The Rolling Stones - songs looked at closer | WILD HORSES - DON’S TUNES

"The story of ‘Wild Horses’ goes back to the very late ’60s, but the song wasn’t released until 1971, even though it was recorded in 1969. Keith Richards had written the song with the intention of it being about missing his new son, but Mick Jagger took it over and changed it to be about a relationship that had burned out. Such drama has never been out of the ordinary for the Stones. The fact that they overcame everything and produced a masterpiece like “Wild Horses” took the song to burden with all of the aforementioned difficulties, is a testament to their talent, chemistry, and unfailing ability to rise above all of the chaos, both self-induced and otherwise.

As history has it, the Stones managed to record three songs in three days at Muscle Shoals studios in Alabama in December 1969, which included “Wild Horses” (along with early takes of “You Gotta Move“ and “Brown Sugar”) Keith Richards, whose first child Marlon was born in August 1969, started writing this somber ballad after feeling guilty about leaving the boy behind while on the road.

Keith in his book Life : “It was one of those magical moments when things come together. It’s like “Satisfaction”. You just dream it, and suddenly it’s all in your hands. Once you’ve got the vision in your mind of wild horses, I mean, what’s the next phrase you’re going to use? It’s got to be couldn’t drag me away.”

Richards basically composed the chorus and the music using a 12-string acoustic guitar to really bring out the melancholy in those chords. He then gave the song to Mick Jagger, his writing partner, who finished the verses. And that’s when the song started to diverge from Marlon and possibly head in the direction of Marianne Faithfull, Jagger’s on-and-off-again lover at the time.

In the liner notes of the 1993 Stones compilation Jump Back: The Best Of The Rolling Stones, Jagger remembered his contributions to “Wild Horses”. Mick remembered, ““I remember we sat around doing this with Gram Parsons, and I think his version came out slightly before ours,” Mick said. “Everyone always says it was written about Marianne, but I don’t think it was; that was all well over by then. But I was definitely very inside this piece emotionally. This is very personal, evocative, and sad. It all sounds rather doomy now, but it was quite a heavy time.”

Throughout the entire song, that heaviness permeates the air. It can be heard in Charlie Watts’ thudding fills, in the languid guitar strumming of Keith Richards and Mick Taylor, and Richards’ perfectly pitched electric solo. When Ian Stewart asked to stop playing the sad chords on the piano, Jim Dickinson filled in. With his weariness and frustration blending seamlessly with his unwavering devotion to the wayward girl he is addressing, Jagger, for his part, keeps his histrionics in check and plays it straight.

Source: Rolling Stones Data / Marcelo Sonaglioni.

Photo by Gerard Malanga (yes THAT Gerard Melanga)

Don's Tunes

The Rolling Stones - Wild Horses (From "GRRR Live" - Newark 2012)