“We are all most sorry that he is going and wish him great success and much happiness. No doubt we can find a brilliant six-foot three-inch blond guitarist who can do his own make-up.” - Mick Jagger on the departure of Mick Taylor in The Rolling Stones.
When faced with dysfunction, never once did the Stones break under the weight... though there's a first time for everything. 1974 gave us Its Only Rock 'n' Roll, the last album to feautre Mick Taylor as guitarist and first to introduce Ronnie Wood into the mix. It was no secret to much of anyone that Mick Taylor wasn’t exactly cut out for the lifestyle he had gotten himself into. At only 20 years old he found himself as the lead guitarist of the most famous touring band in the world - it’s near impossible to comprehend.
His first show with the band was the tribute concert to Brian Jones, and his first tour ended with Altamont and the horrors there. The next year he was whisked away to France and forced into a world that quite frankly no 22 year old could possibly deal with the complexities of. By 1974, he was in the midst of working double time and seeing next to nothing for his extra credit. He would write with Mick Jagger while Keith Richards was out of commission on a number of occasions, promised by Jagger to get writing credits that would never be seen. On this album, he claims to have co-written Till the Next Goodbye and Time Waits For No One, though Richards was credited for his work on both. Taylor said of Richards at the time: "Keith wasn’t at his most communicative then [pause]. He wasn’t as outgoing." Taylor had also begun to start slipping into addiction issues, seeing how it plagued Richards was another fear he lived with, knowing that if he chose to continue to be in the band he could find himself on the same road. It was December 1974, shortly after the release of what was to be his final album with the band, he told Jagger at a party he was going to leave. Jagger didn’t believe him at first, turning to Ronnie Wood, asking for clarification, to which Wood would respond with a simplification of Taylor’s resignation. The band, though they pretended the blow of losing Taylor wasn’t that bad, were suddenly in the same predicament they had been five years earlier: they had no lead guitarist. Mick Taylor wasn’t just good - he was great, and, in many ways, impossible to replace. He had a more stacked resume at 24 than any person should have, and suddenly left the greatest gig a player could get to save himself. Wood was yet to be welcomed into the picture, though Jagger was already vying for him, and for months they had no one to realistically take over before a summer tour of the Americas. It was, not to be exaggerated, a shitshow. Bill Wyman was ready to leave, Charlie Watts was still hands off, Richards was spiraling into his own world of problems, and Jagger was left with the not only the remnants of a band but now missing a key piece.
If there was something about Keith Richards in 1974, it was that he may have been the most jaded 29 year old man in the world. Richards had made up in his head that any work outside the band was sacrilegious, that the more people did outside the band was more for him to make up for them, which wasn’t far from the truth. While Wyman was screwing around attempting to prove himself as anything of worth, it was Richards who would have to tape all the bass parts Wyman was neglecting. When Jagger would hang about parties and worry about what any and every other frontman was doing, it was Richards holed up in the studio attempting to produce an impossible mishmash of genres that had been brought to his mixing table. What everyone didn’t do wouldn’t go undone, it would be done by the resident songwriter, guitarist, producer, and new father of two who was suddenly the only person working on an album instead of being in any way available to his kids.
"I have enough trouble recording Bill Wyman and the others [to do a solo album]." - Keith Richards to Zig-Zag magazine, 1974
His frustration becomes palpable when you account for the fact this had been going on for the last two album cycles as well, how everyone 'hated' Goats Head Soup, a largely Richards lead project while upholding their previous punching bag Exile on Main Street (another Richards lead project). For the first time in the Stones career, Keith Richards removed his hands from the wheel, if those who thought it was wanted to try their hand they were allowed with little to no complaining to the press from Richards himself. What are you left with? A sloppy album. Stand out moments of course, but nowhere near as consistently experimental or good as any of it’s predecessors. Who was blamed for this? Richards, for investing more time into Ron Wood’s solo album. Charlie Watts would also go on to say in 2003, “"I think that Keith was pretty out of it for some of that period, which shouldn't have helped, but maybe it did. Maybe that was where the creative energies came from. I don't know." It was no secret to the world that Richards was almost, if not completely, out of it during the mid to late 1970s, and It's Only Rock ‘n’ Roll was the album cycle this became incredibly obvious, as it’s when his creative synergy with the rest of the band started to slip. This is one of the only Stones albums where his contributions are so lost in the mix. None of the writing feels like it came from his pen, his vocals only grace for a backing vocal, and his guitar work at this time was strictly rhythm.
Keith Richards during an interview photogrhaphed by Micheal Putland, 1974
The album starts on an interesting note, with If You Can’t Rock Me, a song that was more or less just an excuse from the band to… be men, rockstars of the breed they helped create. The bands on stage and it’s one of those nights / The drummer thinks he’s dynamite / You lovely ladies in your leather and lace / A thousand lips I would love to taste, I’ve got one heart and it hurts like hell. Jon Landau wrote in his 1974 Rolling Stone review of the album, “If you can't rock me somebody will" is what turns the song "into the anticipated and angry fuck song." Most other reviews that mentioned the song described it as ‘bitter’, which is more closely knit to what it is. To talk of this song and not mention, it’s bitter tongue towards a woman is negating it’s point, and to not apply it to the real life of the songs composer would be doing a disservice to the woman the song is unfortunately
targeting. Bianca Jagger, Mick’s wife at the time, was not spared from his adulterating ways, and was often torn apart by the media for the same reasons any woman unfortunate enough to be with a rockstar was. What the press loved to hurl at Bianca was how she never looked happy [she was married to Mick Jagger, she most likely didn’t have much to smile about in her life], and how she was often off doing her own things and not the prim and proper, obedient rock wife. She was rarely at shows, never really commented on their music, and never looked enthused if she was around anything that had to with The Rolling Stones at large. She was seen as snooty and uptight, though no one
ever said the same of her husband, who was the exact same. Now, to make Mick Jagger faithful would be impossible, and so here we have You Can’t Rock Me. A line found in the bridge, I ain’t looking for no wedding cake, after singing about how If you can’t rock me, somebody will can’t be much of a coincidence. It’s sleazy to an uncomfortable degree, and makes you feel for Bianca, though she never seemed all that attached to Mick. To listen to the song is hear a married man acting like the story he’s written is something of fiction as opposed to exactly what he was, a douchebag. If You Can’t Rock Me is followed up by a cover of The Temptations Ain’t Too Proud to Beg and it is a pretty damn good cover. While not as good as the original on any front, it takes the song in directions that no one could lead it but the Stones. There’s something about hearing Jagger sing, Now I heard a
crying man / Is half a man, with no sense of pride / But if I have to cry to keep you, I don't mind weepin' / If it'll keep you by my side, paints him as nearly endearing. Paul McCartney would talk about his involvement with the song in 1999 saying, “There were two songs I turned Mick on that the Stones have done. One was She Said Yeah and the other was Ain’t Too Proud To Beg. Mick would deny it – ‘Wot? Never saw him, never met him’ – but I distinctly remember having him up into a little music room and playing it to him. He loved it and he went and did it.”
Though he wouldn't see an offical introduction into the band until 1976, Ron Wood first make an appearance on the title track, It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll (But I Like It). While it was Richards who lived in the back cottage of his studio home, The Wick, for most of 1974 - helping Wood with his first solo endeavor, I’ve Got My Own Album To Do - it was when Jagger stopped by that the most fruitful of these sessions transpired, resulting in what Wood described as his steps to join the band, saying in 2003: “We were writing songs together and Mick would take some ideas and structures which would obviously become a Jagger/Richards song. I didn’t mind going through years of all that first. It was my apprenticeship.” The song, in its original iteration, featured Jagger, Wood, David Bowie on backing vocals, and a stellar rhythm section of Wille Weeks on bass and Kenney Jones on drums. Jagger insisted the song be his, and traded Wood I Can Feel The Fire in exchange for use of It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll, to which Wood, perhaps stupidly, agreed. The song would however, not find a credit for Wood at all. When brought to the Stones, Weeks and Jones work would be left on the song, but Richards would scrub all of Bowie and most of Wood from the track, re-recording the backing vocals and all the guitar parts, though Wood is still heard playing an 12-string acoustic on the final release.
“The idea of the song has to do with our public 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 lighthearted, anti-journalistic sort of thing." - Mick Jagger, 1993
The song paints a very bleary picture, one of dehumanization and the horrors that fan culture was starting to inflict upon the artist, If I could stick a pen in my heart / And spill it all over the stage / Would it satisfy you? Would it slide on by you? / Would you think this boy is strange? There’s a very self-aware tinge to these words, in a way few had attempted to do before. At the point of the albums release, the Stones stood alone in their elder-statesmen position, no one had been around as long or stayed as popular, now it felt like every choice they made was under microscopic surveillance, how if one of them ever tried to bare his heart, it would never been seen as genuine, only a cash grab. If I could win you / If I could you a love song so divine / Would it be enough for your cheatin’ heart / If I broke down and cried? Is followed by the song's infamous chorus, a chant of repeated “I know it’s only rock ‘n’ roll but I like it” The song is playing on the chorus, and also rock and roll’s history. It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll is crafted from that idea: that broken hearts, cheating, suicide, death, pain, ignorance, and dissatisfaction are rock and roll, not any of the other bullshit being labeled as so. If I could stick a knife in my heart / Suicide right on stage / Would it be enough for your teenage lust? Dissatisfaction was nothing new to music, it was
the beginning of an era where if you weren’t consistent, quick, or living up to former glory you were to be booted for the next big thing, the next you. This line is rather dark even if it would be in reference to nothing the group does being good enough to live up to what teenagers think of them, a graphic depiction of the media machine chewing up anybody and spitting them out if they aren’t strong enough to prevail. The music video, the band in sailor outfits in a tent they overflow with bubbles, was the last appearance of Taylor as a Stone, almost illustrating the song's meaning in an odd way, having Taylor answer the unasked question the verses pose.
A ballad, not unlike the country stylings of Wild Horses a few years earlier, Till the Next Goodbye stands as one of the Stones best written pieces. Following the story of a relationship deteriorating slowly, Jagger sings of all the moments they shared as he attempts to end the relationship for his own salvation. Is there any place you would like to meet? / I know a coffee shop down on 52nd street / I don’t need no fancy food, and I don’t need no fancy wine / And I sure don’t need the tears you cry starts the song, placing the listener right into one of these failed attempts to end the relationship, before the chorus sets in: Till the next time we say goodbye / I’ll be thinking of you. Verse two introduces an interesting dichotomy for the complexity of these characters and their situation, Jagger sings in an heartfelt tone: In a movie house down on 42nd street / Ain’t a very likely place for you and I to meet / Watching the snow swirl around your hair and around your feet / And I’m thinking to myself she surely looks a treat. In the mid-1970s, 42nd street was not a nice place, and it would be a less than ideal romantic meeting spot for two people. The line sheds more light into the story, while never giving the full scope, showcasing how the two are most likely engaged in an illicit affair, hiding in places no one would expect to find two
people in love. In the first verse, it can be assumed the narrator attempts to sever the relationship, breaking it off before it becomes too much to hide, but the addition of I’ll be thinking of you leads one to believe this conversation wasn’t going to end as intended. Verse two finds the pair on a seedy street in New York City, the narrator falling back into lust seeing the snow swirl, Jagger’s delivery of the line is wistful compared to the rest of his reading. The chorus here adds the line Till the next time we kiss goodnight, the affair still continues against better judgment it seems. The bridge is sung hopelessly, I can’t go on like this, can you? / Can you? The second repetition his voice comes across almost accusatory, the Can you? showcasing an embodiment of the role the narrator has placed himself in, desperation and pain coating the words as they leave a beaten down man. You give me a cure all from New Orleans / Now that’s a recipe I sure do need / Some cider vinegar and some elderberry wine may cure all your ills / But it can’t cure mine / You’re Louisiana recipes have let me down, have surely let me down. There is an assumption to be given that the woman offers a solution to their predicament, but that they are unsavable at this moment. Till the next time we say goodbye / Drink to it / Till the next time we kiss goodnight, I’ll be thinking of you. There’s no resolution to the story, a realism seeping through even the most positive of lines in the song, how the love shared is never going to last. The video features the core members of the band on a soundstage, all obscured in darkness but Jagger as he croons about the failed affair. It showcases the song's storytelling at center stage, something the other videos hide deep beneath outfits and set pieces. Time Waits For No One closes side one on such an incredibly high note. It’s the Stones dealing with mortality, how no one is exempt from the cruel tricks of time. The lyrics are, in the same vein as the title track, self aware to a degree no one would quite expect, dissecting the already prevalent discussions of longevity and age plaguing a band whose members were only about thirty. Time can tear down a building or destroy a woman’s face / Hours are like diamonds, don’t let them waste / Time waits for no one, no favors has he / Time waits for no one, and he won’t wait for me. It’s a song that, in some ways, aims to explore the obsession with youth while contrasting to the horrors of age. One of the shining lyrical moments Mick Jagger has ever penned finds itself in the bridge: Men, they build towers to their passing / To their fame everlasting / Here he comes, chopping and reaping / Hear him laugh at their cheating / Time waits for no man and he won’t wait for me. The example of men building monuments in hopes to preserve themselves as above the ticking clock when it’ll do nothing to stop inevitability is so great. It’s followed by one of Taylor’s all time best solos, a latin infused number inspired by a trip he took to Brazil following the Stones 1973 tour.
Jagger, The Rolling Stones, and Richards during the filming of Till The Next Goodbye by Michael Putland
After such a high, Luxury feels like a step down. A reggae styling inspired by Richards' increasing love of the genre and its artists, the song feels like a spiritual predecessor of what was to come later. The lyrics, while almost a social commentary, can just as easily be read as yet another dig at Bianca. Always dressed to the nines, on the cover of Vogue, and deemed “useless” by most male music geeks, Bianca was seen as a leech on Mick who used his name to climb the ranks and satisfy her expensive tastes. There’s two things objectively wrong about this analysis of Bianca: one, that Mick is a victim, as he had been using people to climb ranks since the very beginning, and two, that she was in the wrong to use his name to do what she was passionate about: helping the less fortunate. A gold-digger, maybe so, but one who just aimed for the luxuries of life, no. Now listen, I'm a proud man, not a beggar walking on the street / I'm working so hard, to keep you from the poverty / I'm working so hard to keep you in the luxury, oh yeah. Maybe the song has nothing to do with poor Bianca, who in 1974 was separating herself from Mick’s shadow, becoming a celebrity in her own right. If Luxury is a thinly veiled dig at Bianca, suffice to say she most likely had little time to care.
Bianca Jagger photographed by Eric Boman for her cover of Vogue magazine, 1974
Dance Little Sister is a Rolling Stones song that sounds like what someone would come up with if they had very surface level knowledge about the band and were tasked with writing a song that sounded like it was by Stones. Vaguely sleaze ball lyrics, the off-key lead vocal, the high harmony added only on the chorus, the groove of the drum beat and an ear-catching opening riff. It’s a spiritual sister (no pun intended) to Silver Train from Goats Head it’s just… not as good. If You Really Want to be My Friend is one of the best album cuts in the band's discography. It tells the story of a pleading man for a lover to stop being so overbearing, If you really want to understand a man / Let him off the lead sometimes, set him free / If you really, really want to be my friend / Give me the look of love, not jealousy. There’s an interesting layer to the story, the lack of details but increase in emotional vulnerability helps the song read less as a man on his knees for his woman to let him cheat with no repercussions and more like a man in need of understanding from a partner who isn’t aware of how they’re actions harm. This reading comes more from verse two, with the line I know you think that life is a thriller / You play the vamp, I play the killer / Now baby, what's the use of fighting? / By the last reel we'll be crying. The second line, You play the vamp, I play the killer, explains the reactionary double sided abuse of the relationship being described poetically: that a man is drained and the only way to save himself is to kill what’s sucking his life force. The song, though no proof written in any large margin by Richards, seems to tell the story of his relationship with Anita Pallenberg to this point. Their relationship was always tumultuous, Pallenberg specifically was noted by close friends to create a certain air of unrest around herself and that Richards would find himself at the receiving end of this torment most of the time. Drugs played part in their issues, most recent to the recording of this album was the birth of their daughter while Richards was in rehab and Pallenbergs inability to stay clean after he got out, which ultimately roped him back in. You know, people tell me you are a vulture / Say you're a sore in a cancer culture/ But you got a little charm around you, I'll be there when they finally hound you / If you really want to be my friend / And I really want to understand you / I really want to be your man, I want to try to
give you a helping hand. It was no secret to anyone, save maybe each other, that they were horrible for each other, between Richards to-a-fault-loyalty and Pallenbergs need for chaos there was no good ending for them, and that proved to be the case. Pallenberg said of their relationship that they seemed to care too much for each other and not at all about themselves, making a toxic, unhealthy dynamic, I really want to understand you / I really want to be your man / 'Cause understanding is something everybody needs, I really want to be your friend / And I love you, love you, yes, I do. As stated, there’s no real proof that this was a Richards lead piece, but the night and day of the discussion of relationship issues and the very real, very public women at hand leads you to believe this may not be written with a huge focus from Jagger. Richards has a habit in his writing, of discussing women less as objects of his affections and more so as these fully fleshed out people, which this song fits right through. There's frustration, but there’s also the understanding of where this frustration comes from. It’s mature, and complex, and so far from the next song on the album it’s a travesty they share the same side of the same album.
There’s very few points where you question Mick Jagger’s fame. Then, there are the times when you read his lyrics to certain songs and question how he’s never once questioned for the horrible mess of words he’s chosen to not only write, but sing, and then produce all by himself. How a song like Short and Curlies made this album, or any album, is a question with no answer. There’s moments where you think he took advantage of Richards' very trustworthy thoughts of him [in this case: stupidity], how if Richards weren't in the right mind to argue about the stupidity of the lyrics he could get away with pretty much anything. It’s how on the album before Jagger wrote Starfucker while Richards wrote Coming Down Again. How Richards could begin an idea for something like Wild Horses while Jagger wrote Brown Sugar. If you didn’t already have any favoritism towards him, you could now simply because you pity him for having his name having to have a writing credit on a song that says “balls” no less than 12 times. Worst of all: the song isn’t clever in its absurdity nor interesting sonically. It’s simply… bad. For 1974, Fingerprint File was inventive, progressive without
overstaying its welcome and surprisingly current, discussing issues of government surveillance just two months after the Watergate scandal. Bill Wyman rarely excels at bass and this song is no exception: the great funky bassline is played by Mick Taylor. There’s a really stellar part towards the middle where Jagger starts to talk over this bass beat, and it allows a full display of this great groovy dance piece that band would expand on later in there career. It comes across as proto-Miss You, the vocals from Jagger high pitched, the bassline driving over a phenomenally funk beat by Charlie Watts, and Richards with his wah-wah pedal. The lyrics as simple, very repetitive, but they work so well for what the song needs. Proof that when Jagger stops trying to do what everyone else is doing, he actually excels at doing something unique, which could be said about his career at large. The song was argubably even better when performed with Ron Wood, never sounding better than the performance at the El Mocambo nightclub featured on Love You Live in 1977.
Only Rock 'n' Roll was the band's first "flop", and in that found a hit single, and a handful of some good deepcuts. The Stones were sailing waters no band had yet to cross, with more interpersonal issues that any group should have. Proving that at their "old age" they were still able to be one of the leading rock bands on the scene was soon to become an standard of the band but they started when Jagger was just 30, that it may be only rock 'n' roll but it had the chance to be proof of so much more.
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