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Happy Birthday Mick Jagger: Revisiting Rolling Stones 10 Best Songs On His 81st Birthday
On the occasion of lead vocalist Mick Jagger’s 81st birthday, we have listed below the top 10 Rolling Stones songs for you.
Best known as the lead vocalist and one of the founding members of the iconic rock band The Rolling Stones, Mick Jagger has turned a year older and wiser today (July 26). Besides spreading his charm on the stage singing hit songs from the band’s albums like Out of Our Heads, Aftermath, and Between the Buttons, he has also co-written songs like Satisfaction, Paint It Black, Sympathy for the Devil, and Jumpin’ Jack Flash.
Born in 1943, Jagger is a man of many talents including musician, singer, songwriter, actor, and producer. He founded The Rolling Stones in 1962 with guitarist Keith Richards, pianist Ian Stewart, guitarist Brian Jones, drummer Charlie Watts, and bassist Bill Wyman. He has also released several solo albums and appeared in films like Performance (1970) and Ned Kelly (1970).
On the occasion of Jagger’s 81st birthday, we have listed below the top 10 Rolling Stones songs for you.
(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction (1965)
Listened to on Spotify and YouTube over 600 million times, (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction is arguably the most popular Rolling Stones song. From dive bars and sports arenas to family barbecues and parties, the song is timeless regardless of genre, era, or location.
The song, taken from the Stones' 1965 album Out of Our Heads, became their first American No. 1 hit. Jagger penned the lyrics while vacationing in Florida, venting his annoyance and disillusionment with the US, which he considered to be too ostentatious and marketed. The young Americans seem to concur. The iconic riff for the singalong, according to Richards, came to him in a daze one night, but fortunately, he recorded it.
Paint It, Black (1966)
When The Rolling Stones released Aftermath in the US in 1966, it began with a pounding rhythm and beautiful, but menacing and anxiety-inducing, guitar picking that confused as much as it enthralled music fans. With Jagger's aggressive melody, the song perfectly complemented the dark and mystical lyrics.
It defined the oddest yet strongest sound The Rolling Stones could produce. Even though the song is purportedly composed from the viewpoint of someone experiencing depression following a loss, it appears to have moved past the emotional narrative and gained a stronghold in the psychedelic genre.
Sympathy for the Devil (1968)
Fans of all ages are often heard singing the line “Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste!” loudly in front of the microphone at a karaoke bar. The song's tongue-in-cheek lyrics cover every subject that made the band wonder and wretch, leaving no subject off-limits.
While lust, violence, police brutality, religion, and war are all mentioned, good and evil serve as the central theme that ties everything together. Jagger is known to have found inspiration in the works of Ukrainian novelist Mikhail Bulgakov, whose gloomy satire addressed Christian ideology.
Jumpin’ Jack Flash (1968)
Few of the best songs ever written begin with a sentence as iconic as Jagger's sardonic declaration, “I was born in a crossfire hurricane.” Historians believe that the 1968 single, which features the trademark licks that epitomize the Stones's blend of blues and rock, marks the beginning of the band's greatest period.
According to Jagger, the song represents the band's comeback to form following a period of hallucinogenic experimentation. The song's namesake, a reference to Richards' actual gardener named Jack, has transcended its literal inspiration into rock & roll folklore.
Gimme Shelter (1969)
Just the first few notes of Gimme Shelter might take you back in time to a different period of American history. The mellow but eerie harmonies and crescendoing guitars of Let It Bleed (1969) create tension that is eventually released.
The lyrics of the song are a brutal realist acknowledgment of a world full of suffering, murder, rape, and war are all only a shot away. The song's legacy, which features the soulful vocals of gospel singer Merry Clayton, is that of a disillusioned America during the Vietnam War. However, Richards has disclosed that his original idea came from observing pedestrians trying to find cover from a shower of rain. The group went on to say that the difficulties of a jealous heart served as the inspiration for the lyrics.
You Can't Always Get What You Want (1969)
There's no denying that music is the easiest way to extract some of the most important lessons in life. And You Can't Always Get What You Want, from the Stones' 1969 album Let It Bleed, is the perfect song to learn how to control expectations and deal with disappointment.
Can’t You Hear Me Knocking (1971)
Mostly overshadowed by Goats Head Soup, a lackluster sequel to Exile on Main Street with the chart-topping single Angie, is the Stones at their most intense and brilliant. The song's narrative, perhaps the best story Jagger and Richards have ever told together, is easily overlooked with such a lighthearted title. Two major stories that take center stage in the song include a 10-year-old girl overdosing on drugs in an alleyway, and a NYC police officer shooting a child he believed to be a point of interest in an armed robbery case.
Wild Horses (1971)
Wild Horses, recorded at the end of the 1960s in Muscle Shoals studio in Alabama, is composed of the kind of enchantment that can only be discovered in the most exposed times of a boisterous rock star's somber reflection. The song, originally a tribute by Richards to his newborn baby, whom he missed while traveling, was included on the band's 1971 album Sticky Fingers. Jagger, however, changed the song's meaning to better fit the story of a failing love.
Brown Sugar (1971)
Sticky Fingers’s 1971 No. 1 hit Brown Sugar has the two aspects essential to the Stones's most enduring songs– Jagger's infamously scandalous lyrics and Richards' sharp, authoritative guitar riffs. The song is, at times, labeled controversial for its references to slavery, heroin, race, and sex.
Brown Sugar is a sharp contrast to the peaceful country feelings of Wild Horses, asserting itself with the same ferocity as the Stones of the 1960s, but with a recklessness that would be symptomatic of the drugs and anarchy the band would engage in for the rest of the decade.
Angie (1973)
The band included this acoustic song on their 1973 album Goats Head Soup. Stepping away from the Stones’s typical commotion, the prominent piano and string arrangements paint Jagger as a melancholic ex-lover looking for solace in music. Richards claimed in his 2010 autobiography that he penned Angie while he was getting better in a rehabilitation facility.
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