Joan Baez - Diamonds and Rust (With Lyrics)

Well I'll be damned 
Here comes your ghost again 
But that's not unusual 
It's just that the moon is full 
And you happened to call 
And here I sit 
Hand on the telephone 
Hearing a voice I'd known 
A couple of light years ago 
Heading straight for a fall

As I remember your eyes 
Were bluer than robin's eggs 
My poetry was lousy you said 
Where are you calling from? 
A booth in the midwest 
Ten years ago 
I bought you some cufflinks 
You brought me something 
We both know what memories can bring 
They bring diamonds and rust

Well you burst on the scene 
Already a legend 
The unwashed phenomenon 
The original vagabond 
You strayed into my arms 
And there you stayed 
Temporarily lost at sea 
The Madonna was yours for free 
Yes the girl on the half-shell 
Could keep you unharmed

Now I see you standing 
With brown leaves falling all around 
And snow in your hair 
Now you're smiling out the window 
Of that crummy hotel 
Over Washington Square 
Our breath comes out white clouds 
Mingles and hangs in the air 
Speaking strictly for me 
We both could have died then and there

Now you're telling me 
You're not nostalgic 
Then give me another word for it 
You who are so good with words 
And at keeping things vague 
'Cause I need some of that vagueness now 
It's all come back too clearly 
Yes I loved you dearly 
And if you're offering me diamonds and rust 
I've already paid

"Diamonds & Rust" is a song written, composed, and performed by Joan Baez. It was written in November 1974 and released in 1975.

In the song, Baez recounts an out-of-the-blue phone call from an old lover, which sends her a decade back in time, to a "crummy" hotel in Greenwich Village circa 1964 or 1965; she recalls giving him a pair of cuff-links, and summarizes that memories bring "diamonds and rust." Baez has stated that the lyrics refer to her relationship with Bob Dylan.

The song, which was a top-40 hit for Baez on the U.S. pop singles chart, is regarded by a number of critics, as well as by Baez fans, as one of her best compositions. It served as the title song on Baez's gold-selling album Diamonds & Rust, which was released in 1975.

Variations

For her 1995 live recording Ring Them Bells, Baez performed the song as a duet with Mary Chapin Carpenter. In that performance, she changed the end lines: "And if you're / offering me diamonds and rust / I've already paid," to: "And if you... well I'll take the diamonds." The line "I bought you some cuff links, you brought me something" was changed to "I bought you some cuff links, you brought troubles." And on 25 February 2009, in Austin, she sang it, "And if you... well I'll take the Grammy." In 2010, she recorded it as a duet with Judy Collins on Collins's album Paradise.

Bob Dylan

Dylan with Baez August 28, 1963

The song alludes to Baez's relationship with Bob Dylan ten years before. Although Dylan is not specifically named in the song, in the third chapter of her memoir, And a Voice to Sing With (1987), Baez uses phrases from the song in describing her relationship with Dylan, and has been explicit that he was the inspiration for the song. She recounts how she originally told Dylan that the song was about her ex-husband David Harris, which was obviously not true.^[2] The lyrics, for example, include the lines, "Well, you burst on the scene already a legend / the unwashed phenomenon, the original vagabond..." which would describe Dylan but not Harris.

In her memoir, And A Voice To Sing With, Baez records a 1975 conversation between herself and Dylan, discussing songs to include in the then-upcoming Rolling Thunder Revue concerts:

"You gonna sing that song about robin's eggs and diamonds?" Bob had asked me on the first day of rehearsals.
"Which one?"
"You know, that one about blue eyes and diamonds..."
"Oh", I said, "you must mean 'Diamonds And Rust,' the song I wrote for my husband, David. I wrote it while he was in prison."
"For your husband?" Bob said.
"Yeah. Who did you think it was about?" I stonewalled.
"Oh, hey, what the fuck do I know?"
"Never mind. Yeah, I'll sing it, if you like."

But Baez's marriage to Harris had, in fact, already ended by the time the song was written and composed. In an interview with music writer Mike Ragogna, Baez later admitted that the character in the song is Dylan:

MR: "Diamonds And Rust" was another magic moment. You've said when you began writing the song, it started as something else until Dylan phoned you. Then it became about him. That must have been one helluva call.
JB: He read me the entire lyrics to "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts" that he'd just finished from a phone booth in the Midwest.
MR: What was the song about originally?
JB: I don't remember what I'd been writing about, but it had nothing to do with what it ended up as.

Charts

Chart (1972-2016)	Peak position
Canada Adult Contemporary (RPM)	14
Canada Top Singles (RPM)	61
US Adult Contemporary (Billboard)	5
US Billboard Hot 100	35

Popular covers

"Diamonds and Rust"
Single by Judas Priest
from the album Sin After Sin
Released	23 April 1977
Recorded	January – February 1977, Ramport Studios, Battersea
Genre	Heavy metal
Length	3:28
Songwriter(s)	Joan Baez
Producer(s)	Roger Glover, Judas Priest
Judas Priest singles chronology
"The Ripper" (1976) "Diamonds & Rust" (1977) "Better By You, Better Than Me" (1978)
Sin After Sin track listing
"Sinner" (1) "Diamonds & Rust" (2) "Starbreaker" (3)

The song was later covered with edited lyrics by Judas Priest for the album Sin After Sin. It was originally recorded a year earlier for Sad Wings of Destiny, but not included on that album. This early version appears on The Best of Judas Priest, Hero, Hero, and some remasters of their first album, Rocka Rolla. A live version of the song is on Unleashed in the East. The song remains a staple of Judas Priest live concert performances. In recent years, Priest have been performing a mostly acoustic version of the song that is more similar to the original than the rock version on their recorded albums.

Baez commented on the Judas Priest version:

I love that! I was so stunned when I first heard it. I thought it was wonderful. It's very rare for people to cover my songs. I think there are a couple of reasons. One is they're personal – they don't have a universal quality to them. And I think maybe it's because I've already sung them, and who wants to compete with that? But it's always flattering when somebody does.

Cover versions have also been recorded by Blackmore's Night, S.O.D., Great White, Taylor Mitchell, and Thunderstone.

The song has been sampled in two popular hip-hop songs, "Happiness" by Busdriver and "Upgrade Call" by Andre Nickatina. The versions used in both songs are pitch-warped to sound squeaky.

Song Facts

• In this song, Joan Baez is singing to her former lover Bob Dylan, fondly reminiscing about their 1960s affair. Released as a single, this track became only her second top 40 hit in the States, and her biggest self-composed hit (her other hit came in 1971 with "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down."
• Baez revealed to The Huffington Post that she wrote this song after Bob Dylan called her from a phone booth and sang her the lyrics to his song "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts." Baez said that this gave her inspiration to write "Diamonds & Rust," and that she lied to Dylan, telling him it was about David Harris, to whom she was married from 1968-1973. Bob Dylan rarely reveals much about his songs, but his track "Queen Jane Approximately" is most likely his take on his relationship with Baez.
• The song was later covered by Judas Priest, first appearing on Sin After Sin, and later as an earlier recording on The Best of Judas Priest, Hero Hero, and on some remasters of their first album, Rocka Rolla. It also appeared live on Unleashed in the East and other live albums. It remains a staple of their live concert performances. In the 2000s, Priest performed a mostly-acoustic version of the song more similar to the original than the "rocked up" recorded version.
• The band wes named after "The Ballad Of Frankie Lee And Judas Priest," a track from Dylan's album John Wesley Harding. >>
• In addition to singing on this, Baez played the Moog and Arp Synthesizers.
• The end of Side 1 of the album contains a parody of Bob Dylan's voice on his own "A Simple Twist Of Fate."
• "That crummy hotel over Washington Square" refers to the Hotel Earle, where Baez and Dylan lived for a while. It's located at 103 Waverly Place on the corner of MacDougal Street in New York City. Once a place of luxury, the Hotel Earle deteriorated in the '60s and became an apartment hotel popular with starving artists. Notable inhabitants included Ernest Hemingway, Barbra Streisand and Bill Cosby. It was purchased in the '70s and became the Washington Square Hotel in 1986.
• Asked by Mojo July 2014 what Bob Dylan thought of the song, Baez replied: "When I saw Bob on the Rolling Thunder Tour he said, (Impersonates Dylan) 'Are you going to do that song you wrote about me?' I said, 'Oh the one about the blue eyes, the one about my husband?' (Facially impersonates Dylan looking glum). 'Bob, I'm bullsh---ing you!'"
• "He has actually said nice things about Diamonds And Rust," she added.
• Blackmore's Night covered this song for their 2003 album Ghost of a Rose. Candice Night describes Joan Baez as her "favorite American folk singer."

Taylor Swift Dear John Lyrics

“

The song "Dear John" is sort of like the last email you would ever send to someone that you used to be in a relationship with. Usually people write this venting last email to someone and they say everything that they want to say to that person, and then they usually don't send it. I guess by putting this song on the album I am pushing send.

”

Dear John is a 2010 song by Taylor Swift on the album Speak Now.

The song is written about John Mayer, who Taylor Swift  had briefly dated. She also worked with him on a song called "Half of My Heart" for his 2009 album Battle Studies.

Mayer, who is well-known for publicly talking about his relationships with various famous women in the press, has whined in an interview in Rolling Stones about Taylor writing the song about him. He said about Taylor humiliating him with the song. 

Long were the nights when my days once revolved around you
Counting my footsteps,
Praying the floor won't fall through, again
My mother accused me of losing my mind,
But I swore I was fine, you paint me a blue sky
And go back and turn it to rain
And I lived in your chess game,
But you changed the rules every day
Wondering which version of you I might get on the phone
Tonight, well I stopped picking up, and this song is to let you know why

Dear John, I see it all now that you're gone
Don't you think I was too young to be messed with?
The girl in the dress, cried the whole way home, I should've known

Well maybe it's me and my blind optimism to blame
Maybe it's you and your sick need to give love then take it awayAnd you'll add my name to your long list of traitors who don't understand
And I'll look back and regret how I ignored when they said "run as fast as you can"1

Dear John, I see it all now that you're gone
Don't you think I was too young to be messed with?
The girl in the dress, cried the whole way home

Dear John, I see it all, now it was wrong
Don't you think nineteen is too young
To be played by your dark twisted games, when I loved you so?
I should've known

You are an expert at sorry,
And keeping the lines blurry
Never impressed by me acing your tests
All the girls that you've run dry
Have tired, lifeless eyes
'Cause you burned them out
But I took your matches before fire could catch me,
So don't look now, I'm shining like fireworks over your sad, empty town1

Dear John, I see it all now that you're gone
Don't you think I was too young to be messed with?
The girl in the dress, cried the whole way home.

I see it all now that you're gone
Don't you think I was too young to be messed with?
The girl in the dress wrote you a song
You should've known, you should've known
Don't you think I was too young? You should've known

Ipi Ntombi - Shosholoza

Shosholoza (Shosholoza)
Kulezo ntaba
Stimela Sipum'e South Africa
(2x)

Wen' Uyabaleka (Wen' Uyabaleka)
Ku Lezontaba
Stimela Sipum'e South Africa
(2x)
Shosholoza (Shosholoza)
Ku Lezontaba
Stimela Sipum'e South Africa
(2x)

Shosholoza Mama
Dig Dig Digging In The Sun
hia hia ho
Men Must Work For Me
Shosholoza
(x4)

Dum, dum ha dum dum ha dum dum ha dum (Shosholoza) (x2)

Shosholoza (Shosholoza)
Ku Lezontaba
Stimela Sipum'e South Africa
(2x)

Wen' Uyabaleka (Wen' Uyabaleka)
Ku Lezontaba
Stimela Sipum'e South Africa
(2x)

"Shosholoza" is a Ndebele folk song that originated in what is now Zimbabwe but was popularised in South Africa. The song is a traditional South African folk song that was sung by Ndebele all-male migrant workers that were working in the South African mines in a call and response style. The song is so popular in South African culture that it is often referred to as South Africa's second national anthem.

History

Although the original author of the song is unknown, "Shosholoza" is a traditional miner's song, originally sung by groups of men from the Ndebele ethnic group that travelled by steam train from their homes in Zimbabwe to work in South Africa's diamond and gold mines. The Ndebele live predominantly in Zimbabwe (formerly, Rhodesia) near its border with South Africa, and they can also be found in the northern border of South Africa.^[1] The song mixes Ndebele and Zulu words and is Zimbabwean in origin even though the two ethnic groups are very similar.

Some people argue that the song describes the journey to the mines in South Africa, while others say it describes the return to Zimbabwe.It is also sometimes sung "stimela si phume Rhodesia". According to cultural researchers Booth and Nauright, Zulu workers later took up the song to generate rhythm during group tasks and to alleviate boredom and stress. The song was sung by working miners in time with the rhythm of swinging their axes to dig. It was usually sung under hardship in call and response style (one man singing a solo line and the rest of the group responding by copying him). It was also sung by prisoners in call and response style using alto, soprano part divided by row. The late former South African President Nelson Mandela described how he sang Shosholoza as he worked during his imprisonment on Robben Island. He described it as "a song that compares the apartheid struggle to the motion of an oncoming train" and went on to explain that "the singing made the work lighter".

In contemporary times, it is used in varied contexts in South Africa to show solidarity in sporting events and other national events to relay the message that the players are not alone and are part of a team.

Climate activists made the song the centrepiece of their Occupy COP17 rally on 9 December 2011, the final day of the United Nations climate treaty negotiations. Activists were calling on negotiators to "Stand With Africa" and agree to a legally binding and effective treaty.

Meaning

The song was usually sung to express the hardship of working in the mines. It expresses heartache over the hard work performed in the mines. The word Shosholoza or "chocholoza!" means go forward or make way for the next man, in Ndebele It is used as a term of encouragement and hope for the workers as a sign of solidarity. The sound "sho sho" uses onomatopoeia and reminiscent of the sound made by the steam train (stimela). Stimela is the Zulu word for steam train. "Kulezo ntaba!" means (At those far away mountains), "Stimela Siphume eZimbabwe" (the train come from Zimbabwe), "Wen' uya baleka" (Because you're running away/hurrying). In contemporary times, its meaning is to show support for any struggle.

Pop culture references

The song is also used in pop culture to convey messages of hope and solidarity for athletes during competitions or in other times of hardship and distress.

Recordings

The song has been recorded by a variety of artists, including Helmut Lotti, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, PJ Powers, Soweto Gospel Choir, Hemo, Peter Gabriel and Drakensberg Boys' Choir, as well as being a standard of most gumboots bands.^[1]

Rugby World Cup 1995

The song gained further popularity after South Africa won the 1995 Rugby World Cup, and is a favourite at sport events in South Africa. It was sung by the then Talk Radio 702 Breakfast Show co-host, Dan Moyane. The song was recorded, mastered and released in five days, having been mastered in the UK to get it ready in time for the first game in the 1995 RWC. It was conceptualised and produced by Famous Faces Management's CFF Stuart Lee. The record went gold in sales terms.

Hollywood

The South African a cappella group Overtone recorded the song for director Clint Eastwood's movie Invictus (2009).

FIFA World Cup 2010

The song was also sung by the South African football team as they came onto the field of play to open the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

Other references

The first African challengers for the America's Cup, Team Shosholoza, took their name from the song; as did the Shosholoza Meyl, a long-distance passenger train service operating in South Africa. The song is also used as a campfire song by scouts in South Africa

Lyrics

The lyrics of the song vary, as do the transcriptions. In the older traditional styles, the words translate to "train from Rhodesia". Such is the version heard in the movie The Gods Must Be Crazy and as sung by Pete Seeger in his album We Shall Overcome. Here is one example:

Shosholoza

Kulezo ntaba

Stimela siphume South Africa

Kulezo ntaba

Stimela siphume South Africa

Wen' uyabaleka

Kulezo ntaba

Stimela siphume South Africa

A rough translation:

Go forward

Go forward

from those mountains

on this train from South Africa

Go forward

Go forward

You are running away

You are running away

from those mountains

on this train from South Africa

Brenda Fassie - Good Black Woman

Lyrics for Good Black Woman by Brenda

early on monday morning police arrest my brother for working for a black

community monday afternoon went to see my brother police man treated me like a donkey i say to police man you've got a bad attitude oh no am no crimnal am a good black woman i say to police man you've got a bad attitude oh mama am no crimanl am a good black woman hmmm... oh gboshi mamama egutan ga lu to oh mama oh mama yo mama oh yele leye ye mama oh mama oh mama early on monday morning police arrest my brother for working for a black community monday afternoon went to see my brother oh mama police man treated me like a donkey eziganezetu tula mama

Brenda Fassie
Iconic but erratic singer who was South Africa's first black pop star

Brenda Fassie died on 9 May 2004 after been found in a coma from a drug overdose . She   was South Africa's first black pop star, selling millions of albums during a two-decade career. Recent pilgrims to her hospital bedside, while she was in a coma, included Thabo Mbeki and Nelson Mandela, a measure of her importance to her country.

However, dying as she lived, Fassie was pursued to her grave by controversy. Local media have been full of reports of squabbles between her lover, gospel singer Gloria Chaka, and her family; between her manager Peter Snyman and her producer Chicco Twala; and speculation that the coma which preceded her death was induced not by an asthma attack, as her family claimed, but by yet another drug incident.

Fassie was the youngest of nine children, born into a desperately poor family in the Cape Town township of Langa. Her father died when she was two, and her mother, a cleaner, recognised her daughter's talent early on.

By the age of four, Brenda, named after the US country singer Brenda Lee, was performing at church events, accompanied by her mother on the piano. At the age of 16, she left for Soweto to seek her fortune as a singer, first with the local vocal trio Joy, and later fronting the township pop group Brenda And The Big Dudes.

In 1983, she released her debut recording, Weekend Special, a lament about a boyfriend who would see her only at weekends. It was an instant hit, eventually taking the group to the US, Brazil, Europe and Australia, and was rapidly followed by several more hits, including It's Nice To Be With People and No No No, Senor.

Revelling in her new-found fame, Fassie lavished money on cars, houses and extravagant parties. She had a son, Bongani, by a fellow Big Dudes musician; a 1989 marriage to a businessman was annulled a year later.

This disappointment appeared to derail Fassie. She became addicted to hard drugs and her career suffered. She fired managers, was sued by promoters for failing to turn up at concerts, and, in 1992, was fined for assaulting a photo-journalist. She got into financial difficulties and lost her house. Bongani was expelled from school because his mother did not pay the fees.

In 1994, the year of South Africa's first democratic elections, Fassie unsuccessfully attempted a comeback with Abantu Bayakhuluma (The People Speak), after which she sank into cocaine addiction, renting a room in a sleazy Johannesburg hotel with her female lover, Poppy Sihlahla. Only after Sihlahla died of an overdose did Fassie pull herself together and go into rehab.

Shortly afterwards, she released Memeza, with its hit single Vulindlela. It became South Africa's biggest-selling album in 1998, and was followed by an album a year for the next four years. The money rolled in again, and Fassie resumed her lavish lifestyle.

A talented musician, her genius lay in her ability to reinvent herself, and give voice to the frustrations and aspirations of the township. She started off as a pop queen but, politicised by growing up in Langa at a time of tremendous upheaval - the 1976 student uprisings had deeply affected her school - she easily tapped into the political militancy of the 1980s.

In 1990, she released the single Black President, a tribute to the still imprisoned Nelson Mandela, which was banned by the apartheid regime. She stopped singing in English, declaring: "I am proud to be an African." All her subsequent songs were in Zulu, Xhosa and Sotho. When kwaito, the first authentically African sound in decades, emerged from Soweto street parties in the early 1990s, Fassie adopted the genre as her own.

She also inspired by example. When she confessed to drug and drink addiction, other prominent musicians went public about theirs. When she took her first lesbian lover, other black celebrities came out of the closet. She is survived by her son.

· Brenda Fassie, pop singer, born November 3 1964; died May 9 2004

The Rolling Stones - Midnight Rambler

"Midnight Rambler"


Did you hear about the midnight rambler
Everybody got to go
Did you hear about the midnight rambler
The one that shut the kitchen door
He don't give a hoot of warning
Wrapped up in a black cat cloak
He don't go in the light of the morning
He split the time the cock'rel crows
Talkin' about the midnight gambler
The one you never seen before
Talkin' about the midnight gambler
Did you see him jump the garden wall
Sighin' down the wind so sad
Listen and you'll hear him moan
Talkin' about the midnight gambler
Everybody got to go
Did you hear about the midnight rambler
Well, honey, it's no rock 'n' roll show
Well, I'm talkin' about the midnight gambler
Yeah, the one you never seen before
[ad lib]
Well you heard about the Boston...
It's not one of those
Well, talkin' 'bout the midnight...sh...
The one that closed the bedroom door
I'm called the hit-and-run raper in anger
The knife-sharpened tippie-toe...
Or just the shoot 'em dead, brainbell jangler
You know, the one you never seen before
So if you ever meet the midnight rambler
Coming down your marble hall
Well he's pouncing like proud black panther
Well, you can say I, I told you so
Well, don't you listen for the midnight rambler
Play it easy, as you go
I'm gonna smash down all your plate glass windows
Put a fist, put a fist through your steel-plated door
Did you hear about the midnight rambler
He'll leave his footprints up and down your hall
And did you hear about the midnight gambler
And did you see me make my midnight call
And if you ever catch the midnight rambler
I'll steal your mistress from under your nose
I'll go easy with your cold fanged anger
I'll stick my knife right down your throat, baby
And it hurts!



In this song, Mick Jagger takes on the persona of killer who is stalking his victim. This character calls himself the "midnight rambler" and he seems to relish his notoriety - much like many real-life serial killers.

A likely inspiration for the lyric is the case of the Boston Strangler. Thirteen women were found dead (many had been sexually assaulted) in and around Boston from 1962-1964. Most of the victims had been strangled and were found with their nylon stockings tied in a bow around their necks.

In 1965, Albert DeSalvo, who was serving time in a mental institution on rape charges, confessed to the murders and was later sentenced to life in prison. There was no clear physical evidence that DeSalvo committed the crimes, however, and his confession has been questioned, with some forensic experts stating that there may have been multiple killers. DeSalvo died in prison in 1973; new evidence has come up in the case from time to time.

As for the song, while the lyrics do not directly relate to the case, Jagger implies it when he sings, "Well you heard about the Boston..." before an instrumental stab cuts him off.
The Stones played this in 1969 and throughout the '70s at their concerts, and when they did, it was a showstopper. Mick Jagger created a morbid atmosphere as he took the role of the killer, spastically whipping the floor toward the end of the song as the audience would scream along.

These performances were enhanced by a custom light rig that their lighting director, Chip Monck, created for the band's 1969 US tour. This was the first lighting system to travel with a rock band, and The Stones used it to great effect on this song. At the climax, the lights would shine red on Jagger in a very theatrical moment.

Mick Jagger: "That's a song Keith and I really wrote together. We were on a holiday in Italy. In this very beautiful hill town, Positano, for a few nights. Why we should write such a dark song in this beautiful, sunny place, I really don't know. We wrote everything there - the tempo changes, everything. And I'm playing the harmonica in these little cafés, and there's Keith with the guitar." >>
Brian Jones is credited on percussion. Even though he died before this album was released, a few of the songs were recorded during the Beggar's Banquet sessions in 1968. "Midnight Rambler" was one of them..Mick Taylor added an extra guitar to the live performances of this. The live version can be heard on Get Yer Ya-Yas Out.

When Mick Jagger performed this in character on stage, it was good preparation for his acting career. In 1970, he appeared in two films: Ned Kelly and Performance. He would later appear in Freejack (1992) and The Man from Elysian Fields (2001).Keith Richards: "When we did Midnight Rambler, nobody went in there with the idea of doing a blues opera, basically. Or a blues in four parts. That's just the way it turned out. I think that's the strength of the Stones or any good band. You can give them a song half raw and they'll cook it."

Midnight Rambler

"Midnight Rambler"
Song by The Rolling Stones from the album Let It Bleed
Released	5 December 1969
Recorded	Spring 1969, Olympic Sound Studios, Trident Studios
Genre	Blues rock
Length	6:53 (album version) 9:43 (live version "Get yer Ya Ya's Out") 12:49 (live version "Brussels Affair")
Label	Decca Records/ABKCO
Writer(s)	Jagger/Richards
Producer(s)	Jimmy Miller
Let It Bleed track listing

"Midnight Rambler" is a song by the English rock band The Rolling Stones, released on their 1969 album Let It Bleed. The song is a loose biography of Albert DeSalvo, who confessed to being the Boston Strangler.

Keith Richards has called the number "a blues opera" and the quintessential Jagger-Richards song, stating in the 2012 documentary Crossfire Hurricane that "nobody else could have written that song."

Composition and recordings

On the composing of the song, Mick Jagger said in a 1995 interview with Rolling Stone, "That's a song Keith and I really wrote together. We were on a holiday in Italy. In this very beautiful hill town, Positano, for a few nights. Why we should write such a dark song in this beautiful, sunny place, I really don't know. We wrote everything there -- the tempo changes, everything. And I'm playing the harmonica in these little cafes, and there's Keith with the guitar." When asked about the song in a 1971 interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Richards said: "Usually when you write, you just kick Mick off on something and let him fly on it, just let it roll out and listen to it and start to pick up on certain words that are coming through, and it's built up on that. A lot of people still complain they can't hear the voice properly. If the words come through it's fine, if they don't, that's all right too, because anyway that can mean a thousand different things to anybody."

Did you hear about the midnight rambler
Well, honey, it's no rock 'n' roll show
Well, I'm a-talkin' about the midnight gambler
Yeah, the one you never seen before

The studio version of the track (which runs six minutes and fifty-three seconds) was recorded during the spring of 1969 at London's Olympic Sound Studios and Trident Studios. Jagger performs vocals and harmonica, while Richards plays all the guitars on the track, using standard tuning for the main guitars and open E tuning for the slide. Bill Wyman plays bass and Charlie Watts drums, while multi-instrumentalist Brian Jones is credited with playing the congas.^[6] The song bears similarity to "The Boudoir Stomp" and "Edward's Thrump Up", recorded in April 1969 by the band minus Keith Richards and Brian Jones, featuring Ry Cooder on guitar and Nicky Hopkins on piano. The sessions were released on the 1972 LP, Jamming With Edward.

Jones' percussion is pretty much inaudible throughout the track and even though he may have participated during the recording sessions, it is possible that his contribution was not used in the final mix. James Hector, who wrote the 1995 Omnibus Press published book The Complete Guide to the Music of The Rolling Stones has speculated that the credit may have been a mere gift to Jones from his former band mates.

The Rolling Stones debuted "Midnight Rambler" on stage on 5 July 1969 and performed it regularly in concert through 1976; performances frequently included Jagger crawling around and lashing the stage with his belt. One notable 1969 performance (running just over nine minutes) was captured for the 1970 album, Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! and was re-released on the 1971 compilation album Hot Rocks 1964-1971. This rendition features Mick Taylor on lead guitar, in addition to Jagger, Richards, Wyman and Watts. Versions from 1975 following the departure of Taylor from the band feature Ronnie Wood instead of Taylor.

"Midnight Rambler" returned to the Rolling Stones' stage repertoire in 1989 and has remained a powerful concert favourite ever since. The January 2003 rendition featured in the Stones' concert collection Four Flicks runs about twelve minutes, while a briefer July 1995 performance appears on Totally Stripped (2016). The Stones with special guest former band member Mick Taylor played the song at all the concerts of the 50 & Counting... tour, including 12-minute versions of "Midnight Rambler" during their 25 November 2012 concert at London's O2 Arena, at the 2013 Glastonbury Festival, and during their July 2013 Hyde Park concerts, as seen in Sweet Summer Sun: Hyde Park Live.

Personnel

• Mick Jagger - vocals, harmonica
• Keith Richards - guitars
• Brian Jones - congas
• Bill Wyman - bass guitar
• Charlie Watts - drums

Controversy

In his book The Better Angels of Our Nature, Steven Pinker discusses the song at length as an illustration of his thesis that the 1960s counterculture "pushed against" the Civilizing Process (identified by Norbert Elias), which, Pinker argues, had been reducing violence over many centuries, and that the counterculture's "glorification of dissoluteness shaded into indulgence of violence.... Personal violence was sometimes celebrated in song, as if it were just another form of antiestablishment protest." He says that "Midnight Rambler" "acted out a rape-murder by the Boston Strangler..." and he sees this as an example of how in the 1960s counterculture "the control of women's sexuality was seen as a perquisite" of men.