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The song “Paint it, Black” is one of the most famous works of The Rolling Stones. It is perhaps second in popularity only to the band’s other hit, “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”.
Despite more than half a century of history, The Rolling Stones song “Paint it, Black” is a “must have” in the playlists of several generations of rock’n’roll fans and self-respecting rock radio stations. With some mystical appeal, it doesn’t get boring even after thousands of listens.
History of the creation of the song “Paint it, Black”
The release date of “Paint it, Black” as a single fell on “Bloody Friday” – May 13th, 1966 (in the UK, and May 7th in the USA).
Keith Richards and Mick Jagger are believed to be behind its creation, for the most part. But it wouldn’t be that catchy hit without Brian Jones’ original riff and Bill Wyman’s work with the lows.
The original plan was for the song to be more rhythmic, groovy and funky. But in the end they decided to replace the regular guitar with an Indian sitar, which the band brought back from Fiji. And, according to Richards, that’s what made the whole song.
Later music critics put forward theories that The Rolling Stones in “Paint it, Black” copied The Beatles, who used sitar in the song “Norwegian Wood” (Jones was familiar with the “Beatle” George Harrison, who was fond of this instrument). But they might as well have criticized the band for playing guitar, drums or any other musical instrument anyone had played before.
Besides, though the official version claims that the Indian instrument appeared in the band’s repertoire under the influence of the Beatles, Mick Jagger mentioned in his interview a “weirdo” playing sitar in some jazz band whom the Rollings had met in the studio while recording “Paint it, Black”. They supposedly liked the unusual muffled sound of the sitar so much that they decided to make it the “basis” for a future hit.
In general, it doesn’t matter how, but it happened, and the instrument was definitely the right one – with an ordinary guitar this song would have hardly become so memorable.
Another experiment was realized by Bill Wyman, who wanted to shade the soft sound of the sitar with deeper bass. But since it was impossible to achieve the desired effect with a bass guitar, Bill sat down at the electric organ. Or rather, lay down. He sprawled out on the floor and pounded the pedals with his fists.
In contrast to the musical component, which was done by almost all the members of The Rolling Stones, the lyrics of “Paint it, Black” were composed by Mick Jagger from the first to the last word.
The Secrets Behind the Red Door
As is usually the case with most classic rock hits, the song has no special meaning. The lyrics of “Paint it, Black” are simple: a guy lost his lover, he can’t stand the colorful life going on around him, and he wants everything around him to be as black and dreary as he feels.
But fans couldn’t put up with such minimalism. So they came up with several alternative interpretations.
Trying to attribute a special meaning to the lyrics of “Paint it, Black”, the Rolling fans clung to almost the only metaphor – the “red door”. And they rushed to invent what allegory was hidden here. It was associated with the door to a brothel, the entrance to a Catholic church and even the color of the Soviet Union flag.
And in the 80s, the movie Full Metal Jacket and the TV series Deadline gave new reasons to attribute a non-existent meaning to the lyrics of the song “Paint it, Black” – they began to correlate it with the war in Vietnam.
To be fair, though, it is worth mentioning that the participants of the Vietnam War noted that The Rolling Stones’ hit “Paint it, Black” really meant a lot to them: it conveyed the general mood prevailing in the ranks of the American army and fit perfectly into their surroundings.
Also adding to the confusion was a mistake by the Decca record label. It released the single with the mistake of putting a comma before the word “black”. A fresh version of the translation of “Paint it, Black” took on new colors. A racist meaning was attributed to it.
But Mick Jagger stubbornly refuted all the speculations. According to him, the music and lyrics of “Paint it, Black” were written in an atmosphere of foolishness. For them, the song was a kind of comedy track.
But the most interesting thing is that after the recording, the musicians felt as if they didn’t write the song. The familiar parts, played a couple thousand times in three days, became alien.
“Sometimes you feel like you didn’t write them. The song ‘Paint it, Black’ is a little out of the flow. Where it came from, I don’t know,” Keith Richards admitted.
“Modest” successes of “Paint it, Black.”
This song was the title track on the album “Aftermath” (1966) and immediately conquered the English-language charts – it settled at the first positions on Billboard and the UK Chart.
The song was also at the top of the charts in Canada, as well as in the Dutch Top 40. It should be noted that the latter placed the single on the first position again almost 25 years later, in 1990.
In 2004, a music magazine of the same name with the band gave the song number 174 on the list of 500 greatest rock hits. Later on, the track gave up a little bit and dropped down to No. 176.
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“While My Guitar Gently Weeps” is one of the most memorable and poignant works of The Beatles. This song was created in 1968, at a time when the preconditions for the band’s breakup were already in place. But the contradictions in the quartet that eventually led to the band’s demise did not have a negative impact on Harrison. On the contrary, he devoted more and more time to his art and became more and more popular.
Why are we talking about this particular member of the band? It’s because this song was written entirely by George Harrison. And the majority of the Liverpool Four fans thought that all the songs belonged to McCartney and Lennon. And the band members themselves underestimated the compositional ability of George.
In addition, he had no advisor in the team. Lennon and McCartney competed with each other, but still supported each other when faced with difficulties. The two also perfected writing together.
Harrison, on the other hand, always stayed on the sidelines, creating something that did not fit with the Beatles’ usual creativity, mostly because of his “eastern hobbies”.
How the tenderly crying guitar hit was created
Harrison began writing the music for the future “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” while in India. And the lyrics were written in England when George was visiting his parents’ home in Warrington, pondering the I-Tsing, the Book of Changes. This philosophical text asserts that everything that happens is destined to happen. That there are no coincidences. That everything always has a meaning.
The lyrics of the song “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” arose out of Harrison’s desire to test this judgement. The musician decided to create a work based on the first lines of a randomly opened book picked out of a shelf. That’s how the phrase “gently weeps” came to be the starting point of the text.
The difficulties of recording a future hit
When Harrison introduced his creation to the other members of the quartet, they took it with skepticism. The creator of the hit claims that such a reaction was due to the desire to promote only their work.
The work on the record was very hard. A lot of versions were recorded. Some were purely acoustic, others were more electric. But they weren’t good enough for the album. George Harrison wanted the song to be recorded in the acoustic version, but Paul McCartney opposed it. He said the song sounded “un-Beatlesque.”
Some believe that McCartney, who had recorded several acoustic songs, was simply afraid that Harrison’s work would overshadow them.
There was also no guitar “wail” that was needed in this song. Harrison and Lennon took turns performing the solo part. But neither of them could achieve that very sound.
Eric Clapton rushes to the rescue
In an effort to rectify the situation, Harrison called his buddy Eric Clapton to perform the long-suffering solo. At first, the latter was reluctant, because there had never been anyone involved with the Beatles’ recordings before. But George changed his friend’s mind, saying that he would choose who would play his musical creation himself.
In the end, all the band members claimed that Clapton’s involvement was very helpful and helped to ease the tension in the studio. In addition, according to Harrison, McCartney and Lennon initially did not make the necessary effort, and it was only Clapton’s presence that forced them to start treating the recording diligently.
Almost as soon as he showed up, McCartney gave out a suitable introduction on the piano, and the whole subsequent process of recording the song went in the right direction. So there is no doubt that the Beatles were able to finish the record thanks to Eric Clapton.
Satisfied with the result, the Beatles decided to enter “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” into the “White Album”, which was released the same year.
The composition is considered Harrison’s most popular song from that album. The public liked it for its “juicy realism” and Clapton’s brilliant solo.
Interesting facts
1) The first version of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” had an extra verse. It differed from the final text by a couple of lines.
2) Because of the dissatisfaction with the versions of the composition in the studio about 28 versions of the hit song were recorded in the period from August 17th till September 6th 1968.
3) In 2002, McCartney and Clapton performed Harrison’s song at a concert celebrating the 50th anniversary of Elizabeth II’s accession to the throne.
4) This song was the first that Ringo Starr played after he returned to the quartet (the drummer had left it for a while due to a falling out with McCartney).
5) Numerous compliments for the song prompted Harrison to write its sequel. Thus emerged “This Guitar (Can’t Keep From Grieving),” whose title translates as “This Guitar (Can’t Keep From Grieving).” But it wasn’t quite as successful.
6) Rolling Stone magazine listed “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” as one of the top 100 guitar songs, as well as the 500 greatest songs of all time. On the latter list, it is placed 136th, while the former lists it as 7th.
7) Dhani Harrison, Prince, Jeff Lynn, Tom Petty, Billy Preston and Steve Winwood performed the song at George Harrison’s posthumous induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It took place in 2004.
8) As any real rock hit should be, there have been many people willing to record their cover of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” or a localized version over the years: Santana, Jimmy Ponder, Kenny Rankin, Marc Ribot, Phish, The Rippingtons, Bobby Bryant and even DDT.
Among the modern performers the most original versions belong to the American metallers Spineshank, the indie rockers from Texas Girl in a Coma, the Ukrainian ethno-rock band Kam’yany Gist, the Norwegian cover metalist Leo Moracchioli, the Moscow punks Plan Lomonosov and the Russian metal band Fear Factor.
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Despite the fact that The White Stripes ceased to exist back in 2011, they still remain in the playlists and hearts of music lovers all over the world. In particular, thanks to the song “Seven Nation Army”, which, in fact, has been the calling card of the eccentric American family duo for a decade and a half already.
The original guitar riff, the kaleidoscopic clip in red-black-and-white colors and the breakout tenor of the band leader Jack White made the single “White Stripes” an undeniable hit of the “noughties”.
The Hit That Jack Built
What Jack White has a knack for is a flair for potential hits – there’s a reason he placed “Seven Nation Army” at No. 1 on the “Elephant” album. He would do the same three years later with another hit single, “Steady As She Goes,” which would be recorded with The Raconteurs and become his calling card. In both cases, Jack clearly didn’t miss the mark.
“Seven Nation Army” effortlessly climbed to the top of the Billboard chart, won a Grammy for “Best Rock Song” and became the starting point in the commercial success and true popularity of the “striped” duo. And authoritative music publications – Rolling Stone, Q, New Musical Express – vied with each other to award the top places to the hit song.
And all this was in spite of the fact that the American and British producers said in one voice that the song would ruin the album. They refused to put it at the top of the list. But luckily Jack White had enough persistence to insist on his own.
About the creation of “Army of Seven Nations.”
The hit started a year before the release of the band’s fourth studio work (“Elephant”) in 2002. While tuning up the sound equipment before the next concert in Australia, Jack White composed a simple riff. At that time, the musician’s keen sense did not recognize it as a potential hit. White doubted whether the tune should be used at all.
He asked his friend Ben Swank about it. The latter replied that “you could have done better”, and Jack thought “it sounded good”. In the end, the leader of The White Stripes continued working on the song.
White hastily titled the working version of the song “Seven Nation Army”. Where did that title come from? Quite simply, it was Jack’s childhood name for the Salvation Army.
When the song was completely finished, he decided to keep the working title, since the lyrics were written to match it.
About the meaning of the song and what it sounds like
After the release of the single, a heated debate broke out about what the lyrics of the song “Seven Nation Army” were talking about. The most ridiculous versions were put forward: from the cruel world of childhood to the interpretation of the fairy tale “Oz”.
The incomprehensible lyrics, full of allusions, contributed to the confusion. In it bizarrely intertwined the search for home, the battle with a mythical army and the Queen of England.
But Jack ended these discussions by telling us that the Seven Nation Army text is about rumors. The rumors that are spread about him and Meg by the people they meet along life’s path. About the desire to run away, to leave everything behind, to eventually return home.
The theme of coming home is also indicated by some moments in the video for the song: at the beginning of the third verse, Jack points to his palm with clenched fingers, which is a reference to welcoming the people of Michigan – he looks like a mitten on the map. In this way he makes it clear where he is from, where his home is.
The sound of “Seven Nation Army” is just as enigmatic as the lyrics. Although Jack White’s eccentricity will fully unfold in his other projects (one of them is The Dead Weather), he actively started to develop his style at the time of “White Stripes”.
White created a recognizable riff with a semi-acoustic guitar and a primer. The output was a monotonous, jerky sound, which is easily confused with the bass. In addition, he purposely refused to mix the composition. Like the rest of the “Elephant” album, it was recorded without computer processing, on the equipment of the sixties.
Rock hit that became a soccer anthem
It was not only rock music fans that liked the single of the American duo. Quite unexpectedly, it caught the fancy of soccer fans. The fans of the Club Brugge heard the song in the bar on the eve of the 2003 Champions League. After chanting it all night, they decided to chant the lyrics after the decisive goal against the Italian team.
As a result, the chant was considered good luck and the Belgians continued to chant it at every match. Then the club itself acquired the rights to use “Seven Nation Army” during their games.
In 2006 during the UEFA Cup Brugge hosted the Italian team Roma, who also liked the song a lot. And when in the summer of the same year the World Cup started, “Seven Nation Army” was already an integral part of the Italian team: the fans sang the hit after every victory over the opposing team.
Since 2008, the song has become the unofficial soccer anthem. It is played after all the goals at Euro 2012 and 2016, and the fans sing the hit from the stands. However, in their own way. Each time they insert lines encouraging their native team or ridiculing the opponent.
The band’s frontman himself doesn’t mind such metamorphoses. Jack thinks it’s a real success when a song loses its author and becomes a folk song. And it’s true – most people who know the tune and a few lines of this song have no idea who sang it in the original.
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The Rolling Stones’ song “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” was at one time a real breakthrough for the band. It was the band’s first single to top the charts outside the UK.
Later this track made its authors really famous and allowed them to surpass, if not eclipse, then certainly the undisputed idols of rock-n-roll – The Beatles.
Besides, it is considered that this song of The Rolling Stones gave the most serious impulse to the development of rock music as a genre, taking its place in its history with the marking “classic”.
The Rolling Stones’ song “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” was at one time a real breakthrough for the band. It was the band’s first single to top the charts outside the UK.
Later this track made its authors really famous and allowed them to surpass, if not eclipse, then certainly the undisputed idols of rock-n-roll – The Beatles.
Besides, it is considered that this song of The Rolling Stones gave the most serious impulse to the development of rock music as a genre, taking its place in its history with the marking “classic”.
“(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” is a song born in a semi-dream
On the day of this song’s creation, things were not going well for the band. The concert in Clearwater, Florida, on the band’s third U.S. tour was canceled: drunken fans started a brawl, as a result of which the musicians managed to play only four songs.
When Keith Richards returned to the hotel, devoid of energy, almost falling asleep, he began to improvise on the guitar. As a result, he had a riff for a future hit and almost immediately the key phrase of the lyrics – “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” came to mind.
Keith recorded the sketches of the song on a tape recorder and fell asleep. In the morning it turned out that he forgot to turn off the recording on the device. Therefore, the first version of the track contains not only the two-minute melody of the future hit, but also Richards’ 40-minute snore.
In the morning, Keith showed the sketches to the band’s lead singer, Mick Jagger. He grabbed the main line and wrote the rest of the lyrics around it. In fact, Richards is the author of only one line in the song.
The Case That Started a Musical Revolution
The first version of The Rolling Stones “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”, with its harmonica and folk sound, was recorded at Chess studios in Chicago on May 10th, 1965, and then re-recorded at RCA in Hollywood.
Then in June of 1965 the track was released as a single in the USA. In July the composition was included in the American version of the album “Out of Our Heads”, which later became “platinum”.
Initially, Keith Richards wanted to include the wind instruments in the introduction. He turned the amplifiers up to maximum and distorted the sound, but nothing worked. Then Ian Stewart, the band’s keyboard player, brought in the first Gibson fuzz.
Everyone liked the new weighted sound of the song, except Keith. He still insisted on brass. But other musicians and managers of the band changed his mind and insisted on recording the song with a fuzz, a slower riff and a different drum part. That was the reason why the band had a lot of fans who were fed up with the light Beatles sound and wanted something heavier.
Naturally, the Rollings were not the first to use such a trick. But it was after that case that many other musicians all over the world adopted similar distorting effects on electric guitars. For this reason, “I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” by The Rolling Stones is considered to be a trendsetter of rock music as a genre. Though, of course, it is not so.
It was not only the sound that was unusual, but also the lyrics of The Rolling Stones song “Satisfaction”.
It was a shocker for the ’60s. So much so that in the beginning the track was only heard on pirate radio. And the older generation sharply condemned the composition for its sexual connotations.
The reason for that was the main phrase as well as the other lines. The censors rejected the lyrics “I want to seduce a girl” and the lyrics “Honey, come back next week/ See, I’m going through a whole string of bad luck” were seen as a hint at the time of the critics.
In fact, the main message of the song is that it is impossible to see the true meaning of things that are hidden behind lies. It also reflects the mercantile spirit of the U.S. and the fatigue of exhausting concert tours.
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The song “Like a Rolling Stone” is considered to be Bob Dylan’s best work. In its time it conquered the top of most English-language charts and took the leading places in the ratings of authoritative music publications. And Rolling Stone magazine even gave it the first place in their list of the greatest rock hits of all time.
To some rock music lovers, this choice may seem incomprehensible and unjustified. No way – I didn’t agree with that at first, either. But it all falls into place when you find out that Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” didn’t get this spot for the drive you expect from the #1 rock hit, but for its virtuosity and sarcastic and cynical lyrics that ultimately had the biggest impact on the rock music world.
This song managed to break the commercial foundations of decades-old record companies. It is the first track over three minutes long to be released as a single. Also “Like a Rolling Stone” is almost the only song of the 60’s that won the love of listeners not by its snotty romantic lines, but by the lyrics about the fall from the top of the social ladder down into the slums.
Well, for Bob Dylan himself “Like a Rolling Stone” became a “ticket” to the world of rock music and the beginning of a new turn in his musical career.
Like a tumbleweed – from folk singer to rockers
In 1965, Bob Dylan seriously considered leaving the music scene. Four years as a folk singer, the breakup with his solo artist Joan Baez, and a major UK tour that had just ended had him so exhausted that the musician decided to take a break and start composing.
In his attempts to create either a poem or a poem, Bob blotted out about 10-20 pages (even the musician himself mentions different data in his interviews), until one of the composed lines (“How does it feel?”) sounded like a melodic tune (at that moment he happened to be at the piano).
Subsequently, Dylan, like a sculptor, cut away the extra pieces of textual marble, reducing the original version to four verses and one chorus, and soon moved into the studio.
He invited several session musicians to record, including Michael Bloomfield and Al Kooper. In the beginning there were some difficulties: Dylan wanted to get away from the traditional blues sound, there were no sheet music, and the tune was only in his head, so the invited musicians had to play the song by ear. As a result, the basis of the melody was formed as a result of chaotic improvisations.
After trying several variations of the sound and sitting Cooper at the organ, the musicians finally played a version of “Like a Rolling Stone” that has been capturing the hearts of music lovers for over half a century. It went on to define the way Bob Dylan performed for years to come.
Breaking Bad
The song “Like a Rolling Stone” did not become an instant hit. It, in a sense, had to fight for a place in the sun. The marketing and sales department of Columbia Records almost killed the song in the beginning, putting it on the list of cancelled releases. They absolutely refused to release it as a single. The reason was the length of the record and Dylan’s chosen sound.
But their decision changed after the celebrities of the music world listened to “Like a Rolling Stone” literally to the holes, while admiring it at the same time. The label’s releasing coordinator (Shawn Considine) brought the record with the track to the elite Arthur club and asked the disc jockey to play it. The audience ended up asking to play the track again so often that the disc wiped out over the course of the evening.
The next day, the director of several dozen of New York’s top radio stations called the record company and demanded a copy of the record for radio airplay.
After that, the label had no choice but to go against its marketing views. On July 15, radio stations received the records with the long-awaited composition. Due to the peculiarities of the recording (half of the song was on the A side and the rest on the B side), initially only part of the song was on the air (the DJs were too lazy to turn the record over). But under the pressure of the audience, they started to broadcast the full version of the song.
And already on July 20, 1965 the song was released as a single in the version that Bob Dylan originally gave them. On the second side of the record, the song “Gates of Eden” was recorded.
Confession
Afterwards Bob Dylan’s hit “Like a Rolling Stone” repeatedly proved that the initial reluctance of the label to release the single was wrong.
The song was endlessly played on the radio stations, it stayed on the second place in the Billboard chart for 12 weeks in a row (the first place was taken by The Beatles with the track “Help!”), and the critics recognized it as the best Bob Dylan’s song.
Besides the 1st position on the Rolling Stone chart, the hit was #4 on VH1’s list of the “100 Greatest Rock Songs”, electronic publication Pitchfork also ranked it #4 among the 200 most important songs of the 60′s, and Mojo magazine put the track on top of the 100 best songs of all time.
Some believe that Rolling Stone magazine gave the song the top spot because they borrowed the title from it. However, that is not true, because the title was either in honor of the bluesman Muddy Waters’ song of the same name, or it was taken from the proverb “A rolling stone gathers no moss”. Either way, Dylan’s song had nothing to do with it.
“Like a Rolling Stone” is one of the few rock songs with its own biography. In 2005, music critic Greil Marcus published a book recounting the two-day recording of the track.
The value of the hit also proves the fact that in 2004 the handwritten sheets with the lyrics of the song were sold at the Sothebys auction for more than 2 million dollars.
But most importantly, the song put an end to the condemnations of Dylan for his departure from folk. If his first performance in Newport with his debut “heavyweight” album “Bringing It All Back Home” was met with a barrage of whistles and shouts of “Judas”, the two subsequent records “Highway 61 Revisited” (with the legendary hit on board) and “Blonde on Blonde” proved that the musician was on the rock path seriously and permanently. The three long-players would later be called the “Great Rock Trilogy.”
The Meaning of the Hit
Unlike most of the hits of the 60-s, “Like a Rolling Stone” has nothing to do with the love feelings, adored by the music lovers of the time.
The phrase “rolling stone” is an idiomatic expression, literary translated as “tumbleweed. In Dylan’s song, it refers to a “tramping tumbleweed.”
The Bob Dylan song – “Like a Rolling Stone” tells the story of an arrogant socialite who has fallen to the bottom of social life and become a vagabond, a loss of naivety, a harsh life experience and duplicity. And the story contains both sarcasm and pity for the heroine who has fallen from fairy tale to harsh reality.
Although the lyrics of the track are not dedicated to anybody in particular, they were seen as a reference to the people around the musician. For example, the line about the diplomat who carried on his shoulders a Siamese cat (“your diplomat who carried on his shoulders a Siamese cat”) was compared to the producer Andy Warhol, and the fallen socialite was compared to the model Edie Sedgwick. However, the majority of Dylan’s biographers agree that the song was not dedicated to anyone in particular, but was based on a collective image and a bit of autobiography.
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