← Behind The Song: Classic Rock Chronicles
Behind The Song: Classic Rock Chronicles
The emotional ride of The Rolling Stones’ “Wild Horses”
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97.1Fm the drive presents the behind the Song podcast, taking you deeper into classic rock's most timeless tunes. Here's your host, Janda it may be.
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The most delicate song in the entire Rolling Stones catalog, with Mick Jagger delivering every single line of Wild Horses with an impassioned wait. And there's good reason for that. By the time this song was written and recorded for 1971's Sticky Fingers album, the Stones had more than enough personal drama to sing about. Let's get into it in this episode of the behind the Song podcast. If you like it, give it a thumbs up and hit subscribe and let us know in the comments. So let's recap a little Rolling Stones history in the time leading up to the creation of Sticky Fingers, their ninth studio album. During the sessions for Let it bleed, their eighth in 1969, Stones founder Brian Jones became more and more unreliable due to his drug habit. It got to the point that the band auditioned Mick Taylor to play guitar, being unable to count on Jones to even show up. Taylor joined in May of 69 and one month later Jones was fired from the Rolling Stones. A few weeks after that, he was found dead in his swimming pool at age 27. The coroner later ruled that a death by misadventure due to drugs and alcohol. Mick Jagger's girlfriend at the time, Mary Ann Faithfull, was inconsolable after the death of Jones and fell into a coma after overdos. In August of 1969, Keith Richards became a father to Marlon, his first child with Anita Pallenberg, who by the way, had previously been involved with Brian Jones. A tangled web indeed. Also, the Stones were kind of broke around this time. Jones behavior and his criminal record had kept them from touring the US for years, but they were now free to enter the country after his sad demise. This freedom was welcome good news, especially considering their finances at the time. But it was bittersweet for Keith Richards, who did not want to tour as a new father with an infant son. It was in this state of mind that Richards picked up his guitar and started playing the chords that would eventually become Wild Horses. Meanwhile, Mick Jagger was dealing with Mary Ann Faithful as she came out of her coma, an event that signaled the painful and bittersweet end of their relationship. When the Stones set out for a US tour in November of 1969, he learned through the press that she had left him for an Italian artist named Mario Schifano, who, by the way, Anita Pallenberg had also been linked to in the early 60s. Small world. Jagger has said that everyone thinks Wild Horses is about Marianne. But it was all well over by then. When the US tour wrapped up in early December of 69, the Stones went into the famed Muscle Shoals Sound studio in Alabama and recorded demos, including For Wild Horses. Here's a little bit of Stones lore that you might find interesting. Ian Stewart, who co founded the band but was relegated to tour manager and sometime piano player by the late 60s, had an aversion to playing the sad minor keys on the piano that the song required, so he vacated the piano bench during the sessions. He was replaced by Jim Dickinson, a producer friend who was visiting Muscle Shoals from Memphis, who played an old upright honky tonk tack piano that was in the studio. All that's left of those sessions is the master tapes, because Jagger erased every outtake other than what the band would take with them when they left Muscle Shoals and headed to their next gig, a gig that would shake the band to their core the Altamont Speedway Free Festival in California. Touted as Woodstock west, the Altamont Free concert happened on December 6, 1969 outside of Tracy, California. Over 300,000 attendees were there to see a free show by Santana, Jefferson Airplane, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, the Flying Burrito Brothers, the Grateful Dead and the Rolling Stones, with the Stones set closing the show, the Grateful Dead declined to play because of increasing violence happening throughout the day, which was police by the Hells Angels hired by the Stones to handle security. The show is intended to be a thank you to fans for a successful US Tour, but the decision to hire the Hells Angels for a reported $500 in beer resulted in several increasingly violent altercations between the motorcycle gang and fans as the day went on, culminating in the stabbing death of Meredith Hunter fan during the Stones set. Two other attendees also died that day. The Stones, horrified at what had happened, escaped via helicopter after their set and retreated to San Francisco, joined by Graham Parsons of the Flying Burrito Brothers, among others. It was there, while everyone was recovering from the Altamont disaster that Parsons heard Wild Horses from the master tape of the demo that the band had just recorded and Muscle Shoals. Graham Parsons and Keith Richards had struck up a friendship a few years before based on their shared love of country music. The initial idea was that the Flying Burrito Brothers would take the demo of Wild Horses and record a part to it, but that evolved into Parsons band recording the song, which was first released as the final track on the flying Burrito Brothers second album, Burrito Deluxe, in April of 1970. This marked one of the Only times the Stones allowed anyone to record one of their songs for an album, much less release it before they actually did themselves. At the time, they didn't feel that Wild Horses held enough promise to be included on a Rolling Stones release, but within a year their version would make its way onto Sticky Fingers. The song does appear in Graham Parsons Lyric Journal, which was held for years by a member of the band Blind Faith and was eventually obtained by the Hard Rock Cafe as a museum piece. Many believe Parsons was involved in the creation of Wild Horses, and while that's unclear, it's hard to argue that the Rolling Stones version is the one that became an instant classic on the rock timeline. And it goes like this. Childhood living is easy to do the things you wanted, I bought them for you Graceless lady, you know who I am, you know I can't let you slide through my hands Wild horses couldn't drag me away. It's easy to see why many would say that Jagger wrote this song for Marianne Faithful on the heels of their breakup, with the lines about the graceless lady included there. But while he's discounted that theory, he did say that the song is very personal to him and that it sounds as evocative and sad as it does, because, in his words, it was quite a heavy time. And it goes on. I watched you suffer a dull, aching pain now you decided to show me the same no sweeping exits or offstage lines could make me feel bitter or treat you unkind Wild horses couldn't drag me away. Keith Richards harmonizes with Jagger on the chorus, and it sounds so emotive and wistful because he said he wrote that title line, Wild horses couldn't drag me away. While he was strumming the guitar, thinking about having to go out on tour after his son Marlon was born and not wanting to leave his family behind to do it. And the song ends, I know I dreamed you a sin and a lie I have my freedom but I don't have much time Faith has been broken Tears must be cried let's do some living after we die Wild horses couldn't drag me away the death of Brian Jones, a love gone wrong with Marianne Faithfull, a rock star grappling with becoming a new father and a concert that ended in tragedy. It's all there in Wild Horses. A couple of things to note about Sticky Fingers. When it was released, it was the Stone's first album to reach number one on both the UK and the US album charts, and it has, of course, since gone multi platinum. The original Sticky Fingers cover art is a real head turner. It was conceptualized by Andy Warhol and it contains one of the most in your face images on any album artwork ever. It features a working zipper on a pair of skin tight jeans widely believed to have been worn not by Jagger as some initially thought, but by model and actor Joe D'Alessandro and shot an extreme close up from the front. D'Alessandra was a Warhol Factory superstar in New York City in the late 60s who was also immortalized as the Little Joe who never once gave it away in Lou Reed's classic Take a Walk on the Wild side. That zippered up album artwork was really expensive to make and when it was stacked in the racks in the stores, retailers complained that the hardware on the zipper caused damage, so it was replaced. Sticky Fingers is also the first Stones album to feature their famous lips and tongue logo on the inside sleeve. That image was a suggestion by Jagger to conjure up the Hindu goddess Kali and it was designed by an art student at the Royal College of Art in London in 1970 named John Paisch. It tells you everything you need to know about the Stones and it's been included on every album artwork, every single single artwork and on most of the band's merch since its debut on Sticky Fingers. It is one of the most iconic logos of all time. Wild Horses isn't often performed by the Stones in concert, but when it is, it's given the proper treatment for such a poignant song. If you see them perform it live, you are seeing something special, a rare moment when the band sounds really vulnerable because the song is so very emotional. Is it their most soul bearing song? Can you think of any others in the Stones catalog that come close to the intimacy of Wild Horses? Something to think about until next time. I'm Janda and this has been behind the song. If you liked this episode, give it a like and subscribe to the channel and check it out on TikTok too. Special thanks as always to Christian Lane for the music you hear on these podcast episodes. You can find me on the air at 97.1fm the drive in Chicago and at wdrv.com on the way. Much more classic rock and roll.