The Rolling Stones “Sticky Fingers”
The Rolling Stones “Sticky Fingers” released on this date, April 23rd, 1971. Swaggering, dirty rock-n-roll blues and one of my favorite Stones albums; our copy is stored in the special LP box because 1. it’s original with the working zipper, perforated belt buckle opening to reveal a guy’s tidy whiteys and 2. the zipper would ruin all of the other vinyl surrounding it on a shelf.
Sticky Fingers rates high on many best-of lists and hit #1 in several countries, including the UK and the US where it remained for 4 weeks soon after its release. The Rolling Stones issued two singles from the LP: “Brown Sugar” (UK #2 and US #1) and the mournfully beautiful “Wild Horses” which only came out in the US where it charted at #28. I like those songs, of course, but also among my favorites are the cover of traditional gospel “You Gotta Move” (the Stones credit Fred McDowell’s version), “Bitch,” “Sister Morphine” which Keith Richards and Mick Jagger co-wrote with Marianne Faithfull (she released the track first in 1969 as the b-side to “Something Better” and it was rerecorded for Sticky Fingers) and most especially “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking” which I first got obsessed with during my senior year of college when my roommate and I would blast it, singing along at top-volume, windows open, in our shitty apartment.
Yeah, you got satin shoes
Yeah, you got plastic boots
Y’all got cocaine eyes
Yeah, you got speed-freak jiveCan’t you hear me knockin’ on your window
Can’t you hear me knockin’ on your door
Can’t you hear me knockin’ down your dirty street
YeahHelp me baby, ain’t no stranger
Help me baby, ain’t no stranger
Help me baby, ain’t no strangerCan’t you hear me knockin’, ahh, are you safe asleep?
Can’t you hear me knockin’, yeah, down the gaslight street, now
Can’t you hear me knockin’, yes, throw me down the keys
Alright nowHear me ringing big bell tolls
Hear me singing soft and low
I’ve been begging on my knees
I’ve been kickin’, help me pleaseHear me prowlin’, I’m gonna take you down
Hear me growlin’, yeah, I’ve got flatted feet now now now now
Hear me howlin’, I’m all, all around your street now
Hear me knockin’, and all, all around your town
Daily (maybe) pulls from the vault: 33-1/3, 45, 78, old, older, classic, new, good, bad. Subjective. Autobiographical. Occasionally putting a record up for sale.
