25 Great Rolling Stones Deep Cuts

Charles Hughes picks some favorites, for Rolling Stones Week

It’s Rolling Stones Week at No Fences Review, continuing today with Charles Hughes on some of his favorite Stones deep cuts.

Over the course of sixty years, the Rolling Stones have released 25 studio albums. Well, they’re about to make it 26 with the new Hackney Diamonds. But, before this nice round number goes away, I’ve picked one cut from each that I think deserves some extra attention.

The rules were few and simple. 1) I only used studio albums of new material, so no Flowers or Metamorphosis, or live albums, or bonus-filled reissues. 2) There couldn’t be any song that they released as a single A-side in the US or UK, that charted as a B-side in those places, or that went Top 40 there in a cover version by another artist either. (That disqualified at least one song that would absolutely have been here otherwise.) 3) There are also a few songs that would fit this criteria but didn’t feel right to include given their legendary status in the band’s catalog: here’s one, and here’s another.

Now, of course, one person’s deep cut is another person’s biggest hit, so treat this categorization lightly. And, particularly on some of their most canonical recordings, the notion of an under-appreciated or unsung track is a relative enterprise. There are other caveats too, and I might’ve accidentally violated my own rules, and I’m aware that this is all arbitrary anyway. So, please take this in the spirit I intended. And definitely feel free to drop others in the comments that you think deserve mention – I probably agree, and I’d love to be reintroduced if I don’t.

“Mona” (from Rolling Stones: England’s Newest Hitmakers, 1964)

The quality that primarily distinguishes early Rolling Stones albums is that they play the songs really, really fast. It’s almost as though they were rushing through their blues and rock ‘n’ roll favorites so quickly that no one would realize what they were up to, although it’s probably just as much that they were caught up in the giddy joy of making such a racket and getting praised (and paid) for it. This full-speed-ahead orientation makes slower moments less successful, perhaps not coincidentally because they reveal how the young Jagger desperately (and sometimes problematically) tried to replicate the original Black singers. Their version of Bo Diddley’s “Mona” strikes a perfect balance, with Jagger wielding Jerome Green’s maracas and singing with snotty clarity that honors but doesn’t imitate. It’s not as good as the Bo Diddley original, of course, no more than any early Stones cover is as good as its source material. But it’s not bad, either.

“Grown Up Wrong” (from 12 x 5, 1964)

From the out-of-tune guitar from Brian Jones that opens it, “Grown Up Wrong” is a prototype for the innumerable garage-rock nuggets that the Stones helped inspire. It’s an early original from Jagger/Richards and it sounds like it, a collection of short, vague lyrics around a well-worn theme of boy-loses-girl buttressed by simple blues licks. But, perhaps because of this lack of sophistication, the whole thing works really well – they sound less confident in their abilities (or in the song) than they do in their spirit and energy, and they grind through the song’s spartan surroundings with force and something approaching delight. (No wonder the critic Robert Christgau named a book after it.) They’d get better almost immediately, but they’d never sound more relatable.

“Down The Road Apiece” (from Now, 1965)

The best Stones cover of Chuck Berry might not be a Chuck Berry song at all. Instead, it’s their take on Berry’s version of Don Raye’s jump-blues raver “Down the Road Apiece.” The secret to its success is that it swings, with Watts’ snapping snare mixing with Richards’ and Jones’ riffs as Jagger jubilantly invites everyone to the semi-mythical juke joint pointed to in the title. Jagger sounds poised and relaxed, but the brief verses seem to exist merely as an excuse for the extended instrumental vamp, where the guitars dancing around Ian Stewart’s piano make it clear this is a party you don’t want to miss.

“Mercy Mercy” (from Out of Our Heads, 1965)

Most of the R&B covers on early Stones albums fall somewhere between serviceable and regrettable. They clearly loved artists like Arthur Alexander and Otis Redding, and they had a hit with a perfectly fine version of Irma Thomas’ “Time Is On My Side,” but there’s something missing in their attempts to respond to Motown, Stax, and the rest. (Or maybe they make Jagger’s lack of subtlety and lapses into mimicry more noticeable.) A welcome exception is Don Covay’s “Mercy Mercy.” Maybe it’s that Jagger had such an obvious template from which to work: Covay has a fair argument that Jagger copped a few tricks from him, and – even beyond that – the similarity between their voices is astonishing. But where Covay’s original works as a smoking, spare groove, the Stones lean into guitar drone, with Richards and Jones throwing out overdriven licks alongside Jagger’s re-creation of Covay. Minus the guitars, it’s not much more than decent karaoke. With them, it feels like something else. And, more importantly, it feels like somethin’ else.

“She Said Yeah” (from December’s Children (And Everybody’s), 1965)

“She Said Yeah” inaugurates their final covers-heavy album with a 90-second roar. On their hopped-up version of a Larry Williams R&B stomper (written by Sonny Bono and Roddy Jackson), the Stones turn up every element from the tempo to the distortion on the guitars to Jagger’s frenetic vocal. Even as they were about to exit their loud-fast-and-out-of-control early period, this punky blast is a sharp, short reminder of the group’s sweaty club roots.

“High and Dry” (from Aftermath, 1966)

The second side of Aftermath is one long deep cut, five tracks that aren’t as famous as those on Side 1 but each spotlight a different element of the band’s expanding mid-‘60s vision. “High and Dry” seems tradition-minded, with Jagger’s bluesman vocal affectations and Brian Jones’ wailing harmonica. But some of their emergent ‘60s weirdness is there, too, especially in the off-kilter drum track and Jagger’s sneering, “whoa!”-driven tale of a woman who stood him up and – even worse – stole his money. “What a weird letdown,” indeed.

“Connection” (from Between the Buttons, 1967)

With its racing melody and bubblegum chorus, “Connection” sounds more like the Stones’ early albums than it does the baroque pop and stoned folk-rock giggles of Between The Buttons. But its lamentations about the customs inspections and STD shots that have become occupational hazards for the rock-star Stones means that it still fits in perfectly at the height of their druggy fur-coat period. Its hook is about as universal as a love song can get, especially when it’s delivered with perhaps the tightest close harmony that Jagger and Richards have ever produced. It remains pretty far from the blues in terms of sound – although Brian Jones’ piercing guitar brings it all back home – but its sentiment is far closer than some of their more direct blues homages and rip-offs. And, best of all, it straight-up rocks.

“2000 Man” (from Their Satanic Majesties Request, 1967)

It may be that Their Satanic Majesties Request isn’t underrated or overrated, although it’s been talked about as both. Maybe it’s impossible to rate: I’ve listened to it a bunch, and I still can’t tell if I like it or not, much less if the band is trying to be funny or serious, if it’s ahead of its time or horribly dated, or whatever. I do know that it has two great singles and some tracks that don’t work at all. But, as slippery and bonkers as it is, seemingly disconnected either from what came before or after it in the band’s career, its best moment is the one that most recalls the music-hall masquerade of Between the Buttons. Jagger sings with a winking wonder somewhere between Ray Davies and early David Bowie, a blend reflected in lyrics that balance future-shock alienation with wistful nostalgia. (I imagine Bowie, in particular, nodding with approval at the lyric about “having an affair with a random computer.”) When it shifts into the pounding rock of the anthemic second half, it loses a bit of its power, but the end’s brief resumption of the theme (now with electric guitar squalling on top of the lyric) makes for a satisfyingly odd conclusion.

“Factory Girl” (from Beggar’s Banquet, 1968)

The smash cut from the Swinging London Stones of Between the Buttons to the roots-minded rockers of Beggar’s Banquet is still jarring. But this album is no less weird than its psychedelic predecessor, filled with unsettling and sometimes hallucinatory songs that make an appearance by the literal Devil seem like no surprise. “Factory Girl” is a rare moment of unabashed sweetness, a mandolin-driven love song where Jagger (adopting the hyper-twang that he too often used as a shorthand for country music) extols the virtues of the factory worker who’s won his heart despite her tattered outfits and penchant for fighting. There’s a bit of distancing here, as rock star Jagger’s tribute to this working-class woman can’t help but move from the romantic to the romanticized. But it’s all rather lovely, punctuated by driving acoustic guitars that reveal the fast-beating heart between Jagger’s cool exterior. This one gets extra points for the great version on 1991’s live Flashpoint, where the guitars sound even more excited, the percussion even more propulsive, and Jagger even more besotted.

“Monkey Man” (from Let It Bleed, 1969)

Fittingly for such an apocalyptic album, “Monkey Man” comes in with a warning, a minor-key piano flourish that builds into a restless shuffle. Jagger’s doing his problem-child routine, offering maybe his best mix of post-Bob Dylan imagery and post-Jack Flash mythmaking to detail the strange career of the title character. On first blush, the key lyric seems like it’s “Well I hope we're not too messianic or a trifle too satanic/But we love to play the blues,” a decent summation (and refutation) of the Stones’ self-made mythology. But the actual key lyric is the earlier “that’s not really true,” a declamation from Jagger that makes clear that he doesn’t want us to take him as any more reliable a narrator than we’d expected Jack Flash to be. But the wordplay and meta-commentary is all secondary to one of the Stones’ best arrangements, with the guitars flittering like flames over a spooky polyrhythm and shimmering keyboards. This track can bleed all over me.

“Moonlight Mile” (from Sticky Fingers, 1971)

Even though the group earned their reputation for celebrating the indulgences of the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle, the Stones are arguably more effective documenting its melancholy underside. They got really good at this in the 1970s, when – even as they became the self-proclaimed “greatest rock and roll band in the world” (messianic and satanic in equal measure) – they devoted space on each record to the way that such excess has its limits. Sticky Fingers, 1971’s ragged burnout, is dominated by this ambivalence, where even the horndog in “Can’t You Hear Me Knockin’” or admirer in “You Got The Silver” sound like they’re at the very end of their ropes. The album closes with this striking ballad, an open-road lament that moves from a hushed acoustic intro into a fully orchestrated chorus. The band sounds tired here, not in the lazy-ass way that came to characterize some of their later stuff, but with a kind of sonic exhaustion that makes “Moonlight Mile” a deep sigh as it pushes forward with a “head full of snow” and a heart full of longing.

“Torn and Frayed” (from Exile on Main Street, 1972)

Gram Parsons supposedly inspired this tender track from Exile on Main Street, both in terms of lyrical imagery and its swelling country-rock. (In fact, it’s Parsons collaborator Al Perkins who plays the pedal steel, offering a hot burrito of a solo that gave this track the edge for me here over the “beautiful buzz” heights of “Loving Cup.”) It’s not hard to hear folk music in here too, with the opening lyric’s invocation of “Baby, Let Me Follow You Down,” and the circling melody that brings each new verse in before the old one has a chance to end. There’s a dash of soul here, a bit of post-Band rock there, and other influences floating around, a good encapsulation of the sonic mix that defines Exile in all its overstuffed glory. And, within them, there’s Jagger and Richards singing rangy, mangy harmonies over chiming guitars and subtly supportive rhythms as they tell the story of a guitar player whose personal mess is offset (or disguised) by his musicianship. When they suggest that “he’ll steal your heart away,” you believe them, even though both you and they should know better.

“100 Years Ago” (from Goats Head Soup, 1973)

The Stones’ post-Exile, pre-Some Girls albums aren’t a creative nadir or defined only as the group’s embrace of jet-setting superstardom. At their best, this Big-Seventies interregnum is a kind of morning-after meditation, with an expanded sound that seemed both to respond to the era’s pop-rock (or try to, at least) and explore the crannies of the root foundations of the “Rolling Stones sound” then solidifying in the popular consciousness. “100 Years Ago” is a great example of both. The second track on Goats Head Soup finds the protagonist looking back on the past with a mix of wistful nostalgia and sad regret. The music jumps around too, from rushing verses driven by clavinet (the amazing Billy Preston strikes again) to a breakdown in the second half that slows it down and draws it out. The song, like this run of Stones albums more generally, doesn’t quite seem to know where it wants to go. But it’s strangely compelling to watch them try. The lyric “don’t you think it’s sometimes wise not to grow up?” doesn’t hit because Jagger and Richards are celebrating those Peter Pan fantasies. It hits because they recognize that the dream is over.

“Time Waits For No One” (from It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll, 1974)

The dream is still over. The sleek hook glides over a glossy arrangement, as Watts’ tick-tock drums and spaced-out guitars from Keith Richards and the soon-departing Mick Taylor accompany Jagger as he urges listeners (and probably himself) to relish the pleasures of the present before they disappear. This track isn’t perfect: Jagger pushes too hard on the verses, as though he’s trying to will his voice to places it doesn’t want to go, and some of the lyrics are corny clichés. But the chorus is so sturdy, and the band’s crescendo through the song so affecting, that it doesn’t matter.

“Memory Motel” (from Black and Blue, 1976)

A spiritual successor to “Moonlight Mile” and a fitting closer to the morning-after phase about to be shaken off by their next album. Transitional in many ways, Black and Blue has a loose-ends feel that sometimes doesn’t work in its favor. But, especially on its ballads, the cozy luxury of global recording studios and a cast of expert session players becomes an asset. The woozy sadness of “Memory Motel” is one of these. It doesn’t really matter what Jagger’s singing about: you get the love-affair idea pretty quickly. What does matter is the hum of Keith Richards’ and Billy Preston’s piano lines bouncing off each other, or the hide-and-seek entrances of Harvey Mandel’s guitar, or the way that Richards  - with voice cracking – gives the bridge a loving generosity where its lyrics (“She’s got a mind of her own, and she use it well”) could come off as condescending. When they all join in on the chorus (including newbie Ronnie Wood), it sounds like a 3 AM singalong that will last as long as the whiskey does. Or maybe like a neon sign slowly blinking as it burns out.

“Lies” (from Some Girls, 1978)

No big surprise: Charlie Watts is the key to the band’s late-70s revival, pushing tempos and clattering away with fire and precision. (There’s a smoking live version of “Shattered” from 1978 that I sent to just about everyone after Watts’ death.) “Lies” is maybe the wild-and-wooliest of Some Girls’ decadent New York Rock, a fuck-off stomp where Richards, Wood, and Wyman seem to be competing with each other to see whose line can be the most feverish and where Jagger hoots and hollers the often-incomprehensible lyrics before culminating in a snarling repetition of the title. This might’ve all turned to shit – or started out that way to begin with – if it weren’t for Watts, whose internal and external reputation as the band’s glue is never more apparent than when they’re on this kind of sugar rush.

“Let Me Go” (from Emotional Rescue, 1980)

At some point, the “Stonesy” template became established enough that the group seemed to start recording tributes to themselves. “Let Me Go” is one of those. And it’s great, all sleazy vocals and greasy riffs, rounded up and ordered – as ever – by Charlie Watts with his ratatat fills and engine-driving rhythm around which the rest of them can goof around. They sped it up on the subsequent tour, providing a backdrop for Jagger’s literal aerobics, but it works better here as a (relatively) slower drag. At this tempo, “Let Me Go” finds the cut early and wallows in the sweet stink for as long as possible.

“No Use In Crying” (from Tattoo You, 1981)

The second side of Tattoo You is enough of a vibe to earn a really smart reference in an episode of Veronica Mars. It’s one groove after another, with only the sweet pop of “Waiting on a Friend” serving as something approaching a standard Stones song. Many of the album’s songs were born from in-studio jams or repurposed snippets, so it makes sense that tracks like “No Use In Crying” feel like a deconstructed version of one of the group’s earlier ballads. Here, the guitar and piano cycle back and forth, the drums hit just every so often, and Bill Wyman’s bass, ever solid and surprisingly flexible, dips through like an intrusive thought. Over this, Jagger – in full bratty falsetto – wraps around the lyrics (especially that repeated “crying”) with so much exaggeration that it circles back around to sincerity. Of course, over this troubled arrangement, it’s impossible to believe that Jagger isn’t conflicted: especially as he builds the desperation of “ain’t no use!” you know he’s regretting his decision already. But you won’t regret listening as he tears himself up about it.

“Wanna Hold You” (from Undercover, 1983)

Somewhere along the line, Keith Richards became a symbol of rock ‘n’ roll tradition, or at least the faith-keeping that was supposed to withstand the onslaught of new sounds and crazes. Ironically, as this process occurred (and still does), Richards’ regular appearances on Stones albums became some of those albums’ freshest and most interesting tracks. On 1983’s Undercover, the paranoid party that welcomed the High ‘80s with the splashy excess they required, Richards dug in with “Wanna Hold You,” a power-pop driver with the clipped chords, angsty vocals, and insistent hook that would’ve fit in with any skinny-tied New Wavers. He also reinforced his reputation as the group’s lovable slob, a mess of a man whose disheveled and scuzzy exterior masked a sweet and aching heart. On Undercover, an album filled with songs about abuse, corruption, espionage, and murder, Richards’ reappearance with another silly love song is a welcome counterpoint.

“Hold Back” (from Dirty Work, 1986)

I’m not the first to say that much of Dirty Work sounds like a giant brawl, and I doubt I’ll be the last. But, even without the meta-context of Jagger and Richards’ growing hostilities and Charlie Watts’ drug struggles, this 1986 album is a rowdy affair filled with big drums and big problems. “Hold Back” is one of the album’s loudest melees, with Jagger basically screaming through the whole thing. Watts was absent or limited for many of the sessions, but he’s in full force here, thundering across the mix with help from guest bassist Ivan Neville, whose (appropriately) slapped bass deepens the track’s impact as it breaks up into a funky mess by the end.

“Can’t Be Seen” (from Steel Wheels, 1989)

Keith Richards has a justified reputation for a certain kind of crunching, post-Chuck Berry rocker, but his contributions to the Stones’ 1980s run are more reminiscent of the era’s mainstream pop-rock, blending spiky post-punk with big-hearted ballads. On Steel Wheels, the group’s return after a fractious hiatus, Richards brings both sides. “Slipping Away” is a fine addition to the roster of woozy Richards slow songs, but “Can’t Be Seen” – nestled in the middle of an album whose shiny boomer rock has aged variably – is a better demonstration of his gifts. Opening with an anxious mix of drums and keyboards, the track settles in when Richards enters, sweetly growling through a lonely lament of impossible love that loses its bluesy undercurrent amidst the trademark sonic swoosh of what writer, Stones fan, and NFR pal Alfred Soto calls “the Poppy Bush Interzone.” Coming off the success of his solo Talk is Cheap, Richards sounds engaged in the musical moment in a way that complements but doesn’t overwhelm his power-chorded foundations.

“Baby Break It Down” (from Voodoo Lounge, 1994)

Sometimes I think Voodoo Lounge is the best of the legacy-era albums that begin with Steel Wheels, and sometimes I think it’s their worst. Sometimes, its lack of sonic experimentation, easy professionalism, and CD-era abundance feels comforting and comfortable. Other times, its lack of sonic experimentation, easy professionalism, and CD-era abundance feel underwhelming, lazy, and – worst of all – boring. No matter where I land, though, “Baby Break It Down” always sounds great. Jagger’s voice aches, Watts and new bassist Daryl Jones thump away behind, and Richards’ and Wood’s guitars saw through a chopping, unresolved riff that fits the lyric’s uncertainty perfectly. Best of all is the background vocals, the section led by Bernard Fowler whose rich, supportive harmonies became a crucial element to their sound. On an album that, for better and worse, offers a comprehensive run-down of the Stones’ go-to moves, “Baby Break It Down” shows what happens when all the old standbys work together so well that you remember why they became standbys in the first place.

“You Don’t Have To Mean It” (from Bridges to Babylon, 1997)

The Stones’ relationship to reggae has been neither as central to them as other kinds of Black music nor as noteworthy for either good or bad reasons. But the Jamaican music that Richards, in particular, has made a central part of his musical identity shows up occasionally on their late-period albums. Their best Jamaican-influenced cut is Richards’ breezy “You Don’t Have To Mean It.” Keith’s is in full whatever-works mode here, playing around on the track as the band rocks easily behind him and the Fowler-led background section jumps in and out of the circle. It’s a blissful throwaway and a breath of fresh air on the too-stuffy Bridges to Babylon.

“She Saw Me Coming” (from A Bigger Bang, 2005)

Opening with one of the band’s best riffs in decades, “She Saw Me Coming” is a strutting gem in the middle of the better-than-it-had-any-right-to-be album A Bigger Bang. Jagger’s vocal leaps and jokey lyrics risk turning the song into a hammy pastiche, but the trusty team of Richard, Wood, Watts, and perennial “new” bassist Daryl Jones (now in his thirtieth year with the Stones, as long as Wyman) grounds these antics and weaves together a track that relishes each sustained riff and punchy backbeat.

“I Gotta Go” (from Blue and Lonesome, 2016)

Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the blues tribute Blue and Lonesome works best when it rocks the hardest. Originally recorded by Little Walter, whose harmonica wizardry became a model for Jagger’s own effective playing on display here, “I Gotta Go” has the jump of much of that era’s urban blues. While the Stones don’t quite replicate the hustle-bustle of Little Walter and his Chicago colleagues, they agreeably clomp through the song in a way that recalls the noisy joy of their early recordings. Particularly since this was Watts’ swan song – save for a couple tracks on the new album – hearing him once again drive the train as it almost falls off the tracks is an affecting reminder of just how great he was. And the band’s wise decision to keep their blues album free of ponderous, Clapton-style stabs at significance makes Blue and Lonesome not “important” (god help us), but heartfelt and fun. We’ll see what they have in store with Hackney Diamonds, but I hope they keep that exuberance at the center. It’s only rock and roll, but I like it.

Coming up next: David Cantwell on Emotional Rescue

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