Drums: Kenney Jones
Bass: Willie Weeks
12-string acoustic guitar: Ron Wood
Electric guitars: Keith Richards
Lead vocals: Mick Jagger
Backing vocals: Mick Jagger, Keith Richards & Ron Wood
Piano: Ian Stewart

TrackTalk

Mick (Jagger) and I worked out I Can Feel the Fire and after we'd done that, he said, Help me with this song 'cause I wanna see how it turns out. So, say on a Tuesday evening: two guitars - Mick and I - and Mick singing lead vocal and David Bowie and myself on backup vocals. Then I overdubbed the rest of the instruments last and it sounded like a good demo. So the next night, we wanted to put it in a more presentable shape so we got hold of Kenny Jones who plays the drums on the actual record. Ah... I ended up with just my acoustic guitar that I laid originally. Keith replaced - RIGHTLY SO - the guitars that I'd done electrically.

The idea of the song has to do with our persona at the time. I was getting a bit tired of people having a go, all that oh, it's not as good as their last one business. The single-sleeve had a picture of me with a pen digging into me as if it were a sword. It was a light-harded, anti-journalistic sort of thing. We originally recorded it in Ronnie Wood's demo-studio.

I didn't do that, that was done - I was in bed at the time of that... And that was done - Kenny played that, Kenny Jones, they pulled HIM out' cause he lived near to Richmond. It was done in a very beautiful house in Richmond that Ronnie used to own. Pete Townshend owns it now, there's a bit of name-dropping isn't it, you'll like that.

We all lived around Richmond Park in Richmond. As soon as I put one leg into bed the phone would go. See, the worst thing I did, I gave Ronnie a drum kit to put in his studio, which was the worst thing I could do. He said, Kenney, we haven’t got a drummer. I said OK, Ronnie, I’ll be right over. One night Eric Clapton would be there, the next night Bob Dylan would be there. All these calls. This night I went over and me and Jagger were just in the studio, having a little blow. That’s how It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll came about. We were jamming around this riff and Jagger just said to me, Oh, play it like that. I mean, it’s like four o’clock in the fucking morning. I said, I’ll play it like this anyway, it’s only rock and roll. He said, Yeah, but I like it. And the rest is history.

We cut it but it just didn't have that one-off feel. So eventually we went back to the dub and overdubbed (laughs) on David and on Kenny and... did another one of those because it just had the right...

I said, But you forgot one thing, Keith, you forgot my twelve-string. And he said, (grunts) I left that on.

I like that track It's Only Rock 'n Roll...

Yeah, it's a very Chuck Berry song, but it's got a different kind of feeling to it than a Chuck Berry song. But it's completely Chuck Berry...

Back to It's Only Rock 'n Roll.

Back to Main Page.