“ Midnight Rambler,” a song by the British rock band the Rolling Stones , was released on Let It Bleed's 1969 album. The song is a free retelling of the biography of Albert DeSalvo , who at the time admitted that he was a Boston Strangler . [2]
| Song | |
| Midnight Rambler | |
|---|---|
| Executor | The rolling stones |
| Album | Let it bleed |
| Date of issue | December 5, 1969 |
| Date Recorded | summer 1969 |
| Genre | blues rock [1] |
| Duration | 6:39 |
| Label | Decca / ABKCO |
| Author | |
| Composers | Jagger / Richards |
| Producer | Jimmy miller |
| Track Listing for Let It Bleed | |
Keith Richards called this song “the blues opera” and the most important song of the duo Jagger-Richards [3] , he also said that “no one else could write such a song.”
Content
Composition and Record
Mick Jagger talked about creating a song in a 1995 Rolling Stone magazine interview:
| This song that we wrote together with Keith. We were on vacation in Italy. In the very beautiful city of Positano a few nights. Why we wrote such a gloomy song in this beautiful and sunny place, I really do not know. We wrote everything there - about the change of pace, that's all. And I played harmonics in those little cafes and Keith played the guitar. [four] |
When asked about the song in a 1971 Rolling Stone interview, Richard said:
| Usually when you write, you just throw something to Mika and give him the freedom to fly around it and listen, and collect some words for yourself that are clearly audible and this is built on that. Many people complain that they don’t hear their voices clearly. If voices are heard clearly, that’s good! If not, then this is normal, because they can mean thousands of very different things for anyone [5] |
Song lyrics include lines:
| Did you hear about the midnight rambler Did you hear anything about the night stroller Well, honey, it's no rock 'n' roll show Well baby it's not a rock and roll show Well, I'm a-talkin 'about the midnight gambler I'm talking about a night player Yeah, the one you never seen before You haven’t seen him yet |
The studio version of the song (it lasts 6 minutes and 53 seconds) was recorded in the summer of 1969 at the Olympic Sound Studios and Trident Studios in London. Jagger performed vocals and harmonics, Richards played all guitar parts using standard tuning for the main guitar and open E for the slide guitar. Bill Wyman plays bass and Charlie Watts on drums, while multi-instrumentalist Brian Jones plays the Cong. [6] The song is similar to the songs The Boudoir Stomp and Edward's Thrump Up, recorded in April 1969 by the band minus Keith Richards and Brian Jones, featuring Raya Kuder on the guitar and Nicky Hopkins on the piano. These sessions were released in 1972 on LP, Jamming With Edward . [7]
Jones's percussion is not heard throughout the track and even if he participated in the recording, it is possible that his part was not included in the final mix. James Hector, who wrote the 1995 Omnibus Press, published The Complete Guide to the Music of the Rolling Stones , in which he suggested that including Jones as a co-author of the song might be a gift from former bandmates.
The Rolling Stones performed the song for the first time on the stage on July 5, 1969 and continued to perform it until 1976; sometimes during performances, Jagger crawled and hit the stage with his belt. One noteworthy 1969 performance (lasting more than 9 minutes) appeared on Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! and was reprinted on the Hot Rocks 1964-1971 collection. On this version, Mick Taylor plays the solo guitar in addition to Jagger, Richards, Wu Yamen and Watts. The Live'r Than You'll Ever Be bootleg contains a performance in Auckland on November 1969. On the versions of 1975, after leaving the group, Taylor plays Ronnie Wood . Some of the performances in 1975 are the longest live performances of the group, some of which last almost 15 minutes.
Record Members
- Mick Jagger - vocals, harmonica
- Keith Richards - Guitar
- Brian Jones - Congi
- Bill Wyman - Bass Guitar
- Charlie Watts - Drums
Controversy
In his book The Better Angels of Our Nature , Steven Pinker discusses the song as an illustration of his thesis that the 1960s counterculture "pushed against" the Civilizing Process (identified by Norbert Elias ), which, Pinker argues, had been reducing violence over many centuries, and that the counterculture's "glorification of dissoluteness shaded into indulgence of violence .... Personal violence was sometimes celebrated in song, as if it were just another form of antiestablishment protest. "He says the song" acted out a rape-murder by the Boston Strangler ... "and he sees this as an example of how in the 1960s counterculture "The control of women's sexuality was seen as a perquisite" of men. [eight]
Notes
- ↑ Eric vd Luft, Die at the Right Time !: A Subjective Cultural History of the American Sixties , Gegensatz Press, 2009, p. 410
- ↑ Caputi, Jane. The Age Of Sex Crime. Bowling Green University Popular Press. (1987). p. 49.
- ↑ The Database "Midnight Rambler" . Time Is On Our Side . 2007 (accessed 30 January 2008).
- ↑ "Jagger Remembers" Archived July 14, 2007 to Wayback Machine . Rolling stone . Dec 14, 1995 (accessed 12 June 2007).
- ↑ Greenfield, Robert. "Keith Richards - Interview." Rolling Stone (magazine) August 19, 1971.
- ↑ The Database "Midnight Rambler" . Time Is On Our Side . 2007 (accessed 12 June 2007).
- ↑ Egan, Sean. The Rough Guide to The Rolling Stones. - London, UK: Rough Guides, 2006 .-- P. 230.
- ↑ Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined (Viking Books, 2011), Chapter 3, ISBN 978-0-670-02295-3
Links
- Lyrics for this song on MetroLyrics