But to me it's no power struggle... But I mean, I'm not fautless either. A lot of this perceived struggle is down to me because of the whole thing I went through in the 70s. Dope and getting busted and all that. Mick took an awful lot on his shoulders. I never realized he actually got used to it. I left him to deal with all the business, where before we used to work very closely together on it. Then, when I cleaned up and said, Hey, I'm ready to help out again, he saw it as if he'd have to give up something that he had actually enjoyed wielding, not seeing that I had only temporarily forfeited the right to get involved. I ain't knocking the cat at all. But when I came back, I didn't want to believe that Mick was enjoying the burden. He could now control the whole thing; it became a power trip. I've heard the shit from the john, like, I wish he was a junkie again. |
Mick Jagger & Ron Wood (1980):
"Where the Boys Go"
Ron: That will be very popular in England and here, I suppose. But on a Saturday night the boys all go somewhere and it's usually down to where they can go out of their brains... drinking. Mick: And the pub... (The backup vocalists) were just little girls who live up the road. In New York... Central Park West... (T)hey had all the attitudes off, it was the notes they couldn't get. (Laughs) |
Patti Hansen Richards: Meeting Keith
When I first met Keith all I could think was: This is a guy who really needs a friend. I gave him the keys to my apartment after only knowing him two weeks. There was no sexual thing going on. I knew he just needed a secret place where he could get far away from the madding crowed. It wasn't love at first sight, though it feels like that now. It just sort of mutually grew. But he is the most romantic man. |
Patti Hansen Richards: New Year's
Eve 1979
I remember New Year's Eve '79 going into '80. I came back from Staten Island in my brother's Oldsmobile because I knew somehow I was going to see him. I just knew it. When I got to my apartment, there he was sitting on my stairs, waiting for me. Keith and I have never been apart on a New Year's Eve since. |