Their Satanic Majesties Request Song By Song Thread

I love that bit of feedback!
(If it was feedback. To me it sounds like the chimes or trike bells, or maybe a Syd Barrett guitar burp)

 

I love Citadel.
Probably my favourite track on the album.

 

To each their own I guess!

 

Strongest track on the album, for my money. A proper lead track after the odd prelude of STAT. Burst rihjy outa the speakers. It's got a welcome-to-the-mad-carnival atmosphere to it that plays well as psychedelia. I like the mix as well; the uncertainty of what one hears also works in a altered-mind sense.

I always thought the not-irritating noise was a high-pitched bell or triangle, maybe a little overdriven.

 

I credit "Citadel" with finally weaning my off the negative critical dismissals of this album and forcing a reevaluation. Previously, I'd totally bought in the prevailing wisdom of it being 'the Stones detour into psychedelia" and settled for comps with only "She's a Rainbow" and "2000 Light Years From Home" represented. As its most conventionally sounding Stones track with a great crunching guitar riff, it opened my eyes to fact that there may actually be more than meets the eye lurking under the surface here, once you get into the vibe of the LP and forget your preconceptions.

 

Pre-ordered. Boom!

 

Can I go back to Sing This All Together for one second? Can someone knowledgeable please comment on the guitar tone and tuning (or lack thereof)? There's nothing like it anywhere else in the Stones catalog. What was it played on? Certainly not the guitar in John's post #78. Reminds me, funny enough of the tone in Syd Barrett's solo work (especially Opel).

As for a comment on Citadel, love the track. Velvet Underground influenced, no? I mean beyond Candy and Taffy.

 

Could very well be a Telecaster as seen in some of the session pics.
Syd often used an Esquire which is basically a Telecaster with just the bridge pickup.

The Velvets could well be an influence on "Citadel".
Jagger admitted that the groove of "Stray Cat Blues" from Beggar's Banquet is directly influenced by "Heroin".

 

Yeah I do hear some Syd in Keith's playing on this record, funny giving that Keith would seem the most anti-psychedelia out of the main three.
As far The Velvet Underground, maybe, but I can't because I don't like The Velvet Underground.

 

Citadel is great, although I hear "Cindy and Cathy, hope you both are well".

Great earsplitting riff in what sounds like a beefed up americanized song from Between the buttons. Abandoning the Kinks/Who/Small Faces-isms of Between the buttons for something more American. Citadel and most of TSMR is almost a sardonic version of psychedelia, there's no belief in what might be called the promise of 1966/67, rather it is Stones first trying to embrace the movement, but then realizing that this won't last, there's no future and England's dreaming. If you take Sing this all together literally and that the Stones "mean it", it almost becomes Spinal Tap (Listen to the flower children), it needs to be emptied and hollow in order to make sense, maybe a bit like The Seeds Future.

I'd like to know more about Mick Jagger's record collection around late 65 - 67, what bands did they catch live in the US? Was the Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators something they brought with them home? She's a rainbow was allegedly inspired by Love's She Comes In Colors from Da Capo (released February 1967). I haven't heard much about Keith and Mick seeing early Floyd, while we know that people like Pete Townshend and David Bowie were there taking notes.

 

To me it sounds like organized chaos, if that makes any sense...

 

The only thing really wrong with this album is the snoring. Someone should have censored that.

When I first got it I was pleasantly surprised how good 'Sing This All Together" sounded. The album had such a bad reputation that I expected constant dreck.

 

Citadel is magnificent. Mid sixties Jagger is a fantastic lyricist. He continues his spooky surreal take on existentialism here. One of my favourite Stones tracks.

 

But unlike All Together Now, when you play Sing This All Together backwards it does not say "I buried Paul" over and over.

 

"Citadel"

The first thing that stands out to me is the wonderful segue between the closing strains of "Sing This All Together" and Keith's wonderful crunching opening riff. I actually first heard "Citadel" on one of those early '80's Decca compilations of random Stones '60's material (Solid Rock, if I recall correctly). I loved it then, and loved it even more when I heard it in it's proper context. Probably because on Solid Rock, it's preceeded by "All Sold Out", from Between The Buttons. To say that the respective riffs sound similar is something of an understatement. "Citadel" sounds very much like a beefed up, trippier version of the BTB track, although it's clearly the superior song. The lyrics and the mixture of the harpsichord, flute and mellotron, give the song's chorus an unusual, almost medieval minstrel quality after the hard rock of the verse. Really surprised they never played it live. Oh, and I always thought it was "Candy and Cathy..." too. Really cool song.

Star rating: 4.5/5

 

Dave, your post reminds me of how much the Satanic Sessions documents Nicky Hopkins' critical contribution to this track, which ended up getting largely mixed out, or mixed over, for the final product. This record was, generally speaking, somewhat amateurishly produced by Mick and Keith on their own for the first time, not that Oldham was god's gift to production by any stretch.

 

Do not think of it as a life changing moment, think of it as a party. They sang it all together to see what would happen, and then after the party was over, they decided to go back to being themselves.

 

You know, let's talk about Oldham for a second. First off, yes, he was not anything to write home about as a producer and by all accounts the engineers did the heavy lifting. However I do think he was useful as a voice to say "No" when necessary, and the lack of such a voice accounts for, I think, moments of self indulgence on this record.

 

It was called Story Theater. It began in 1971 so it wa concurrent with MASH.

 

Citadel is so cool. It's a real stand-out song and it introduces a new aspect of The Stone's sound. Not just that fantastic guitar riff but also Micks sneering, gutsy vocal and it's a glimpse of the more ballsy, swaggering Stones that would follow this experimental album and points directly to Jumpin Jack Flash, just around the corner. Terrific.

 

I vote for your next thread to be Their Satanic Majesties' Second Request

 

That is a good point. The fantastic Citadel could be the pivot point toward 70's Stones.

 

Purple Jim said: ↑
They were just so...twee.

Yes. This certainly could be said about Mick prancing around up on stage.

I wonder if he pranced around during this stage of his career.

A slightly derivative "Me Too" album with an oh so daring and oh so naughty album title.

Yes, just so...twee.

 

I'd vote for this one.


Andy Babiuk and Greg Prevost from the band wrote the essential book Rolling Stones Gear.

 

Wow, I'm being stalked. I really got your back up on that Beatles/Beach Boys thread didn't I?