The Best of the Second Best

The Rolling Stones are largely considered to be the second best rock band of all time (trailing only The Beatles). I don't enjoy watching them, or any older band that can no longer bring it like they used it, perform on award shows/relief concerts anymore, but I don't think we, and when I say we I mean the people of my generation/twenty-somethings, understand the magnitude of their greatness.

Every once in a while I'll buy a CD (very oldschool, I know) by a particular band (whether it be Def Leppard, The Who, etc.) and be surprised by the amount of songs that I've heard before. Normally I'll know 3-4 pretty well and decide to give the greatest hits album a try. With the Rolling Stones there are at least 25-30 songs that you've heard before.

They are also very much responsible for crafting the image that we all have of rock stars. Drugs, partying, and sex. That stereotype was shaped largley because of how The Rolling Stones went about things. In fact, it's a miracle of modern science that Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are still alive at the age of 69.

Last year the band celebrated their 50th year of existence. That's mind blowing.

What I'm about to present to you is obviously paltry by comparision, but maybe you'll learn something about the second best band of all time. Here are what I've deemed to be their ten best songs of all time.


10.) Jumpin’ Jack Flash



They played this song during a timeout of Game 7 of the Western Conference Semi-Finals in the NHL between the Red Wings and Blackhawks the other night. No one thought it sounded out of place even though it debuted 45 years ago.

In a 1995 interview Mick Jagger said that the song is a metaphor for growing out of their acid days.


9.) Beast of Burden

I like this song a lot, but it did give me pause when I learned that Bette Midler covered it.

Mick Jagger has said that this song has no meaning and just represents a vibe/attitude. Keith Richards, perhaps retroactively adding meaning to it, said in 2003 that he wrote the song for Jagger for shouldering the burden of his drug abuse issues.


8.) Start Me Up

This is another song that’s popular at sporting venues across the world. In fact, it was track 1 of my personal pump up CD back in high school (don’t act like you didn’t have one, too). Interestingly “Start Me Up” was recorded in 1975, but didn’t make the cut for two albums before a producer suggesting using unreleased songs on tour in 1981.


7.) Under My Thumb

This song is about the power struggle in a relationship and because the lyrics contain references to the female as a “pet”, “cat”, and “squirming dog” feminists got all hot and bothered with it.


6.) (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction

There is no deeper meaning to what I think is the band’s most popular song. It’s about sexual frustration and commercialism.

In 2010 Rolling Stone (sounds biased, but the magazine is actually named the 1950 song “Rollin’ Stone” by Muddy Waters) ranked it #2 in their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. In 2000, VH1 ranked it #1 in their countdown of the Top 100 Rock Songs.


5.) Paint it Black

As the title suggests this song is about a man who wants everything around him to turn black to match his depressed mood. Some of the lyrics also seem to suggest a death and funeral.

According to Mick Jagger it was another song influenced by drug use, "That was the time of lots of acid. It has sitars on it. It's like the beginnings of miserable psychedelia.” The song was the first that featured a sitar to reach #1 on the singles chart.


4.) Can’t You Hear Me Knocking



This classic was birthed from a simple jam session and the opening riff is absolutely incredible.

The song is featured in such films as Blow, Casino, and The Fighter. Enough said.


3.) You Can’t Always Get What You Want

This song is about trying to find happiness and each of the three verses focus on one of the prevailing themes of the 1960s: love, politics, and drugs.

In a review of this song Richie Unterberger, an American, wrote, "If you buy John Lennon's observation that the Rolling Stones were apt to copy the Beatles' innovations within a few months or so, 'You Can't Always Get What You Want' is the Rolling Stones' counterpart to 'Hey Jude'." Jagger said in 1969, "I liked the way the Beatles did that with 'Hey Jude'. The orchestra was not just to cover everything up—it was something extra. We may do something like that on the next album."


2.) Sympathy For the Devil



This song is sung from the viewpoint of the devil and was inspired by the French writer Charles Baudelaire and the Russian novel "The Master and the Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov.

I love it because 1.) unlike most songs the title is not uttered and 2.) the lyrics are incredible and they make reference to historical events. For example the original lyric of “I shouted out , “Who killed Kennedy?” When after all, it was you and me” was changed to “I shouted out, “Who killed the Kennedys?” When after all, it was you and me” after Bobby was assassinated in 1968.


1.) Gimme Shelter



I will never tire of this song. It was written in response to the unsettling times of the late ‘60s, specifically the Vietnam War. Keith Richards said, “"Well, it's a very rough, very violent era. Violence on the screens, pillage and burning. And Vietnam was not war as we knew it in the conventional sense...That's a kind of end-of-the-world song, really. It's apocalypse; the whole record's like that (Let it Bleed (1979)."

As you can probably ascertain from listening to the beginning this song is featured prominently in movie trailers every year. Movie director Martin Scorsese has used it as the signature theme in Goodfellas, Casino, and The Departed.