Coming Down Again

Composers: Mick Jagger & Keith Richards
Recording date: November-December 1972 & May-June 1973
Recording locations: Dynamic Sound Studios, Kingston, Jamaica & Island Recording Studios, London, England
Producer: Jimmy Miller        Chief engineer: Andy Johns
Never performed onstage

Probable line-up:

Drums: Charlie Watts
Bass: Mick Taylor
Electric guitars: Keith Richards
Lead vocal: Keith Richards
Harmony vocal: Mick Jagger
Backing vocals: Mick Jagger & Keith Richards
Piano: Nicky Hopkins
Saxophones: Bobby Keys & Jim Horn
Percussion: Pascal
 

Coming down again
Coming down again
Coming down again
Coming down again

Share your thoughts, there's nothing you can't hide
She was dying to survive
I was caught, oh taken for a ride
She was showing no surprise

Coming down again
Coming down again 
Where are all my friends?
Coming down again

Coming down again
Coming down again
On the ground again
Coming down again

Slipped my tongue in someone else's pie
Tasting better every time
He turned green and tried to make me cry
Being hungry, it ain't no crime

Coming down again
All my time's been spent
Coming down again

Coming down again (sky fall down again)
Coming down again (sky fall down again)
(Sky fall down again) Coming down again (sky fall down again)
Coming down again 

Coming down again - yeah, baby 
Coming down again
Where are all my friends?

Sky fall down again
Coming down again - sky fall down again
Coming down again - tear fall down again - yeah, yeah
Coming down again, yeah baby

Coming down again 
Where are all my friends?
Coming down again
On the ground again

 
 
TrackTalk

Coming Down Again is my song.
- Keith Richards, 1973


I wonder about the songs I've written: I really like the ones I did when I was on (heroin). I wouldn't have written Coming Down Again without that. I'm this millionaire rock star, but I'm in the gutter with these other sniveling people. It kept me in touch with the street, at the lowest level.
- Keith Richards, 2002


(The album doesn't have) a lot of druggy subject material, apart from perhaps Coming Down Again, but you’ll have to talk to Keith about that. I mean, my guess is that could be a drug reference (laughs).
- Mick Jagger, 2020


Let’s say that it speaks for itself (laughs).
- Keith Richards, 2020


Of Coming Down Again, I said not long ago that I wouldn't have written it without heroin. I don't know if it was ABOUT dope. It was just a mournful song - and you look for that melancholy in yourself. I'm obviously looking for great grooves, great riffs, rock and roll, but there's the other side of the coin that still wants to go where As Tears Go By came from. And by then I'd worked a lot in the country field, especially with Gram Parsons, and that high-lonesome melancholy has a certain pull on the heartstrings. You want to see if you can tug 'em a little harder. Some people think Coming Down Again is about me stealing Anita, but by then that's all water under the fucking bridge.
- Keith Richards, Life (2010)


On a slower side, I like to use a little bit of phase or put it through a Leslie (speaker) to make the rhythm guitar more interesting. Coming Down Again was a mixture of a Leslie and wah-wah.
- Keith Richards, 1977



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