Composers: Mick Jagger &
Keith Richards
Recording date: November-December
1972,
October-December 1980 & April-June 1981
Recording
locations: Dynamic
Sound
Studios, Kingston, Jamaica; Rolling Stones Mobile Unit, Paris, France;
& Atlantic Studios, New York City, USA
Producers:
The Glimmer Twins
Chief
engineers: Andy Johns
& Chris
Kimsey
Performed
onstage: 1981,
1997,
2003, 2005, 2007, 2013-14
Probable line-up:
Drums: Charlie WattsTrackTalk
We were first recorded it in Jamaica with Nicky Hopkins. But it had absolutely no melody, top line or anything. It was the band just playing this thing, this riff and this pretty melody. And then I had to go back and start thinking, Well what's that going to be about?
This one dates from the Goats Head Soup sessions. We all liked it at the time but we didn't have any lyrics, so there we were. As well as the vocal, we stuck on that amazing sax solo at the end by Sonny Rollins. The lyric I added is very gentle and loving, about friendships in the band. At least I think that's what it was about. The influence of the video comes in here because when we scripted it we had me and Keith sitting round waiting for each other. But I can't actually remember now if that was the original idea of the song.
Mick Jagger, I don’t think he understood what I was doing, and I didn’t understand what he was doing. My wife was the one that persuaded me to do that recording. I said: Man, the Rolling Stones. I don’t want to do any record with the Rolling Stones. I’d considered them — and it’s faulty — not on the level of jazz. But my wife said, No, no, you must do it. So I said, OK, let me see if I can relate to what they are doing; let me see if I can make it sound as good as possible... I didn’t relate to them because I thought they were just derivative of black blues. I do remember once I was in the supermarket up in Hudson, New York, and they were playing Top 40 records. I heard this song and thought, Who’s that guy? His playing struck a chord in me. Then I said, Wait a minute, that’s me! It was my playing on one of those Rolling Stones records.