Keith Richards: Under the Influence Page #5

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[laughs]

[Jagger singing]

Wadin' through the waste stormy winter

And there's not a friend

to help you through

Tryin' to stop the waves

behind your eyeballs

Drop your reds

Drop your greens and blues

But come on,

come on down, Sweet Virginia

Got to scrape the sh*t

right off your shoes

And you find yourself

on the streets again

That was it. Yeah, all right.

Mind you, I don't go around searching

for songs, you know, with a butterfly net.

Because I think, basically,

songs have to come to you.

You know, going around, like, trying

to winkle them out with a sharp stick,

going, "Come here,

you little son-of-a-b*tch."

Just because you find yourself

on the streets again

That don't mean I'm

That I'm just your friend

Baby, trouble is your middle name

I wrote a sort of country song,

roaming around the hallways of this house.

And it's not often, my old lady

suddenly came out of the bedroom,

and looked over and said,

"That's a good song."

Hey, if the wife says so...

It was very Hank Williams.

And then I thought,

"No, it's too Hank Williams.

Let's give it a kick. Let's push it up."

[band playing "Trouble"]

Just because you find yourself

Off the streets again

And I loved working with the drummer.

It's a one-on-one thing.

And it's an amazingly

uncomplicated way to deal with...

Especially playing rock and roll.

And the other thing, too,

I mean, just as a fan...

I love the way he plays bass.

[playing "Trouble" bassline]

[Jordan] That was very exciting for me,

to have Keith play

as many instruments as possible.

Because those are some of

my favorite Stones records,

when he played the bass

and all the guitars.

[Richards] I've done some bass tracks

in my time. I do love playing bass.

I'm probably a better bass player

than I am guitar, actually. [laughs]

-[man] Look at you!

-I love this sh*t. I love this sh*t.

Well, that goes back to

Steve Jordan saying to me,

"Hey, man," you know, in his

sweet, shy, unassuming manner...

Um...

He went,

"How did you cut 'Jumpin' Jack Flash'?"

You know?

"How did you cut 'Street Fighting Man'?"

In those days, you know, you'd say,

roughly, what time you're, you know,

"What time at the studio?"

You can say 8:
00 or 9:00

in the evening, you know,

and the band would turn up

around midnight.

[laughs] You know.

Sometimes I would deliberately

go in early, you know, and...

Or if, you know, I was with Charlie,

for instance, I would say,

"Let's go in early and..."

And, basically, I'd go in just to

sort of chop a few ideas about.

But now and again,

you'd actually find out this is the track.

[Richards on recording] One, two.

One, two, three, four.

["Street Fighting Man" playing]

"Street Fighting Man," I think,

was the first one that occurred that way.

Charlie and I were just fiddling about.

And, in there, it sounds like

a couple of people busking, you know.

Charlie's playing this tiny,

little traveling drum kit,

and I'm playing an acoustic, you know.

"Yeah, well, let's just build up on it."

There's not an electric guitar

on that one, no.

It's all overloaded acoustics.

I realized that I could use

a cassette machine basically as a pick-up.

And I play an acoustic guitar through it

and, like, slam it through so loud

that it was totally overloaded.

The 1967 Norelco, the same one that

you would carry around with you. Found it.

Again. Play.

[playing "Street Fighting Man" riff]

That's as much as you're gonna get.

Let's see what comes out. [chuckles]

[tape recorder playing]

Then they'd put a microphone on that

and put it into the studio.

Basically, you have an electric guitar,

but with the feel of an acoustic.

[Richards on tape] That's as much

as you're gonna get.

[laughs]

[Richards] Basically starts there,

and Mick would finish it off.

[Jagger singing] Hey!

Said my name is called disturbance

I'll shout, I'll scream,

I'll kill the king

I'll rail at all his servants

Well, what can a poor boy do

Except to sing

for a rock and roll band

'Cause in sleepy London town

There's just no place

for a street fighting man

No

[Richards] We were working

so hard in those days

that you couldn't write 'em fast enough.

I'll throw the bass on and,

you know, put another guitar on,

and we sort of finished

the track in two hours.

But sometimes, you never know.

You're in a recording, you can go in there

with everything sort of planned...

and it just doesn't click.

[indistinct chatter]

[Richards] "Sympathy"

was a whole different set-up.

I think that was a good 35 takes.

I was around when Jesus Christ

Had his moment of doubt and pain

[man] Sounds really good together.

[Richards] And that song, also,

through those takes,

went from being a sort of

Dylan-esque sort of ballad,

you know, really...

to just an acoustic guitar and

a very, sort of... a lament, almost.

Made damn sure that Pilate...

And we did that for a bit and went...

"This song could take

a little more juice." You know? [laughing]

And, slowly, it built up...

Yeah, I took the bass in on that,

with Charlie,

and we brought it up

to a sort of samba thing.

And then suddenly, everybody looked,

and he said, "Yeah.

Yeah, all right, okay."

I laid traps for troubadours

Who get killed

before they reached Bombay

Oh

Pleased to meet y'all, now, now

Hope you guessed my name

You never know quite when

the magic bit's gonna come in.

[band playing "Trouble"]

Just because you find yourself

Off the streets again

That don't mean that I can help you

Or I ain't your friend

Baby, trouble is your middle name

The trouble is that that's your game

[Waits] Every song has at least

ten songs inside of it

that can be released from the song

and you can make, you know...

You put two songs together in a room,

they'll have offspring, you know?

If you want to start writing songs,

you have to start thinking like one.

You're trying to

break into the ritual of music.

It's kinda like Houdini

in reverse, you know.

It's not you're trying to escape.

You're trying to be let in.

[Richards singing]

Trouble

[man] The story I'd heard

about you meeting him...

I think you were doing Rain Dogs.

Well, my wife, she said,

"Who would you like?"

And I told her,

"Oh, Keith Richards."

I was, like, saying, "Lenny Bruce..."

Uh, you know...

"Muddy Waters," you know.

And she went ahead and started calling.

It was like a prank call.

-And then he picked up, you know.

-[man chuckles]

[Richards] We bumped into each other

30 years ago.

I loved him from the minute I met him.

When he came, he came in a semi

with about 300 guitars.

So I wasn't ready for that,

either, you know.

And he had a guitar valet

who was, like, bringing guitars over

like beverages and desserts, you know.

And it was just...

It was a little overwhelming for me.

[Richards] Tom's an eccentric.

The first time I met him,

he had a room full of instruments

of the most bizarre kinds.

He had a Mellotron, but it

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