Dear Doctor

Composers: Mick Jagger & Keith Richards
Recording date: May 1968        Recording location: Olympic Sound Studios, London, England
Producers: Jimmy Miller        Chief engineer: Glyn Johns
Never performed onstage

Probable line-up:

Drums: Charlie Watts
Acoustic bass: Bill Wyman
Acoustic guitars: Keith Richards & Dave Mason
Lead vocal: Mick Jagger
Harmony vocal: Keith Richards
Background vocals: Mick Jagger & Keith Richards
Harmonica: Brian Jones
Tack piano: Nicky Hopkins
Tambourine: Mick Jagger
Handclaps: ---
 

Oh help me, please doctor, I'm damaged
There's a pain where there once was a heart
It's sleeping, it's beating - can't you please tear it out
And preserve it right there in that jar?

Oh help me, please mama, I'm sickening
It's today that's the day of the plunge
Oh the gal I'm to marry is a bow-legged sow
I've been soaking up drink like a sponge

Don't you worry, get dressed, cried my mother
As she plied me with bourbon so sour
Pull your socks up, put your suit on, comb your long hair down
For you will be wed in the hour

So help me, please doctor, I'm damaged
There's a pain where there once was a heart
I'm sleeping, it's beating - can't you please take it out
And preserve it right there in that jar?

Yep

Oh help me, please doctor, I'm damaged
There's a pain where there once was a heart
It's sleeping, it's beating - can't you please tear it out
And preserve it right there in that jar?

I was trembling as I put on my jacket
It had creases as sharp as a knife
I put the ring in my pocket but there was a note
And my heart it jumped into my mouth

It read: Darling, I'm sorry to hurt you
But I've no courage to speak to your face
But I'm down in Virginia with your cousin Lou
There'll be no wedding today

So help me, please doctor, I'm damaged
You can put back my heart in its hole
Oh mama, I'm crying tears of relief
And my pulse is now under control

Yeah
 
 

TrackTalk

As far as country music was concerned, we used to play country songs, but we'd never record them - or we recorded them but never released them. Keith and I had been playing Johnny Cash records and listening to the Everly Brothers - who were SO country - since we were kids. I used to love country music even before I met Keith. I loved George Jones and really fast, shit-kicking country music, though I didn't really like the maudlin songs too much... The country songs, like Factory Girl or Dear Doctor, on Beggars Banquet were really pastiche. There's a sense of humour in country music anyway, a way of looking at life in a humorous kind of way - and I think we were just acknowledging that element of the music.

- Mick Jagger, 2003


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