The Rolling Stones released Sticky Fingers

Sticky Fingers The Rolling Stones

Released: April 23, 1971 Charted: May 8, 1971 Peak: 14 US, 15 UK, 15 CN, 12 AU, 14 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): 3.0 US, 0.3 UK, 7.5 world (includes US and UK), 22.49 EAS Genre: classic rock

Tracks: Click on a song title for more details. Brown Sugar [3:48] Sway [3:50] Wild Horses [5:42] Can't You Hear Me Knocking [7:14] You Gotta Move [2:32] Bitch [3:38] I Got the Blues [3:54] Sister Morphine [5:31] Dead Flowers [4:03] Moonlight Mile [5:56] Total Running Time: 46:25 The Players: Mick Jagger (vocals) Keith Richards (guitar) Mick Taylor (guitar) Bill Wyman (bass) Charlie Watts (drums)

Rating: 4.706 out of 5.00 (average of 34 ratings) Quotable: “They were called the World’s Greatest Rock ‘n’ Roll Band for entierely too long, but if that designation ever applied, it was here.” – Mark Richardson, Pitchfork Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album “Few bands represent…the move from the relative innocence of the mid-‘60s into the hedonism and burnout of the ‘70s better than the Rolling Stones.” PF “Stoned, rich, and long since morally bankrupt, the greatest rock ‘n’ roll band in the world spent 1971 bathing in decadence and flirting with death. Interestingly, such preoccupations resulted not only in some of the meanest, nastiest music ever recorded, but also some of the prettiest.” VB With 1971’s Sticky Fingers, “the Rolling Stones came back nastier and more assured than ever.” TL It “proved that the endless summer of the 1960s was over, but that the Stones would rock just as hard in the following decade.” CD In Colin Larkin’s All Time Top 1000 Albums, he says of the #10 ranked album that “dirty rock like this has still to be bettered, and there is still no rival in sight.” WK A Q magazine review said this was “the Stones at their assured, showboating peak.” WK “The key to the album…[is] the utter weariness of the songs.” AM In addition to the aftermath of Altamont, Mick Jagger was dealing with his breakup with Marianne Faithfull while Keith Richards was worried about his newborn son Marlon. CD “Well over half the songs explicitly mention drug use.” AM “Where they once sounded like English boys doing their version of the blues, now their songs felt as lived-in as their inspirations.” PF Chicago Tribune’s Lynn Van Matre said the album captured the band “at their raunchy best” WK as the band delves into “familiar Stones terrain: sex…drugs…the blues…and dirty rock and roll all over.” FP The Big Four The album was “their biggest seller to date,” TL coming during “one of the great four-album runs in pop music history.” PF The Stones “rise to their own artistic challenge – the run of [1968’s] Beggars Banquet and [1969’s] Let It Bleed.” AD While those albums “might have had higher highs…both also had their share of tossed-off tracks.” PF Similarly, Sticky Fingers “doesn’t have the sprawl and mood of their next release, [1972’s] Exile on Main Street,” TL “the underground music’s fan’s favorites, but it never had the broader cultural impact of its predecessor.” PF “If you have to pick just one album, then Sticky Fingers” CM “truly captures the Stones at the peak of their game.” TL Recording the Album “Sticky Fingers found the band digging even deeper into rootsy veins of Americana, with bohemian, good-vibes producer Jimmy Miller at the helm.” TB He came on board with Beggars Banquet and was, as Bill Wyman said, “a great producer who, for the first time, the band actually listened to.” CM The band did some recording at the legendary Muscle Shoals studio in Alabama at the close of their 1969 U.S. tour. Even though only three songs (“Brown Sugar,” “Wild Horses,” and “You Gotta Move”) UD were recorded there, “the Muscle Shoals feel permeates the album.” CM Drummer Charlie Watts said it was “a great studio to work in, a very hip studio…you wanted to be there because of all the guys who had worked in the same studio.” TS In 1970, the band also recorded at their mobile studio in Jagger’s Stargroves mansion in England – TD the same location where Led Zeppelin would record Houses of the Holy. FP Engineer Andy Johns said it “was ideally suited because it was a big mansion and a grand hall with a gallery around with bedroom doors and a staircase.” CMJagger echoed a similar sentiment, describing it as “a big hall with a high ceiling, which was my optimum kind of room.” TS Additional recording was done at Olympic Sound Studios in London in 1969 and 1970. The Album’s Sound The album is marked by “a loose, ramshackle ambience.” AM “Sticky Fingers moves as far from pop as the band would ever stray.” RV It is “a slow, bluesy affair, with a few country touches thrown in for good measure.” AM “Richards’ riffs and melodies were in full flower” PF and “Jagger’s voice never sounded richer or fuller than it does here.” PF The album also “displayed the improvisational talents of guitarist Mick Taylor,” FP who’d come on board during Let It Bleed to replace Brian Jones and here is “fully a Rolling Stone.” AD There are also “the spicy horn arrangements of saxophonist Bobby Keys and trumpet player Jim Price. The use of horns in the Stones’ repertoire seemed inevitable – when they kick in during ‘Brown Sugar’ and ‘Bitch,’ it’s as if Keith’s guitar is rebirthed in brass.” CD New Label and Logo This was also the band’s first release on their new label, Rolling Stones Records. Since 1963, they’d been with Decca Records in the UK and London Records in America. This was also the first studio album from the Stones to not feature any contributions from Brian Jones, the band’s founder, who died at age 27 on July 3, 1969. Sticky Fingers was also the first Rolling Stones’ album to feature the now iconic logo of a red mouth with a tongue sticking out. John Pasche designed it in 1970 after Jagger suggested copying the tongue of the Hindu goddess Kali. WK Kali, the Hindu goddess It “recast the band in a new light: a rock and roll brand.” FP Critic Sean Egan says it “quickly and deservedly became the most famous logo in the history of popular music.” WK back cover of album Album Package “The whole thing was wrapped up in a brilliant packaging concept by Andy Warhol” PF which “emphasizes the suggestive innuendo of the Sticky Fingers title.” TD The cover “expresses the essence of Rolling Stones at their peak: salacious, impossible to ignore, and rough around the edges.” FP In 2003, VH1 ranked Sticky Fingers as the greatest album cover of all time. FP It featured a close-up shot of the crotch of a man in tight jeans which, at Jagger’s suggestion, FP featured a working zipper. When pulled down, it revealed a pair of cotton briefs. Warhol suggested the idea to Jagger at a party in 1969. FP Warhol conceived the cover and Billy Name and Craig Braun, members of his art collective, The Factory, photographed and designed it respectively. WK Contrary to popular belief, the crotch in the photo does not belong to Jagger. Several men were photographed during the shoot and Warhol never revealed which model was actually used for the cover. TD There were, however, problems with the zipper. When the albums were stacked for shipping, the zipper would press into the vinyl and damage it. The solution was to pull the zipper down manually so that it would hit the center disc label and not damage the vinyl. As Braun said, “It worked, and it was even better to see the zipper pulled halfway down.” FP The album cover was censored in Spain so a second cover was created which featured what would seemingly be more controversial – severed fingers in a can of Fowler’s Treacle. KR alternate cover Notes In 2015, Sticky Fingers was reissued with a bonus disc featuring five alternate versions of songs and five songs performed live at the Roundhouse on March 14, 1971. A super deluxe edition featured a complete show performed at the University of Leeds on March 13, 1971. The Songs Here’s a breakdown of each of the individual songs.

Brown Sugar The Rolling Stones

Writer(s): Mick Jagger, Keith Richards Recorded: Dec. 3-4, 1969 at Muscle Shoals Soun Studios in Alabama; Dec. 14. 1969, Apr. ’70, Dec. 70 at Olympic Sound Studios in London Released: 4/16/1971 (single), Sticky Fingers (1971), ), Hot Rocks (1971), Made in the Shade (1975), Rewind (1984), The Singles Collection: The London Years (1989), Jump Back (1993), Forty Licks (2002), Grrr! (2012), Honk (2019) B Side: “Bitch,” “Let It Rock” Peak: 12 BB, 2 CB, 3 GR, 13 HR, 1 CL, 2 UK, 13 CN, 5 AU, 1 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): 0.45 UK Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 3.0 radio, 36.90 video, 308.52 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: “Brown Sugar” was the first song released under the Rolling Stones’ new label. With its “sloppy-rock groove,” TB “Brown Sugar is dirty, sexy... an instant classic Stones single.” AD It is “a muscular rock song made special by [Bobby] Keys’ and [Keith] Richards’ driving riffs and [Mick] Jagger’s steamy lyrics.” LW It “begins with some magical raunchy chords…in the tradition of…[The Kinks’] ‘All Day and All of the Night,’ [and the Stones’ own] ‘19th Nervous Breakdown,’ and ‘Satisfaction.’” RS It was their sixth trip to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 and reached #2 in the UK. The song was written in 1969 and recorded at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama that December. They debuted it live at the infamous Altamont Speedway concert in which a fan was stabbed to death. “As if to prove their minds were still as dirty as their music,” AZ “with its quintessential blues-rock riff” PF is “a gleeful tune about slavery, interracial sex, and lost virginity.” AM More specifically, the song is about “slaves from Africa who were sold in New Orleans and raped by their white masters. The subject matter is quite serious, but the way the song is structured, it comes off as a fun rocker about a white guy having sex with a black girl.” SF The song understandably generated controversy for misogyny and racism. WK In his book Up and Down with the Rolling Stones, Tony Sanchez suggests “all the slavery and whipping is a double meaning for the perils of being ‘mastered’ by Brown Heroin or ‘Brown Sugar.’” SF Mick Jagger said the song was a “dual combination of drugs and girls.” WK Of the questionable lyrics, he said it was “all the nasty subjects in one go” PF and that he’d “never write that song now. I would probably censor myself.” TS It was the first time Jagger wrote a song completely on his own. CM He wrote it while on the set of filming Ned Kelly in Australia. TS He said, “at the end of the ‘60s I had a little more time to sit around and play my guitar, writing songs rather than just lyrics for the first time.” TS

Sway The Rolling Stones

Writer(s): Mick Jagger, Keith Richards Recorded: Oct. 21 – Nov. ’70 at Rolling Stones Mobile Studio in Stargroves, Newbury and Olympic Sound Studios in London; Jan. ’71 at Trident Studios in London Released: 6/12/1971 (B side of “Wild Horses”), Sticky Fingers (1971) Peak: 46 CL, 18 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 19.70 streaming About the Song: “The lazy, yet together Sway…[is] so loose it sounds like it’s about to fall apart at any moment.” AD “The sound is characteristic Rolling Stones messiness…[but] lacks intensity…it remains a series of riffs whose lack of content is obscured by prolonged and indifferent guitar semi-solos and a fine string arrangement that suddenly enters towards the end.” RS The “midtempo rocker…would sound orchestral even without Paul Buckmaster’s climactic string arrangement.” AZ The song features “fantastic lead vocals from Mr. Jagger, very soulful” AD and he even plays guitar. Watts said Jagger “plays very strange rhythm guitar…very much how Brazilian guitarists play, on the upbeat. It is very much like the guitar on a James Brown track; for a drummer it’s great to play with.” CM There is also “amazing” AD guitar work from Taylor. Richards contributes some additional vocals, but doesn’t play guitar on the track. AD Of Taylor’s performance, Richards said, “acoustically he’s got a nice touch.” TS Pete Townshend and Ronnie Lane come on board to provide backing vocals. TD

Wild Horses The Rolling Stones

Writer(s): Mick Jagger, Keith Richards Recorded: Dec. 3-4, 1969 at Muscle Shoals Soun Studios in Alabama; Dec. 14. 1969, Feb. ’70, Dec. 70 at Olympic Sound Studios in London; Aug. ’70 at Trident Studios in London Released: 6/12/1971 (single), Sticky Fingers (1971), ), Hot Rocks (1971), Made in the Shade (1975), The Singles Collection: The London Years (1989), Jump Back (1993), Forty Licks (2002), Grrr! (2012), Honk (2019) B Side: “Sway” Peak: 28 BB, 18 CB, 32 GR, 21 HR, 2 CL, 11 CN, 96 AU, 4 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 426.59 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: The “gorgeous” AD “Wild Horses is their first non-ironic stab at a country song, and it is a beautiful, heart-tugging masterpiece;” AM it “is as tender as the Stones can get.” TL “The longing of the song’s lyrics coupled with its ultimate hope constitute as much of a theme as there is on this record.” RS Richards said the song “was about the usual thing of not wanting to be on the road being a million miles from where you want to be.” TS Specifically, the band was headed out on the road again and Richards didn’t want to be away from Marlon, his newborn son. TS According to Richards, the song came about from him playing around with tunings on a twelve-string. The chorus was written in the bathroom at Muscle Shoals. He also said, “If there is one classic way of Mick and I working together, this is it. I had the riff and the chorus line. Mick got stuck into the verses.” TS The band worked with Gram Parsons on the song. TS He was hanging out with Keith Richards quite a bit and Parsons’ band, the Flying Burrito Brothers, actually released a version of “Wild Horses” before the Stones’ version came out.

Can’t You Hear Me Knocking The Rolling Stones

Writer(s): Mick Jagger, Keith Richards Recorded: May, June, and July ’70 at Rolling Stones Mobile Studio in Stargroves, Newbury and Olympic Sound Studios in London and Trident Studios in London Released: Sticky Fingers (1971) Peak: 4 CL, 12 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 154.85 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: “The laid-back tone of the album gives ample room for…Taylor to stretch out, particularly on the extended coda” AM of “the near-dangerous electrified Can’t You Hear Me Knocking.” CD “The song ebbs and flows and the guitars of Richards and Taylor combine so well, the sound of a genuine love of playing together shines through.” AD Richards said, “We were just rambling and they kept the tape rolling…Basically we realized we had two bits of music. There’s the song and there’s the jam.” TS It is one of the Stones’ “most dexterous instrumental displays, slowly building up into a triumphant guitar-and-sax-led frenzy before end on an abrupt high note.” PM It “has become one of the great showcases of the band’s musicality.” CM In his 2016 book Never a Dull Moment, David Hepworth suggested that Taylor’s “Latin-flavored guitar solo” was influenced by the 1970 Santana album, Abraxas. WK Jagger himself called the song “slightly Carlos-Santana-like. Mick Taylor plays a bit of that style.” TS

You Gotta Move The Rolling Stones

Writer(s): Fred McDowell, Gary Davis Recorded: Dec. 2 and 4, 1969 at Muscle Shoals Sound Studios in Alabama; March – May ’70 at Rolling Stones Mobile Studio in Stargroves, Newbury and Olympic Sound Studios in London and Trident Studios in London Released: Sticky Fingers (1971) Peak: 26 CL Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 10.84 streaming About the Song: Critic Robert Christgau said this Mississippi Fred McDowell cover is on par with the band’s previous covers of “Prodigal Son” and “Love in Vain.” WK Taylor said they used to play it all the time in the studio. Jagger echoes that, saying, “We used to mess around doing it in rehearsals or in a hotel room…and we decided to record it…This sort of stuff is very hard to recreate. Fred McDowell’s version is full of emotion. But I think we managed to pull it off.” TS “Taylor’s electric slide guitar is absolutely exquisite.” RS “Combined with Richard’s fine work on the acoustic they create one of the album’s few real moments. Charlie Watts’ bass drum holds it together perfectly, while Richard’s harmony smoothes off the more outrageous edges of Jagger’s lead vocal. In the end, all the pieces fit. A small but important triumph.” RS

Bitch The Rolling Stones

Writer(s): Mick Jagger, Keith Richards Recorded: Oct. 21 – Nov. ’70 at Rolling Stones Mobile Studio in Stargroves, Newbury and Olympic Sound Studios in London Released: 4/16/1971 (B side of “Brown Sugar”), Sticky Fingers (1971), Made in the Shade (1975), Time Waits for No One (1979), Jump Back (1993), Grrr! (2012), Honk (2019) Peak: 6 CL, 2 UK, 12 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 32.99 streaming About the Song: The “mean-spirited” AM “rocker Bitch” AZ “nearly stands up to the album opener.” PM Jagger assumes “one of his most popular poses: demonic. here he flaunts naughty words and naughty thoughts as if he still thought they were naughty.” RS Jagger said, “to my mind there was never anything written that was offensive in that.” TS “The arrangement is straight-ahead” RS on this “crunchy boogie” PF which Jagger says is “a guitar song, but it’s also somewhat dependent on the horn lines.” TS Indeed, “the horns sound great here as they are used primarily for purposes of syncopation and rhythm. The bass and drums…burns like a bitch.” RS Jagger called it one of the band’s “groove tunes.” TS

I Got the Blues The Rolling Stones

Writer(s): Mick Jagger, Keith Richards Recorded: March – May ’70 at Rolling Stones Mobile Studio in Stargroves, Newbury and Olympic Sound Studios in London and Trident Studios in London Released: Sticky Fingers (1971) Peak: 36 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 13.80 streaming About the Song: “In the tradition of the earlier R&B imitations,” RS this “ravished, late-night classic” AM offers “heartbreakingly beautiful vocals” AD within a“swelling Otis Redding-style R&B” PF song “that ranks among their very best blues.” AM “This is the first time they actually added Stax horns.” RS “It’s far and away the best pure R&B song that the Rolling Stones ever recorded.” CM Jagger said, “When you get really slow tunes like this, it’s hard to keep the tempo…but this one holds the tempo. It’s kind of wrenching. You can only get that by doing it really slow and this one comes off.” TS

Sister Morphine The Rolling Stones

Writer(s): Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Marianne Faithfull Recorded: May – June ’68 and Mar. ’69 at Olympic Sound Studios in London Released: Sticky Fingers (1971) Peak: 35 CL, 18 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 13.89 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: “The noirish” RV and “terrifyingly spare Sister Morphine” CD “is a horrifying narrative of heroin and cocaine addiction told from a hospital bed.” RV It is “one of the most vivid, horrifying songs about drug abuse ever recorded.” AZ However, Jagger said, “It’s about a man after an accident, really. It’s not about being addicted to morphine so much as that.” TS The song was actually recorded during sessions for Let It Bleed in March 1969 WK and features Ry Cooder on slide guitar. TD Jagger and Richards wrote it for Marianne Faithfull to record. CM Jagger says she claimed she wrote the song, although he says she only contributed a couple of lines. TS

Dead Flowers The Rolling Stones

Writer(s): Mick Jagger, Keith Richards Recorded: Dec. ’69 and March – May ’70 at Olympic Sound Studios in London Released: Sticky Fingers (1971) Peak: 9 CL, 14 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 65.53 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: “The tongue-in-cheek honky tonk” PF of “the countryish Dead Flowers” AZ is “a definitive comedy of decadence.” TL Jagger said, “It’s a sort of joke.” TS “I love country music, but I find it very hard to take it seriously.” TS “The actual music is played completely straight, but it’s me who’s not going legit with the whole thing, because I think I’m a blues singer, not a country singer.” TS “The harmonic thing is very different from the blues. It doesn’t bend notes in the same way, so I suppose it’s very English, really. Even though it’s been very Americanized, it feels very close to me, to my roots, so to speak.” TS

Moonlight Mile The Rolling Stones

Writer(s): Mick Jagger, Keith Richards Recorded: 11/2/70 at Rolling Stones Mobile Studio in Stargroves, Newbury; Jan. ’71 at Trident Sound Studios in London Released: Sticky Fingers (1971) Peak: 12 CL, 16 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 41.39 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: “The gorgeous” AM closer is “sad, yearning, drug-addled, and beautiful;” AM “a masterpiece.” RS It is “quite unlike anything else in the Rolling Stones’ canon.” CM Richards said he had nothing to do with the song. “Moonlight Mile was all Mick’s.” TS “I was very out of it by the end of the album.” TS Because of his steadily growing heroin habit, insider Jo Bergman said, “I didn’t think Keith was going to live through the ’70 tour of Europe.” CM Jagger said he wrote some of the early lyrics in the summer of 1970, probably while they were on a train and the moon was out. “The feeling I had at that moment was how difficult it was to be touring and how I wasn’t looking forward to going out and doing it again. It’s a very lonely thing, and my lyrics reflected that.” TS “Grandiose strings” AM “push the intensity level constantly upwards…The energy becomes unmistakably erotic.” RS “There is something soulful here, something deeply felt.” RS It “has a defiant aloneness to it.” CM It is “a coked-out, somnambulant drift through an era’s last days.” TD It is Jagger’s “best performance on the album – the only thing that compares with his singing of ‘Gimme Shelter.’” It “is a perfect closure,” AM “a beautiful end to a beautiful journey.” TD

Resources/References: AM AllMusic.com review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine AZ Amazon.com review FB Fred Bronson (2003). The Billboard Book of Number One Hits (5th edition). Billboard Books: New York, NY. Page 292. CD CdUniverse.com CM Toby Creswell & Craig Mathieson (2012). 100 Best Albums of All Time. Hardie Grant Books. Pages 40-3. AD Adrian Denning (3/30/2007). “Adrian’s Top 100 Albums, So Far” FP FestivalPeak.com (12/5/2018). “‘Sticky Fingers’: How an Album Cover Defined the Rolling Stones” by David Deal KR Kingstons K Rock 105.7 (5/3/2020). “8 Things You Might Not Know About the Rolling Stones ‘Sticky Fingers’” by Bryan Floyd LW Alan Lewens (2001). Popular Song – Soundtrack of the Century. Billboard Books: New York, NY. Page 132. MG Philippe Margotin & Jean-Michel Guesdon (2022). The Rolling Stones: All the Songs. Hachette Book Group: New York, NY. PM PasteMagazine.com (6/3/2024). “The 300 Greatest Albums of All Time” PF Pitchfork.com (6/19/2015). review of reissue by Mark Richardson RV The Review (Oct./Nov. 2001). “The 100 Greatest Albums of All Time” by Clarke Speicher RS Rolling Stone (6/10/1971). “album review” by Jon Landau 500 Rolling Stone (5/31/2012). “500 Greatest Albums of All Time” SF Songfacts page for “Brown Sugar” TD This Day in Music TB Thunder Bay (2005). Albums: The Stories Behind 50 Years of Great Recordings. Thunder Bay Press; San Diego, CA. Page 138. TS Time Is on Our Side TL Time Magazine (11/13/2006). “All-TIME 100 Albums” by Josh Tyrangiel and Alan Light UD U Discover Music (4/23/2020). “‘Stick Fingers’: Still Grabbing You by the Balls” by Richard Havers VB Vibe (Dec. 1999). “100 Essential Albums of the 20th Century,” pages 154-164. WK Wikipedia page for Sticky Fingers WK Wikipedia page for “Brown Sugar” Related DMDB Pages: First posted 3/28/2008; last updated 10/2/2026.