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Tyler: Ballad time!

I dig this one.  “Worried About You.”

Peter: Right! So, for those of you who are new to this album, the first half is rockers and the second half is ballads. Which seems like a terrible idea, but actually kind of works?

Tyler: Man, I did not even pick up on that.

Years ago, after months of enjoying “Crazy,” I was lying in bed and only then thought to myself “Oh.  Ohhh, Gnarls Barkley.”

Peter: My whole life I thought Roy Orbison was blind, but then I was watching a documentary about The Traveling Wilburys and someone handed him a notepad with lyrics written on it.

Blew. My. Mind.

Tyler: This is a soulful jam.  Mick’s in top form.  Great track.

Peter: This is a good one. I also enjoy it. They play it live sometimes. So Mick must like it too.

They made a video for this song and if you saw them in real life looking the way they do in the video you’d immediately bring them to the emergency room. It’s like if hepatitis and a hangover had children and then they turned 40. I feel like 1981 was a very strung-out year.

Tyler: These guys are made of steel.  I just Googled noted pederast Bill Wyman.  He is alive and 86!

Peter: They’re all going to start dying and it’s going to be sad. The old rock stars, not the pederasts.

Tyler: I’m just cracking wise because he married a 14-year-old.  I should probably cut it the hell out.

Peter: She was 14?!?

Tyler: 13!

I just confirmed it.  I feel a lot dirtier than after we discussed “Some Girls.”

Peter: I’m just reading about this, and “To make things even more complicated, in 1993, Wyman’s 30-year-old son from his first marriage, Stephen, married Smith’s mother, Patsy, who was then aged 46. However, they split after two years.”

Wtf?

Tyler: That is some effed-up insanity.

Peter: This is all new to me. How did I not know this? Did I just block it out? Am I secretly a Bill Wyman superfan who can’t come to grips with his past?

Tyler: Are you actually Bill Wyman?

Peter: We’re never at Fight Club on the same night!

OMG!

Tyler: Fight Club and Bill Wyman: both trash.

Peter: Oh, man, okay. Let’s move on.

Tyler: “Worried About You” is followed up by “Tops,” another fine ballad.

Peter: I did not listen to this song back in the day.

Tyler: I suppose it’s less a ballad than a shuffle.

A swinging shuffle, at that.  Like “Worrying,” “Tops” has got soul in it.

Peter: It’s not bad. It picks up steam as it goes. It does have soul. It’s still not a favorite, but it’s better than I remembered.

Tyler: “Heaven.”  This one is all about the atmosphere.

Peter: I always skipped this one too, but now I love it!

Tyler: It’s excellent.  Something like this could easily have gone terribly awry.  Here, it does not.

Peter: I learned from the internet that Keith and Ronnie are not on this track. It’s (my secret hero?) Bill Wyman on guitar, synthesizer, and bass. Plus Jagger on guitar and Charlie on drums.

Tyler: Jagger on guitar makes me think of the album cover for Mick’s terrible, terrible solo album Goddess In The Doorway.

Jann Wenner gave that fucker five stars.  I was like sixteen.  I was duped.

2001? I was seventeen.  Shoulda known better by then.

Peter: I was just watching Being Mick, the documentary they made for that album!

Tyler: Oh, Lord.

Peter: Okay, that’s embarrassing, I’m just realizing.

Tyler: Nah.  The movie is probably embarrassing.  You’re fine.

Being Mick.  Preposterous.

Isn’t that thing a slob-job?  I feel like I read that in Entertainment Weekly in the days when Entertainment Weekly mattered.

Peter: It was on TV. It’s not terrible, but…probably not worth re-watching 20 years on.

Full disclosure, I liked “God Gave Me Everything.”

Tyler: You can remember individual songs?  I remember the casual reference to having a lovechild down in Ar-gen-tina.

Peter: Anyway, “Heaven” is great!

Apparently some people think this song was a tribute to John Lennon. Which doesn’t make a ton of sense.

Tyler: They’d have to have recorded it real quick.

Like, this is an ’81 album? Lennon was murdered in December of ’80.  Pretty fast turnaround for a tribute.

Peter: Yeah, and the lyrics…aren’t about that.

Tyler: Man, this album just has no business being as good as it is.

Peter: It’s true!

Tyler: Strip away some of the gloss and lose, say, “Little T&A,” and you might be looking at a major-league Stones album.

Peter: I think some new lyrics on “Little T&A” could make it a great song. I dig the music.

Tyler: It’s catchy, that’s for sure.

Peter: The next tune, “No Use In Crying,” is also a winner, in my opinion.

Tyler: Great harmonies.  Awesome.

Peter: I skipped this one too back in the day! Why?!? It’s really good. I feel like I’m reappraising this album?

Tyler: Oh, same here.  It slaps.

Peter: The back half has been a revelation. Some great tunes.

Tyler: I’ve been told that “slaps” is out.  I defy trends.

Peter: It’s a “bop?” Am I using that correctly?

Tyler: You are.  You really are.

Awhile back, I texted one of my oldest friends the new definition of “bop.”  Her response was something like, “No. You’re making up things to make me look stupid.”

Peter: We’ve arrived at the universally acknowledged high-point of the album. This song needs no introduction! A classic beloved by all! “Waiting On A Friend.”

Tyler: I sense, call it a hunch, some facetiousness.

Peter: Tyler is famously unfamiliar with this Stones classic.

Tyler: Gnarls Barkley, man.

It’s good!  I keep wondering whether it’s like a soft-pedaled take on “Waiting For The Man.”  It couldn’t actually be about friendship, could it?

Peter: This song is from the Goat’s Head Soup sessions! It features Mick Taylor on guitar. Bit of fun trivia there.

Tyler: I’ll be damned.

Peter: It didn’t have lyrics till Tattoo You. I don’t know how sincere they are, but it’s nice.

Tyler: I enjoy it.  It’s a nice landing spot.

Peter: I always thought of “Waiting On A Friend” as a poor man’s “Beast Of Burden,” but, it’s not.

I am not a sax guy, in general. Remember all the sax on Some Time In New York City?

Tyler: I just turned my eyes and head in disgust.  Speaking of trash.

I’m curious about whether it’s Bobby Keys on the sax here.

Peter: It’s actually Sonny Rollins, and it’s just great. Really elevates the song.

Tyler: Really nice way to close out the album.  Man, what a fine damn side of songs.

Peter: It’s true!

I really felt like I knew this album, but in listening again, I have a newfound appreciation.

Tyler: Likewise.  Of the four albums we’ve covered so far—Satanic Majesties, Black and Blue, Some Girls being the others—this is likely my #2.

Peter: Yeah. I mentioned last time that I don’t think it belongs in the top tier of Stones albums, but it really might be the best of the rest. Considering it’s mostly cobbled together from tracks that had been left over from earlier sessions, that’s pretty remarkable.

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