Composers: Mick
Jagger & Keith Richards
Recording date: June 1979-January 1980 & April 1980
Recording locations: Pathé
Marconi Studios, Paris, France & Electric Lady Studios, New York City
Producers: The
Glimmer Twins Associate
producer & chief engineer:
Chris
Kimsey
Performed onstage: 2013-14
Drums: Charlie
Watts
Bass: Ron Wood
Electric guitars: Mick
Jagger & Keith
Richards
Vocals: Mick
Jagger
Electric piano: Mick
Jagger
Synthesizer: Bill
Wyman
Saxophone: Bobby
Keys
Percussion: Michael
Shrieve
TrackTalk
I wrote that on an electric piano in the studio, then Charlie and Woody and I cut it immediately, live. It was all done very quickly. I think the vocals could've been better. It's just one of those recording-studio things. You would NEVER really write a song like that in REAL LIFE. Comes out in the studio, 'cause it's all ad-libbed, the end part. It was never planned like that... Yeah, it's all a joke, really.
When we did Emotional Rescue, that
particular track, it was me and Charlie and Woody. And just on our own.
And, it was like towards the end of the sessions and Bill was - I
don't think - there. Keith wasn't there. We just did it... We'd
done
it before, all together actually, in Nassau. We all knew the song. But
the actual one that we liked was the one that we just did kind of...
This was done mostly by me, Bill and Charlie
with loads of overdubs. I'm not the only person to have sung in
falsetto
- Prince did three albums singing like that around this time. I learned
the trick from Don Covay. I got it from the record Mercy, Mercy
where he sings falsetto as a harmony. By the end, I've gone off into
another
more reggae-inspired voice, but at the end of a track lasting 5 minutes
and 43 seconds, you have to try everything.
I always found (the falsetto) a bit twee,
myself. It was a novel idea. A lot of that album was going that way. It
was very experimental, that album.
(I)n the '80s... (a) lot of the stuff, the
material that Mick wanted to do, was not particularly guitar-oriented.
We were trying to, like, wedge guitars into places where they're not
necessary,
like Emotional Rescue and Undercover. Around that time
we
were doing a lot of material that was not necessarily made for guitars.
Mick wanted to get into that dance thing and, you know, OK, here we
go.
This was all Mick. He wanted to go that way,
with the clubby, disco-stuff. I didn't particularly, but it was a good
song. This was shortly after I'd cleaned up my act, and nobody was
taking
a lot of notice of what I said at this point, because I didn't say
much.
I was trying to re-establish myself as co-leader of the band.
Undercover of the Night, Emotional
Rescue, these are all Mick's calculations about the market. And
they're
not the best records we've made. See, Mick listens to too much bad shit.