"Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby" - Protopunk?

Released in 1966, "Have You Seen Your Mother Baby (Standing in the Shadows)" is an unusual single by the Rolling Stones. It starts off with a droning, fuzz and distortion laden electric guitar and quickly kicks up into a bass-driven fast groove with minimalist, choppy guitar riffs carrying the song along and an ever increasing intensity. The bass really drives the song, but its a simple duh dump duh dump sort of bass...Would anyone else agree this song is proto-punk or has elements of what would constitute punk a decade later?

"Just where have you been all your life?
Talkin' about other people who would try
Anything twice

Have you seen your mother, baby,
standing in the shadows?
Has she had another, baby, standing in the shadows?

Well you take your choice at this time:
The brave old world, or the slide
into the depths of decline."

 

I don't know, but it's cacophonous, poorly recorded, and threatens to fall off the rails at points, and I love it and wouldn't have it any other way. Unmannered rock and roll. Perfect sloppiness.

 

This is their best garage rocker. It's punky, but remove the horns and it would be even more so punky.

 

That record, along with about 10,000 others released at the same time.

 

I think if you take the live (so-called) version of this on the Got Live LP along with the other tracks recorded in late '66 from that same LP (sans "Lady Jane") then you actually do have punk-rock - ten years before the fact...

 

I think it's more protopsych than protopunk but it's great either way....it could stand more bass however.

 

That song was miles away from what the majority of popular music was at the time. For me , a huge step away from the norm of what I was hearing on the radio. Looking back , it was a peek at the future of music, psychedelia and yeah some punk. One of the Stones best.

 

Great song, one of my Stones top ten (quite possibly five). I'm not sure when I first heard it but it wasn't in 1966.

I think it's a bit too focused for "punk" ...

And I never differentiated the different styles of music in the '60s, when I was a kid. It was all just "pop music".

 

Love that song and it's amazing to me the run of singles for the Stones in 1966.
"19th Nervous Breakdown"
"Paint It Black"
"Stupid Girl"
"Mother's Little Helper"
"Lady Jane"
"Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow?

 

literally 10,000 or figuratively 10,000?

 

Outside of the overt blues stuff and some ballads, everything the Stones recorded before 1967 could be labeled proto-punk.

 

ever heard "She Said Yeah," Uly?

 

Aren't all Stones singles up to 1968 somehow "unusual"

 

What if it was punk that was actually post-Stones?

 

Your question implies, that punk offered anything musically new. And I can't remember anything new from bands like the Sex Pistols and Co in terms of sound and music. The only new thing about punk was the attitude "everyone can make music, everyone can be a rockstar".

 

There were a lot of similar bands in the US and the UK with a garage-rock sound who could be labeled protopunk. It's not unique to this one song. You could have said the Standells'"Dirty Water" or the Troggs'"Wild Thing" just as soon.

 

"Pushin' Too Hard" was released in 1965.
Please consult the Nuggets box sets.
And the "punk" you are referring to started in 1974, not 1976.

 

You obviously listened to the wrong bands.

 

You are a font of knowledge

 

I agree with you

 

I'm not sure I'd call it proto-punk (you could argue that The Who might've been, and that's definitely earlier), but it sure sounds unhinged and unusual for it's time. Remember, it was still 1966.

Nothing said yet about it's absolutely brilliant b-side Who's Driving Your Plane, a blues-rocker that sounds like it's from outer space.

 

And yet most of the later Punk-sound and "New wave" was already there....

 

His entire response was one big cliche.

 

Yes, the Monks, a terrific band.

 

With all due respect, punk isn't one specific thing that was invented in a laboratory. I see the original poster's point about the Stones, but again, I could go straight to the Nuggets box set and think of about a thousand other "protopunk" examples.