Depending on You

Composers: Mick Jagger, Keith Richards & Andrew Watt
Recording date: November 2022-March 2023          Recording locations: Henson Recording Studios, Los Angeles, USA;
Metropolis Studios, London, England; Sanctuary Studios, Albany, Bahamas; & MixStar Studios, Virginia Beach, USA
Producer: Andrew Watt          Chief engineers: Paul Lamalfa & Marco Sonzini
Mixer: Serban Ghenea            Never performed onstage





Probable line-up:

Drums: Steve Jordan
Bass: Andrew Watt
Acoustic guitar: Mick Jagger
Electric guitars: Mick Jagger, Keith Richards & Andrew Watt  
Slide electric guitar: Ron Wood
Lead vocal: Mick Jagger
Background vocals: Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Ron Wood & Andrew Watt
Piano: Matt Clifford
Hammond organ: Benmont Tench
Percussion (incl. tambourine): Mick Jagger & Andrew Watt
String arrangement: Andrew Watt & David Campbell
Violins: Alyssa Park, Charlie Bisharat, Jennifer Takamatsu, Michele Richards, Philip Vaiman, Sara Perkins, Songa Lee & Tereza Stanislav
Violas: Luke Maurer & Tom Lea
Cellos: Jacob Braun & Paula Hochhalter
 

Your fingerprints in the dark
Your past and present tangled up in my arms
Our secrets sealed in our scars
Sharing a smoke on the steps of a bar

I was convinced I had your heart in my hands
I was making love but you had different plans

Now she's giving her loving to somebody new
I invented the game but I lost like a fool
Now I'm too young for dying and too old to lose

'Cause I was depending on you - yeah
'Cause I was depending on you

It's time to harden my shell
The toughest part is I know you too well
Now I'm just a story you tell
Embroidering the truth with things you never felt

You steal the spirit right out of a man
Now you're working on him and you don't give a damn

Now she's giving her loving to somebody new
I invented the game but I lost like a fool
Now I'm too young for dying and too old to lose

'Cause I was depending on you - yeah
'Cause I was depending on you
 
Now she's giving her loving to somebody else
She threw me down like a book off the shelf
Now I'm too young for dying and too old to lose

'Cause I was depending on you
'Cause I was depending on you
Depending on you - yeah

Depending on you - yeah
I was depending, relying on you
I was depending, depending on you
I was depending on you


 

TrackTalk
 

Keith and me and Andy wanted to do a ballad, and I kept saying I’ve got these great ballads, let’s do this one! They go, Well, that’s not really good enough. - OK, here’s another one!… They said No, let’s write one from scratch.

- Mick Jagger, August 2023


Steve Jordan and I were fooling about on the rhythm when Mick picked up on it and turned it into a song. That’s how it happens sometimes. You can be sitting around in a room, picking away without thinking, when someone walks in and says: That is beautiful. And you thought you were just tuning up.

- Keith Richards, c. August 2023


Those guys are just super generous, and we wrote together. There was a day where Mick and Keith came to the studio and we all started playing this riff; and Keith started playing these changes, and that’s how Depending on You came. It was a natural thing. That’s why (the credit is) on some of those songs but not others..

- Andrew Watt, September 2023

The chords are standard pop stuff but if you listen to it a few times you’ll notice that it builds in a subtle way. In pop, you want an ear tweak on each verse so that it doesn’t become repetitive. You don’t want to go Oh, Ronnie’s doing the same old guitar part again. Instead you have an organ, strings, vocal stacks… All set around voice and acoustic guitar. And the words are about the personal loss that comes because your life is bound up with someone else. Then the bottom drops out and you don’t have anyone to rely on.
- Mick Jagger, c. August 2023

That's when you always want to rely on someone and they let you down.

- Mick Jagger, September 2023

(The lyrics are c)ompletely imaginary. You have to go back in your life, maybe, when you were in that position. It’s inspired by people, but you have to have imagination. It’s a jilting song. Some of these songs are classic genre songs. In pop music you have the kiss-off, fuck-off song – it’s a classic genre. Then you have the you’re being dropped song – this is that one.

- Mick Jagger, September 2023


I suppose I did make some of those references on this album - slightly tongue-in-cheek references to ageing.

- Mick Jagger, September 2023, on references to ageing on the album



I don’t hear that at all. To me, Depending on You is modern LA pop. You don’t want people to say Oh, Ronnie’s playing the same old guitar part again, so we added an organ, strings, vocal stacks… Don’t get that in Muscle Shoals. That place was lo-fi even then. I mean, listen to Wild Horses today. It sounds like it's covered in blankets.
- Mick Jagger, September 2023, told the song recalls Wild Horses

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