THE ROLLING STONES: BEGGARS BANQUET (1968)
1) Sympathy
For The Devil; 2) No Expectations; 3)
Dear Doctor; 4) Parachute Woman; 5) Jig-Saw Puzzle;
6) Street Fighting Man; 7) Prodigal Son; 8) Stray Cat Blues; 9) Factory Girl; 10) Salt Of The
Earth.
«We were starting to find the Rolling Stones», quoth
Keith Richards on the time period during which the band made Beggars Banquet — a fairly
self-demeaning remark in some aspects, considering that it somehow manages to
leave even ʽSatisfactionʼ overboard, not to mention all the glorious pop-rock
concoctions of 1966-67. However, if one takes this remark to really mean «we
were starting to carve in stone the textbook image of the Rolling Stones in all
future textbooks», then it comes out as fairly accurate. Once the Stones went
on the road in 1969, after a good two years of recuperation from their 1967
troubles and solving their second guitarist problem, they pretty much tossed
overboard everything that they did
prior to 1968 — with the exception of two or three heavily rearranged oldies
like ʽSatisfactionʼ, it really looked like they themselves had declared all
those early attempts at songwriting, all that psychedelia, all that «English
vibe» completely irrelevant for the modern age — the equivalent of cute teenage
experiments at writing that one eventually locks up in the attic, provided one
does not have the heart to just go ahead and burn them in the fireplace, so as
not to be accidentally embarrassed in the future.
Ironically, while in 1969 focusing their live
sets on recent material was clearly intended to present the rejuvenated band
as one of the most relevant forces in modern music, the exact same material
eventually became millstones around their necks — in 1969, they were strong
enough to give the boot to their past, but eventually songs like ʽJumpin' Jack
Flashʼ, ʽSympathy For The Devilʼ, ʽStreet Fighting Manʼ, ʽGimme Shelterʼ, ʽYou
Can't Always Get What You Wantʼ, ʽHonky Tonk Womenʼ became forever ingrained
staples, the untouchable pivot around which we would find revolving not only
the typical Rolling Stones live show or the typical Rolling Stones best-of
package, but also the typical perception of the Stones by mainstream critics
and casual fans alike. From that point of view, «The Rolling Stones» were
indeed found in 1968 — a point of view as unjustly skewed as any, but not one
to be going away any time soon.
Several factors converged together by early
1968 to ensure that transition. First, music was evolving, and the Stones —
Mick Jagger in particular — were anxious about missing those precious relevant
trends that would ensure their remaining on top. «Englishness» à la Ray Davies was not one of those
trends: the Kinks were beginning to lose commercial appeal, and Mod culture was
starting to dissipate. The flower power thing, having peaked in 1967, suffered
the same fate, especially after it became evident that the world was not going
to be changed by embarking on magical mystery tours. On the other hand, the
«roots revival», illustrated by the activities of Dylan and the Byrds, seemed
to be gaining the upper hand; and once Hendrix and the Who opened the
floodgates for experimental electric guitar playing, successful hard rock acts
began pouring in. It did not take long for the Stones to learn which way the
wind was blowing — inevitably, they had to become «rootsy» and «heavy» to join
and maybe even head the new leagues of trendsetters.
Second and more personal, by 1968 Brian Jones
was no longer a vital presence in the band: drugs coupled with individual
psychological problems had reduced him to a ghost of his former self, even as
Keith, whose own drug problem was hardly any less serious, still found enough
inner strength and discipline to self-organize and steadily hold the rudder.
While I would not go as far as some do and claim that in 1966-67 Brian was «at
the heart» of the band's music — although there is little doubt that Mick and
Keith cheated him out of quite a few songwriting credits, they still came up
with most of the basic melodies themselves — he was most definitely a crucial
designer of the band's sound, what with all those exotic instrumental
embellishments and psychedelic flavors. Without his active participation, one
could hardly expect of Keith to start bringing in sitars and dulcimers and
mandolins and Theremins and whatnot — the man's motto being «if it's good
enough for Muddy Waters and Chuck Berry, it's good enough for me». He could, however, be expected to continue
searching for that ultimate guitar sound, one that would properly and assuredly
convey all the gruff Keefiness of his rough, scary, but noble heart — a sound
that he could find in some of his open tunings, as well as in certain simple
production tricks, like the cassette-recorded acoustic tracks for ʽParachute
Womanʼ and ʽStreet Fighting Manʼ.
We still have some notable elements of
Brianjonesism remaining on Beggars Banquet,
though, so it would be wrong to ascribe all
of its sonic charms to Keith. ʽNo Expectationsʼ would have been bland without
Brian's slide; ʽParachute Womanʼ would be less haunting without his harmonica;
ʽStreet Fighting Manʼ less tense and ominous without his sitar; ʽJig-Saw
Puzzleʼ more plain and dull without his Mellotron. All these elements offer
vital links with the Stones' recent past, turning Beggars Banquet into something larger than just a «roots-rock
album» and adding enough mystery and psychologism to suggest that even at this
point, it may not yet have been too late for Brian to come clean and eventually
reassert his place in the band. For this reason, Beggars Banquet will probably also be the one album, out of the
«big four» of 1968-72, to appeal the most to all those who typically prefer
the «pop» era of the Stones — though not by much, since even Brian's colorful
flourishes cannot properly divert one's attention from the defiantly new road
that the Stones have taken here.
And yet, it would also be a mistake to claim
that 1968 found the Stones embracing «generic blues-rock» — a claim that would demean
them to the level of bands like Grand Funk Railroad or Steppenwolf and leave
one blind to all the unique excitement of this second phase of their Golden
Age. Sure, both Mick and Keith (and Brian, for that matter) had started out as
unpretentious admirers of American electric blues, almost accidentally
converting them to «defiant British teenage electric blues» for fortunate lack
of the appropriate expertise — but in 1968, simply emulating genre conventions
and clichés was the farthest thing from their mind. This time, they had
themselves a mission, fueled by their ongoing battle with The System, a complex
relation with drugs, Marianne Faithfull-induced intellectualism, and, above
all, a raging perfectionism. Emerging from the whirlwind of 1967, they were
aching to be back on top, to cut their own agenda, to become the greatest
rock'n'roll band in the world — not simply by stating it, as their road manager would do once they went on the
road in 1969, but through honest work.
So let us begin with one song that looks like
it would be the easiest target: ʽParachute Womanʼ, a seemingly straightforward
12-bar blues with a fully conventional A-A-B verse structure and fairly traditional
sex-based lyrics. The kind of tune that we are guaranteed to find on several
hundred different albums in 1968 alone, right? But then nothing in 1968 really sounds quite like that acoustic
guitar tone — a sort of «lo-fi to hi-fi conversion» achieved by first recording
the rhythm part on cassette tape, double-tracking it, and then transferring it
onto the eight-track machine. One could call it a cheap imitation of the
pre-war studio sound, but that was not it: it does not really sound much like,
say, a Leadbelly or a Robert Johnson tune. It's deeper, more shadowy, more
echoey, and when enhanced with a distorted electric lead guitar part chopping
out sneering open chords, it creates a properly beastly, arch-nasty atmosphere,
to which Jagger than adds his new vocal technique. And that technique is not just an emulation of some American
accent: what matters is not how British, American, or faux-American it sounds,
but how he is capable of using all the physical potential of his throat — on
all those "paeaeshuu woe-maen..." lines, he sings straight from the
pharynx, convulsing and contorting his voice like crazy, sometimes going from
the deepest aaah to the sharpest eeeh in a matter of milliseconds. On
stage, this would never be properly reproduced — apparently, taxing your voice
to the max while at the same time propelling your four limbs in all directions
is a scientific impossibility even for Mr. Jagger — but in the studio, hoo
boy, Beggars Banquet has some of the
most delicious vocal extremes ever captured on a pop record.
As a result, even if compositionally,
ʽParachute Womanʼ has no particular attractions, style-wise, it gives us a
completely new type of blues-rock — one almost scientifically aimed at tickling
and tingling all the right nerve endings. Thank God that Mick's vocal
contortions make it hard to actually decipher the words — I wouldn't be
surprised to learn that this was the first ever piece of popular art to feature
the word "throbber", and "parachute woman, will you blow me
out?" certainly suggests that we are probably through with ladies who
come in colors everywhere and comb their hair. Essentially, ʽParachute Womanʼ
is like a Howlin' Wolf song with a mindset of an AC/DC — were it just a tad
less intense, it would be boring and
offensive, but the way it is, it is threatening and hilarious at the same time. Even the final harmonica blast
(actually blown by Mick rather than Brian, who plays the accompanying parts
throughout the song) is extreme, like an alarm signal telling all competition
to evacuate the territory without delay.
And that is just the one song which is usually omitted
from serious discussion on the album's highlights; needless to say, twice or
thrice as much can be easily said about the tunes that do crop up on people's lists of personal favorites. Still, I'd
prefer to concentrate more on those numbers that have not gone on to become radio
classics or stage favorites — rather than channel the discussion in the
direction of way too obvious monster hits like ʽSympathy For The Devilʼ or
ʽStreet Fighting Manʼ, generating new ideas on which in 2016 is practically
impossible on a probabilistic basis. Two of these relative «sleepers», in
particular, are strong favorites of mine.
One is ʽStray Cat Bluesʼ — one of the most
controversial numbers in the Stones' repertoire due to Mick careless insertion
of his victim's age (fun bit of trivia: the original version states that
"I can see you're just fifteen years old", the Get Yer Ya Ya's Out live version radically changes that to "I
can see you're just thirteen years
old", and then, when the song was very briefly resuscitated in the early
2000s, it was corrected to "sixteen
years old" — come on, Mick, it's fuckin' age of consent already! It renders the rest of the lyrics
completely useless!); of course, if put under pressure, Mick could always
retaliate that the song is a send-up of such attitudes, but given what we know
about rock bands (the Stones in particular) and their relation with groupies,
there is not the slightest doubt in my mind that Mr. J doth mean it when he
says "it's no capital crime" (not morally, at least). Regardless,
it's the song not the singer that matters, and we do not have to turn into
potential sex offenders to simply enjoy the tune for its controversial shock
value.
Musically, it's a sonic masterpiece — one of
the two most «dense» heavy numbers of 1968, together with ʽHelter Skelterʼ:
both tracks aim at creating a nightmarish atmosphere out of multiple overdubs,
but ʽHelter Skelterʼ is definitely the less creepy of the two, because neither
Paul nor John could ever properly qualify as their Satanic majesties. ʽStray
Cat Bluesʼ, on the other hand, is totally made by (a) Mick, whose vocal
extremes, moans, groans, and "bo-bom-bo-bom-bom-cha"s have a scary
maniacal feel, and (b) Keith, who is busy transforming the song's coda into a
highly realistic descent into the hottest bowels of Hell — that «jackplane
riff» entering at around 3:30 sounds like nothing else ever recorded, like an irreversible escalator going down to the
pits. Abhor it like a glorification of evil or admire it like a sarcastic
put-down, one thing's for sure: the musical canvas created in that song is closer
to a truly «hell-ready» sound than anything else at the time. Perhaps the
Stooges would top it in terms of sheer brutal power and of how much can be
achieved with such relatively simple means on Funhouse, but the Stones aren't really brutal as such — except for that chugging riff, all the
instrumental parts here are subtle, be it Nicky Hopkins' piano or Keith's
remaining high-pitched overdubs. Their Satan, the smooth sleazy seductor of
fifteen-year old girls, is not a raving lunatic — he's as slick as they come,
and he prefers to stun his victims with an orgiastic force of carnivalesque
proportions rather than go ahead and pin them to the wall with a maniacal hard
rock grip. A perfect soundtrack for dirty wild animal sex, or a visionary
musical metaphor for the Second Circle? I vote both.
Nothing could be farther removed from that than
the clean, orderly soundscape of ʽJig-Saw Puzzleʼ — and here is a song over
which the moss of time seems to have grown with particular delight, even if it
is out there on one of the band's most critically acclaimed albums. The reason
why it was never performed live seems clear enough — its lyrical debt to Dylan
and his surrealisto-maniacal narratives of 1965-66 verges on schoolboy
adulation (or unfunny parody, which might be even worse). Reading the lyrics
makes you feel uncomfortable — it's as if Jagger is almost physically blocked
by The Rational in his effort to truly become Dylan, as he paints verbal
pictures that try to look surrealist but fail, culminating in the embarrassing
admittance that all these images are really a part of a flesh-and-blood jig-saw
puzzle rather than of a parallel universe; and then, just as things begin
nearing inevitable total failure, in desperation he pulls one last totally wild stunt, with the verse about
the twenty thousand grandmas and the Queen and the burning pensions, and it
comes out as totally ridiculous (would Bob ever write a line like "she
blessed all those grandmas who with their dying breaths screamed
ʽthanksʼ"? Okay, correct answer: maybe he would — but he sure as hell
wouldn't have made it the last line of the last verse). I can kinda sorta see
where the man would be reluctant to reproduce these lyrics on stage for decades
afterwards.
Indeed, the lyrics are somewhat laughable, and
the song could definitely benefit from being a bit shorter (were it up to me,
I'd have certainly made the self-descriptory verse about the musicians the last
one and thrown out all the nonsense about the twenty thousand grandmas), but
none of that truly matters in the face of the musical layers: Keith plays some
of the most exquisite and, dare I say it, subtly psychedelic slide guitar lines
of his entire career — and on top of that, Brian is busy blurring the lines
between Mellotron and Theremin. Take a good listen to the coda — it is not any
less dense than the one of ʽStray Cat Bluesʼ, only here the acoustic and
electric guitars, Nicky's piano and Brian's Mellotron create a heavenly rather
than hellish soundscape, with the Mellotron lines gliding to and fro like little
exuberant angels on speed. «Generic blues-rock album»? Go read more Rolling
Stone.
Importantly, even with Keith being the obvious
musical director here, the greatest strength of Beggars Banquet lies in the magnificent pool of talent assembled
for the sessions. For the first time in Rolling Stones history, the band is
blessed with a truly busy — and masterful — producer in Jimmy Miller, who'd
already worked his magic for Traffic the year before and now saw to it that not
a single instrumental voice would be wasted on this record; together with
engineer Glyn Johns, they ensure that every song here sounds like a glorious
sum of its parts, yet not a single part gets facelessly lost in the crowd. On
piano, they retain the brilliant Nicky Hopkins, who had already proven his worth
in gold with ʽShe's A Rainbowʼ and now plays his heart out with equal bliss on
ʽNo Expectationsʼ and ʽSalt Of The Earthʼ — with all due respect to loyal old
Stu, Ian was strictly boogie-woogie, and could hardly handle Nicky's parts. For
ʽFactory Girlʼ, they enlist Ric Grech (of Family and later Blind Faith and Traffic)
on fiddle to properly capture that Appalachian folk vibe. And with Brian still
somewhat functional, what we have here is a perfect case of a musical
transition — an album of «rootsy» tunes with plenty of «artsy» flourishes, even
as Mick and Keith go to the outer extremes of their abilities to make it all
glow. (Speaking of outer extremes, that solo by Keith on ʽSympathy For The
Devilʼ? Not nearly as smooth or complex as the one on the Ya Ya's live version, but utterly determined in its quest to
squeeze the most throttling, screechy, banshee-like sounds of his guitar —
mirroring the determination in Jagger's voice to reach the extremes of abrasive
creakiness).
The one thing that was most heavily discussed
in tabloids around the time — the alleged attempt to «connect with the people»
on songs like ʽStreet Fighting Manʼ (with its alleged call to revolution),
ʽFactory Girlʼ (as opposed to, say, ʽLady Janeʼ or all those songs about jaded,
morally corrupt wealthy socialites), and ʽSalt Of The Earthʼ ("let's drink
to the hard working people") — is probably the one aspect of the record
that has dated more than anything else. The Rolling Stones, a self-made band on
its merry way to private jet planes and expensive heroin addictions, were never
a «people's rights» band — and one serious look at all these songs will show
that ʽStreet Fighting Manʼ is really a song about an individual pushing his way
to the top ("what can a poor boy do except to sing in a rock'n'roll
band?"), ʽFactory Girlʼ is probably about a random attractive female that
Mick had the hots for (might as well be ʽLiquor Store Girlʼ or ʽTattoo Parlor
Girlʼ with a different throw of the dice), and ʽSalt Of The Earthʼ
intentionally buries all the credibility that it gains with its verses once it
comes to the bridge section (wouldn't it be hilarious, now that I think of it,
if Donald Trump had accidentally chosen that
song instead of ʽYou Can't Always Get What You Wantʼ for his campaign? "A
swirling mass of gray and black and white, they don't look real to me" —
The Donald's secret thoughts, aren't they?). But none of these circumstances
detract from the ultimate satisfaction of these songs: ʽStreet Fighting Manʼ is
still triumphant and rowdy, ʽFactory Girlʼ is still charmingly friendly, and
ʽSalt Of The Earthʼ has these intriguing ambiguity layers, so that you never
can tell if it wants to be a glorifying anthem or a terrifying horror story.
A few moments still prevent the record from
becoming the perfect single-LP Stones experience. ʽDear Doctorʼ, one of the
earliest examples of the band's comic-parodic treatment of the country genre,
tries to be funny but fails — it ain't no ʽRocky Raccoonʼ, and Mick's falsetto
imitation of the «bride»'s voice is annoying. The cover of Robert Wilkins'
ʽProdigal Sonʼ is funny, but this is
probably one track on which the collective talents of the Rolling Stones in
their peak period are somewhat wasted: fun and nicely played, but inessential
(unless you want to see it as an important testimony of the Stones
sacrilegiously sending up the New Testament). And while ʽSalt Of The Earthʼ is
a good composition overall and a reasonably suitable anthemic finale for the
album, they have not yet mastered here what it takes to come up with a truly glorious finale: the Watts Street Gospel
Choir here is hardly a match for The London Bach Choir on ʽYou Can't Always Get
What You Wantʼ, or, for that matter, Paul Buckmaster's epic orchestral arrangements
on ʽMoonlight Mileʼ. All of these are minor nitpicks, but when we've got this kind of epic standard, well... you
can't really discuss the differences between Beggars Banquet, Let It
Bleed, or Sticky Fingers on
anything other than «minor nitpick» level anyway.
So please allow me to introduce myself — Mick Jagger presenting The
Rolling Stones for the post-1967 generation, one that likes it heavier and
darker and rougher and crazier and with a little coke on the side, please. Once
again, they couldn't avoid comparison with The Beatles, with the stars again aligned
in the Fab Four's favor: the record should have been released in the summer of
'68, several months before The White
Album, but a dispute with the record label over the «controversial» album
sleeve delayed the release until December 6, by which time The White Album had already spent two weeks on the market — and,
adding insult to irony, Decca had replaced the cover with a plain white sleeve
(who wants to bet that the decision was suggested by a covert Apple agent?).
But, strange coincidences aside, of course, The White Album and Beggars
Banquet do share a non-coincidental similarity, as both records represent
a «back-to-roots» strategy, often described in retrospect as a sort of
conservative antidote against the psychedelic hangover of late '67 (as
represented by Magical Mystery Tour
and Satanic Majesties,
respectively). It could be argued, however, that for the Stones this particular
strategy works even better than it worked for the Beatles — what with the
Stones having always been much bluesier and rootsier in essence. Yet most
importantly, it works because nobody can meld transcendental beauty and
grotesque ugliness in a more coherent package than the Stones could in their
prime — and, as it turned out, they were just getting started. So what can a
poor boy do except to hand out another predictable thumbs up rating?
Most probably you are right about "the «big four» of 1968-72": I love the Stones' 1966-1967 period most of all, and I consider this one their last truly great album. The next two are merely good, and everything from 1972 on I consider worthless boring crap.
ReplyDeleteExcellent as always.
ReplyDeletePut "Jumpin' Jack Flash" and "Child Of The Moon" on here, and you would probably have my favorite Rolling Stones record. With the former, it would make a nice track to follow "Sympathy For The Devil" and the latter would be a fantastic song to lead into "Salt Of The Earth" and show off Brian Jones playing some sax.
ReplyDeleteGreat review.
ReplyDeleteThank you for not trashing "Factory Girl." God that song gets me. There is nothing like Keith dicking around on an acoustic.
I did like this one better than Satanic. Your review has helped me to appreciate the details in this album. I like the "back to basics" approach, but I have come to some conclusions: 1) I forgot Nicky Hopkins was on this--he's way more emotional and nuanced than Stu could ever be. For me, it's his playing that is the real power behind the flash. 2) I really have fallen hard for the Wyman-Watts engine, it's a thing of beauty in its plump simplicity. 3) For all his faults, I love Keith's playing. As you said, it's all about the tone. And I forgot to mention from the last few records, I had no idea how good a singer he is. I've always loved the Sympathy solo, but man, that Stray Cat Blues is amazing. Now I know where Lynyrd Skynyrd got the riff for Sweet Home Alabama. It almost makes me forget about the creepy lyrics. Which leads to my last point: I have always wondered at your fascination for the Stones, and why I never have gotten into them, when 80% of the time we are on the same wavelength as far as our taste in classic rock. I finally figured out the dealbreaker: It's Jagger's Voice. You obviously get a lot more out of him than I ever did. The thought of a sexy Mick just doesn't work for me. His bark is okay, but his drawling just never settles well on my ears. But thanks to these reviews I'm actually taking a listen to these albums and finding some good stuff. Thanks again!
ReplyDeleteWhat no one seems to talk about much with this album and the next is the leap in production and sound quality from from the Oldham material (not to mention the last album). The mix and balance of instruments facilitated by Miller, especially on the remaster is astounding. When that's combined that with the best collection of Stones songs all assembled in one place on a non-compilation release, it gets a best Stones album vote from me. But I seem to be in a minority of one of that...
ReplyDeleteI think Prodigal Son is awesome. Love the sound Keith gets on his acoustic and his "yeah" at the end. If Jumping Jack Flash had been on here it would be hands down my favorite album.
ReplyDelete