Emotional Rescue

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

P
roducers: The Glimmer Twins        Associate producer & chief engineer: Chris Kimsey
Performed onstage: 2013-14

Probable line-up:

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
 

Is there nothing I can say, nothing I can do
To change your mind, I'm so in love with you?
You're too deep in, you can't get out
You're just a poor girl in a rich man's house

Oo-ooh, oo-oo-ooh, oo-oo-ooh, ooh

Oo-ooh, oo-oo-ooh, oo-oo-ooh, ooh


Yeah, baby, I'm crying over you

Don't you know promises were never made to keep?
Just like the night, they dissolve up in sleep
I'll be your savior, steadfast and true
I'll come to your emotional rescue
I'll come to your emotional rescue

Oo-ooh, oo-oo-ooh, oo-oo-ooh, ooh

Oo-ooh, oo-oo-ooh, oo-oo-ooh, ooh


Yeah, the other night, crying
Crying, baby, yeah, yeah I'm crying, baby
Yeah, like a child, baby, I'm like a child, baby
Like a child, yeah, I'm like a child, like a child, like a child, like a child - ooh!

You think you're one of a special breed
You think that you're his pet Pekinese
I'll be your savior, steadfast and true
I'll come to your emotional rescue
I'll come to your emotional rescue

Uh-huh, uh-huh-huh, uh-huh-huh, huh

Uh-huh, uh-huh-huh, uh-huh-huh, huh


Yeah, I was dreaming last night, baby
Last night I was dreaming
How you'd be mine
But I was crying like a child

Yeah, I was crying, crying like a child
You could be mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, all mine
You could be mine, could be mine, could be mine, all mine

I come to you, so silent in the night
So stealthy, so animal quiet
I'll be your savior, steadfast and true
I'll come to your emotional rescue
I'll come to your emotional rescue

Uh-huh, uh-huh-huh, uh-huh-huh, huh


Yeah, you should be mine, mine - ooh!
 
Yes, you could be mine tonight and every night
I will be your knight in shining armor coming to your emotional rescue
You will be mine, you will be mine, all mine
You will be mine, you will be mine, all mine

I will be your knight in shining armor
Riding across the desert on a fine Arab charger

Uh-huh, uh-huh-huh, uh-huh-huh, huh

Uh-huh, uh-huh-huh, uh-huh-huh, huh

Uh-huh, uh-huh-huh, uh-huh-huh, huh
Uh-huh, uh-huh-huh, uh-huh-huh, huh
Uh-huh, uh-huh-huh, uh-huh-huh, huh

Uh-huh, uh-huh-huh, uh-huh-huh, huh

Uh-huh, uh-huh-huh, uh-huh-huh, huh

Uh-huh, uh-huh-huh, uh-huh-huh, huh

Uh-huh, uh-huh-huh, uh-huh-huh, huh

Uh-huh, uh-huh-huh, uh-huh-huh, huh

 
 

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.

- Mick Jagger, 1980


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...

- Mick Jagger, 1980


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.

- Mick Jagger, 1993


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.

- Chris Kimsey, associate producer


(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.

- Keith Richards, 1994


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.

- Keith Richards, 1993


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.

- Keith Richards, 1997



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