All About You

Composers: Mick Jagger & Keith Richards
Recording date: June 1979-January 1980 & April 1980
Recording locations: Pathé Marconi Studios, Paris, France & Electric Lady Studios, New York City, USA
Producers: The Glimmer Twins        Associate producer & chief engineer: Chris Kimsey
      Performed onstage: 1997-99

Probable line-up:

Drums: Charlie Watts
Bass: Keith Richards
Electric guitars: Keith Richards & Ron Wood
Lead vocals: Keith Richards
Background vocals: Keith Richards & Ron Wood
Piano: Keith Richards
Saxophones: Bobby Keys
 

Well if you call this a life
Why must I spend mine with you?
If the show must go on
Let it go on without you

Get so sick and tired
Of hanging around with jerks like you

Mm, na-na-na-na

Who'll tell me those lies
And let me think they're true? Yeah
What am I to do?
You want it, I've got it too

Though the laughs may be cheap
That's just 'cause the joke's about you
I'm so sick and tired
Of hanging around with dogs like you

You're the first to get laid
Always the last bitch to get paid

Who'll tell me those lies
And let me think they're true? Yeah
I heard one or two
And they weren't about me, they weren't about her
They were all about you

Well I may miss you
But missing me just isn't you
I'm so sick and tired
Of hanging around dogs like...

Who'll tell me those lies
And let me think they're true?
I heard one or two
And they weren't about me, they weren't about her
They were all about you

All about you
I'm so sick and tired - sick and... sick and tired
What should I do?

You want, you want, you want, you want
You get, you get, you get, you get
So how come I'm still in love with you?

 
 
TrackTalk
 
That song was hanging around for 3 years. After researching to make sure it wasn't somebody else who wrote it, I finally decided that it must have been me. But... I am proud of it.
- Keith Richards, 1980-81


Charlie: The classic one on this album is the one Keith's done. I mean, I didn't know what... right up until about 2 months before the album... has now come out.
Mick: Which one are you talking about, Charlie?
Charlie: I mean, I didn't know...
Mick: Which song... ?
Bill: All About You.
Mick: Oh, All About You.
Bill: The "train song".
Mick: Yeah.
Charlie: Yeah.
Ron: Train Song, that's what we knew it as.
Charlie: Yeah, Keith's, yeah... Oh nobody knows...
Bill: It's just a track called Train Song.
Charlie: And I never knew what Keith was going to (put) on it, I never knew what he wanted... But it was a great track to play. That's being a drummer, you know?
Ron: He ended up singing that too, which is quite pleasing.
Charlie: Yeah, it's great. But I mean...
Mick: It's not me singing it (laughs).
Charlie: How he made a song out of it, I don't know.
- Charlie Watts, Mick Jagger, Bill Wyman & Ron Wood, 1980


It had a little bit of sentimental input there about his feelings for Mick at the time. Just listen to the lyrics.
- Bobby Keys


I went through a very tough thing in the early 80s with Mick. So you get some songs like All About You, to name just one. There's more on some of the Winos records.
- Keith Richards, 2002


There's never one thing a song's about, but in this case if it was about anything, it was probably more about Mick. There were certain barbs aimed that way. It was at that time when I was deeply hurt.
- Keith Richards, Life (2010)



It was a song of love, discarded love. I never really thought about it in terms of how it was going to be interpreted - Oh, that's obviously HIM writing about HIM! I'm just writing another film noir love song... I know that when I was singing All About You I was certainly not thinking about Mick. But relationships in the band being the way they were at the time, these feelings are all transferable. And once it was pointed out to me, I said, Yeah! Maybe I do mean that! We're not in control of our subconscious.
- Keith Richards, December 2018



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