Loving Cup

Composers: Mick Jagger & Keith Richards
Recording date: July 1971 & October 1971-March 1972
Recording locations: Rolling Stones Mobile Unit, Keith Richards' home, Villefranche-sur-mer, France & Sunset Sound Studios, Los Angeles, USA
Producer: Jimmy Miller      Chief engineers: Glyn Johns, Andy Johns & Joe Zagarino

Performed onstage: 1969, 1972, 2002-03, 2006, 2014

Probable line-up:

Drums: Charlie Watts
Bass: Bill Wyman
Acoustic guitar: Keith Richards
Electric guitar: Keith Richards
Lead vocal: Mick Jagger
Harmony vocal: Keith Richards
Backing vocals: Mick Jagger & Keith Richards
Piano: Nicky Hopkins
Saxophone: Bobby Keys
Trumpet: Jim Price
Maracas: Jimmy Miller
Handclaps: ---
 

I'm the man on the mountain
Come on up

I'm the plowman in the valley
With a face full of mud


Yes I'm fumbling and I know my car don't start
Yes I'm stumbling and I know I play a bad guitar

Give me a little drink from your loving cup

Just one drink and I'll fall down drunk, yeah

I'm the man who walks the hillside
In the sweet summer sun

I'm the man that brings you roses
When you ain't got none


Well I can run and jump and fish but I won't fight

You if you want to push and pull with me all night

Give me a little drink from your loving cup
Just one drink and I'll fall down drunk, yeah

I feel so humble with you tonight
Just sitting in front of the fire


See your face dancing in the flame
Feel your mouth kissing me again

What a beautiful buzz, what a beautiful buzz
What a beautiful buzz, what a beautiful buzz

Oh what a beautiful buzz, what a beautiful buzz

Yes I am nitty gritty and my shirt's all torn
But I would love to spill the beans with you 'til dawn

Give me a little drink from your loving cup
Just one drink and I'll fall down drunk

Give me a little drink
Give me a little drink
Give me a little drink
Give me a little drink
Give me a little drink - oh...
Give me a little drink - (...)
Give me a little drink - keep on loving, keep on loving
Give me a little drink
Give me a little drink - yeah,  let's it slow it down, baby
Give me a little drink
Give me a little drink - come on up
Give me a little drink - come on, on up
Give me a little drink - (...) sweet home
Give me a little drink - (...) hot wine
Give me a little drink - (...) my sweet baby
Give me a little drink

 
 

TrackTalk

Mick made a mistake with the credits on two of the cuts. He listed Mick Taylor or somebody as playing bass on Loving Cup and one other track. It was really me.

- Bill Wyman, 1981


Loving Cup... offers a few possibilities where you can turn some (bass) runs around or do some little slide things...

- Bill Wyman, 1978


On the Forty Licks tour, when we were preparing the set list for a show in Yokohama, Chuck Leavell suggested we play Loving Cup, the ballad from Exile On Main Street. I didn't want to play the tune and I said, Chuck, this is going to die a death in Yokohama. I can't even remember the bloody song, and no one likes it. I've done it loads of times in America, it doesn't go down that well, it's a very difficult song to sing, and I'm fed up with it! Chuck went, Stick in the mud! so I gave in and put it in the set-list. Lo and behold, we went out, started the song and they all began applauding... Which just proves how, over time, some of these songs acquire a certain existence, or value, that they never had when they first came out. People will say, What a wonderful song that was, when it was virtually ignored at the time it was released.

- Mick Jagger, 2003



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