I Bet Your Mama Was A Tent Show Queen
Consider, for a moment, the songwriting talents of the Rolling Stones, and the way in which their songs are almost always sabotaged by their lyrics. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t necessarily have a problem with lines like “I can’t get no girly action,” because , Hey! Who hasn’t felt that they, too, were lacking some “girly action” at some point in their lives? but think of the title of that particular song for a second: “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.” It’s a song, in case you aren’t familiar with it, about not being able to get any satisfaction. Or, to use another example, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” It sounds wonderful – The music, the arrangement, everything about the song with the exception of the kids singing at the start which never ever sounds any good, it all sounds great. But then you listen to the lyrics and you realize it’s all about not getting what you want but occasionally getting what you need – A realization that comes when you reach the chorus that goes “You can’t always get what you want. You can’t always get what you want. You can’t always get what you want, but if you try some times, you just might find you get what you need.”
Worse yet, though, is “Brown Sugar.” At first blush, “Brown Sugar” is a step forward for the Stones – It’s not called “We’re talking about having sex with black women,” for one thing – and the first couplet of the chorus (ie, the bit that people always remember) has something that’s as close to subtlety as I think the Stones can get: “Oh, brown sugar! How come you taste so good?” sings Mick Jagger, before immediately ruining it by adding “Just like a young girl should.” Really, Mick? Really? You couldn’t just leave the heavy-handed metaphor there for people to unpack by themselves?
It’s things like this that make me wonder why people even wonder why there’s a question of whether the Stones are better than the Beatles. Both have good tunes, no question, but you always knew where you were with the Stones – There’s no room for interpretation or personal reading. Say whatever you want about the Beatles, at least they put some thought into their lyrics. How else could they come up with something as deep as “Yellow Submarine”?
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