Rolling Stones "Emotional Rescue" Song By Song Discussion

Just my opinion. I lost interest in them. I am a fan since the mid 60's. I saw them in the 70's, 80's and 90's. Can you honestly say that Steel Wheels or Bridges To Babylon stands up to pre Some Girls releases? When they toured those 80's and 90's albums there was very little material from those albums performed. I know people want to hear hits but if those records were that good the newer material would have stood tall next to the classic songs in concert.

 

That’s I nice idea. Miss You was the song of the summer. Impossible to not hear it coming out of every car window. Impossible to not see everyone walking down the street to its beat. Miss You is on the level of Brown Sugar. It’s that big. Dance is more at the level of Have You Seen Your Mother Baby. Lol. I still find Dance the more interesting song.

 

That poor China Boy cymbal Charlie used the bejesus outta that thing, and still does from time to time...

I'm going to take a shot in the dark and assume Ronnie was not sober/straight at the time he said that...which explains a lot.

Hell, I was shocked they actually busted out "Emotional Rescue" occasionally on the 50th anniversary tour. "Summer Romance"? I bet the Stones don't even remember that song exists, let alone remember how to play it...

I'd rather not The bearded look doesn't suit him.

Steel Wheels, probably not, but I'll defend Bridges To Babylon to the death- one of the Stones' more interesting and innovative albums IMO, even if it basically a Jagger solo album and a Keith solo album fused together to make a Stones record. I may still do a Bridges To Babylon song by song thread yet!

A Bigger Bang, by the way, reminds me a lot of Some Girls. Same sort of stripped down, let's let let it all hang out and rock vibe on some of the Bang tracks IMO.

No question, "Dance" pales in comparison to "Miss You". I'm sure when it's all written down "Miss You" will be mentioned in the same breath as "Flash", "Satisfaction" and "Brown Sugar" as being the Stones' greatest/most well known songs.

 

I'm with you this is a fun, breezy sort of Stones record. For that reason it's definitely preferred sometimes. I'm curious, as a woman do you ever have any trouble with the lyrics? Summer Romance comes to mind, maybe others, too. The Stones have never been very PC, but these days I wonder what women think about that stuff in their songs. Care to share?

 

Not so. Both Voodoo Lounge and Bridges To Babylon tours featured about 4-6 songs from their respective albums at each show. Hardly very little.

The newer material worked just fine on those tours. "Out of Control" was a showstopper on the 97-98 tour.

 

Great to read all the love for this often maligned album. It's just a really fun record. The Stones showed with the more disciplined Some Girls that they still had the intensitity and musical chops to lay claim to being the greatest Rock and Roll band in the world but with ER they relaxed a bit and made a more musically diverse summer record.
It's easy to criticise because of the softer sound and dodgy lyrics so the cool crowd were never going to buy in but more fool them.

Dance is one of the greatest things they ever did, what a groove, and Micks best stellar street "Hey Keef, what ya doin?" Is their funniest moment on record!

Bring on the deluxe edition with the extra tacks. Five stars.

 

Folks saying it has a summer vibe so I am spinning it on a beautiful day here in Helsinki... it shares a Studio 54 feel that KISS's Dynasty also exhibits although the latter is sleazier... I get the feeling both bands were surrounded by "cocaine sniffing tramps" (as Mr. Richman famously sang a few years earlier) as they wrote their material...

 

Well I had to listen to it again and I’ve made mistakes before (you’d think a guy with the name stewedandkeefed would know it’s Stu on piano on “Stop Breaking Down”) but I listened to that solo a few times and I was still hearing Woody. If it is Keith, I think he’s imitating Woody’s style and tone.

 

I just whipped out my phone and gave "Summer Romance" a quick listen. That solo -and the lead guitar on the track in general, as well as the bass- is 100% Ron Wood. I'd know that style and sound anywhere. Keith is mainly the playing the muted picking licks; Mick of course is playing the 'punkish' rhythm guitar in the background. Keith does dominate as far lead guitar and solos go on Emotional Rescue but "Summer Romance" is Woody all the way.

 

My wife is almost as big a Stones fanatic as I am, that stuff doesn't bother her. Mind ya, she focuses more on the beat and melody than the lyrics. Hell, if anything, I take more umbrage with some of Mick's more sexist/misogynistic lyrics than my missus does!

 

Nowhere near as sleazy as Where The Boys Go. Perhaps some think it is but lots of girls experiment with men up to double their age as in Summer Romance.
Mick is withdrawing his interest and money, Hey, "Let Me Go!"
Since day dot it has not been stressed enough that the band through necessity became as good as talking a girl out of bed as into one!
After all Bill and Brian worked out there were only 24 hours in a day!

 

No, I have no problem with lyrics in the Stones catalog. I'm not offended by art in general and don't care about music being PC. I also never thought the Stones had sexist lyrics. I don't see anything sexist about writing songs about having sex with women who want to have sex with you. The women were willing participants. And in a post-Madonna world pop music has tended to view female stars exploring their sexuality as "empowering," but when men do it, it's sexist? Nah, I don't get on that train. Even the big ones that everyone always likes to throw around as being misogynistic ("Under My Thumb" in particular)...I went into this in detail in my single-by-single thread, but that song is about a power struggle within a relationship. Both the man and the women dominate at one time. It's also just a story.

I don't take this stuff that seriously. I also know that Mick Jagger is an extremely intelligent person and he also wrote lyrics as tender and loving as those in stuff like "Fool to Cry" or "Winter" in which he shows great compassion for women, so I know he doesn't just think of us as objects. Jagger the sex god is just one side of him and he's far from being a bone-head Lothario. The same is even truer of Keith and Charlie, both of whom have been monogamous (entirely in Charlie's case) over the years. I thought Keith wrote about women with great respect and love in his book Life. He loves us!

 

Even though he had a tendency in Life to constantly refer to the fairer sex as "bitches"?

 

Anyway, before we tripped off into a discussion of "Feminism In The Songs Of The Rolling Stones", let's move on, shall we:

Send It to Me

Composers: Mick Jagger & Keith Richards
Recording date: June 1979-January 1980 & April 1980
Recording locations: Pathé Marconi Studios, Paris, France & Electric Lady Studios, New York City
Producers: The Glimmer Twins Associate producer & chief engineer: Chris Kimsey
Never performed onstage



Probable line-up:

Drums: Charlie Watts
Bass: Bill Wyman
Electric guitars: Keith Richards & Ron Wood (incl. slide)
Vocals: Mick Jagger
Harmonica: Sugar Blue
Synthesizer: Nicky Hopkins
Congas: Michael Shrieve
Maracas: Michael Shrieve
Percussion: Michael Shrieve


Ah, I think I've had enough, you know, religion's tough
It's a state of mind I don't need

I'm sending a letter to my mother
I need some loving, send it to me
I lost my lover, unfaithful lover
I need some money, send it to me

I need consoling, your boy feeling lonely
Please try to phone me, send it to me

Send it to me, send it to me
Send it to me, send it to me

If she can't travel, I can take the mule train
I can take the aeroplane, send her to me

And I'm begging you, begging you, begging you
Down on my knees
Baby please, please, baby please

You, you, you've got to send her, send her, send her
Send her to me
Send her
Oh send her to me

You've got to send it, send it to me
Send it to me, send it to me

Yeah, I'm sending in a letter to my sister
In Australia, sister Marie
Ain't you got no doctor, no second cousin
That needs my loving? Send her to me

Send it to me, send it to me
Send it to me, send it to me

She won't have to wash or scrape, she won't have to relocate
I guarantee her personal security
She don't have to be 5 foot 10 or a blond or brunette
She don't have to be no social hostess, send her

She may work in a factory right next door to me
In my fantasy, send her to me

Send her to me, send her to me
Send her to me, send her to me

She could be Rumanian, she could be Bulgarian
She could be Albanian, she could be Hungarian
She might be Ukrainian, she could be Australian
She could be the alien, send her to me

Send it to me, send it to me (you got to send it, you got to send it)
Send it to me, send it to me (you got to send it)


TrackTalk


I did it with Charlie very early on... That was a good example of one, you know, we tried in all kinds of different ways, different times.

- Mick Jagger, 1980

I remember it being very, very long (laughs), about 12 minutes long. I had to chop it down to whatever it ended up being. I think, in the 12-minute version, there were like 19 or 20 verses and we just picked the last verses out and chopped it all together.

- Chris Kimsey, c. 1982

 

Like I said in one of the other recent Stones threads, obviously at some point between recording "Cherry Oh Baby" and "Send It To Me" Keith must have sat Charlie down and made him listen to some reggae records. When it comes to reggae drumming Charlie Watts will never be confused with Sly Dunbar (or even a white boy reggae influenced drummer like Stewart Copeland) but he handles the rhythm on "Send It To Me" much easier than his hamfisted efforts of "Cherry Oh Baby" (and would only get better at it as time went on). The looser overall musical feel that permeates the album is still on display on "Send It To Me", to the point where the track sounds more like a jam with mostly improvised lyrics than an actual song. That said, I always loved Mick's delivery of the "She won't have to wash or scrape, she won't have to relocate/I guarantee her personal security/She don't have to be 5 foot 10 or a blond or brunette/She don't have to be no social hostess..." verse. Keith gets in his reggae licks, Ronnie plays slide (and the solo) and dig Bill's bass! I reckon I like Bill's bass sound on Emotional Rescue than on any other Stones album- he was 100% correct to praise Chris Kimsey for the bass sound he got.

 

To me there's two stinkers on this record.....Indian Girl and Send It ToMe.

The rest is good to great except when the chicks come in on the end of Where The Boys Go. That stinks too!

 

Send It To Me - Again, lovely opening guitars but it settles into something quite ordinary and tedious. A very weak way to follow the previous weak song. The album is off to a poor start (and nothing will save it).

 

Send It To Me - This was supposedly edited down from a much longer 12 minute track according to Chris Kimsey (A good move). A reggae influenced number about mail order brides. It is one of the weakest tracks on the album in my opinion.

 

My favorite Stones album by a mile, and All About You is my favorite on the album

 

Why's Emotional Rescue yer favourite, Steve?

 

“Send It To Me” is a fun song. Once again I think it’s all pretty lightweight stuff on this record but I love the guitars at the beginning of this song, I like its lilting rhythm (I don’t think they’re imitating The Police but they were the biggest band in England in 1980 and they popularized the reggae rhythm in popular music quite a bit and I know Mick always has his ear to the ground) and I also like the vocals (especially the repetition of the title). It strikes me as the most un-Nicky Hopkins-like Stones track that he appears on.

 

I see above that Nicky is credited with "synthesizer" but the only keyboards I hear on "Send It To Me" are some vaguely "skanking" type organ licks. I will assume that's Nicky Hopkins. Still better than his organ work on "Cherry Oh Baby"

 

I've never worked out exactly what the guitars and bass are doing, but it sounds like they're all playing different things/riffs (kind of like the Satisfaction riff as done on the '69 tour). It works well though.

I was thinking the same thing! It always reminds me of Stella Street now.

When I heard If I Was A Dancer I was disappointed. I much prefer the sparser lyrics of Dance Pt.1

When I was younger, I had a bit of a problem with the last track on each side. Nowadays, I prefer those to the punkier/rockier tracks I liked more back then. I still really like Dance and Down In The Hole though.

 

On "Dance" I like how Keith doubles Bobby Keys' sax during the chorus.

I don't know if it's a general rule on the album -been a while since I listened to Emotional Rescue on headphones, which I probably should do for the purposes of this discussion- but if anybody wants to know who's doing what on guitar, as with most Stones albums from the Ron Wood Era, Keith is predominantly in the right speaker, Ronnie's in the left.