We turn now to four songs from Goats Head Soup. "Heartbreaker", "Angie", "Can You Hear the Music", and "Star Star". Let's turn first to "Heartbreaker" or "Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo". The form for this tune is a contrasting verse chorus. So, you get an intro, that, Billy Preston keyboard thing that kind of drives the tune. Then you get a verse a chorus, a verse, a chorus, a chorus, a verse with a, a Mick Taylor guitar solo. On a couple of choruses. Then a coda which kind of repeats that chorus riff to fade out unt-, you get to the very end. Now the, the lyrics deal with metaphors for shooting. So the two incidences described in the lyrics have to do with a guy that gets shot by police. And by a, a, a kid that dies from a, a, an overdose of drugs. So when you think about shooting a gun or shooting up, that's kind of those metaphors are kind of what holds the tune together. It's about how both of these kinds of things lead to heartbreak and to ruin or destroyed lives. It's a incident, it's an instance of what you might call urban realism. And that is the idea of trying to really reflect the kind of maybe really uncomfortable environment. Urban environment. And this is something that really was starting to happen at the end of the 60's and the early 1970's, especially in black pop, where artists were increasingly wanting to, you know, really reflect some of the problems of the city. Some of the urban kinds of problems that were happening, and not just sort of paper over them with sort of happy lyrics about love and, and romance and this kind of thing, and so you see a lot of this, in the music of Marvin Gaye, "What's Going' On", Stevie Wonder, "Inner Visions". A lot of this kind of, sort of, of realistic portrayal of the urban, landscape. But also very much in movies that are often called blaxploitation movies, that is movies in many cases, not only starring blacks but funded by blacks so its kind of a whole movement inside. The movie industry Superfly would be a good example. Shaft would be another good example of, of movies that really to portray life the way urban blacks see it, the kinds of things that happen. And then there's the music that goes with it. So I think what's happening in this case is the Rolling Stones very much influenced by that kind of thing. So Curtis Mayfield, Isaac Hayes, Marvin Gaye, maybe is that part of what the influence is here? If it is, it's an instance of a new kind of influence we're seeing in The Rolling Stones' music. Not, not that they're influenced by soul music, but that they're influenced by the soul music that's happening in the nine, early 1970s. When they're recording this, so it's an instance of a new, a new influence here. As I said before, Billy Preston playing the clavinet. I think there's also an RMI electric piano in there. Keith Richards is playing the bass on this, and Mick Taylor hits the wah-wah on the guitar very hard. If you don't know what a wah-wah pedal is, it kind of looks like a gas pedal on a car, goes back and forth like this, but it makes the sound go, wah-wah, open, opening a filter that, that, that makes that sound and of course it becomes really emblematic of early 70s funk and soul music. And of course we've got a horn section that really drives the chorus on that one. We turn now to "Angie". This is a song I, I, I really can't understand when I go to the the internet or various kind of sources how people could have found this song to be such a surprise for the Rolling Stones. You know, it's as if when "Angie" was released as a single people said, "whoa, the Rolling Stones doing a soft song with acoustic guitars and strings, boy who would've thought that was possible." But we, as students of the Rolling Stones, we've been working on this now for seven weeks, understand that the Stones had done many ballads, and had a history of doing a few pop oriented numbers during the sixties. So anybody that knows "As Tears Go By" or "Lady Jane" or "No Expectations" or "Wild Horses" should not be the least bit surprised by "Angie." But I think a lot of the re, the reaction is to people who kind of pigeonholed The Stones into being kind of like a gritty, hard-rocky kind of group. And didn't really sort of understand the breadth and depth of the group's, influences and stylistic range. And so, to a certain extent victim of of, of a kind of pigeon holing that tends to happen in the music business with groups. We look at the form for "Angie", it's a simple verse form you get an introduction then you get a verse, another verse, a verse that's partly instrumental. We get some strings entering there. And then we get a verse that's modified. It sort of seems to be shortened at the front end but then it's extended at the back end. But basically, four verses sort of right in a row. like "Wild Horses", this is a song that deals with the romance that is ending. And so if we were going, as I've done a couple of times here, sort of plot out the kind of acoustic singer/songwriter-y kind of r-, r-, romance, shattered romance kinds of tunes or songs that involve romance or romantic relationships, "Angie" is really more of a continuity than something new. Maybe, "Heartbreaker" is something with a new influence, "Angie" is something which is a continuity here. There's a focus, of course, on the acoustic guitar the acoustic piano and the strings here are kind of a dead giveaway for a connection all the way back to something like "As Tears' 'Go By". "Can You Hear the Music", talk about looking back as I said in the the previous video, this is to me maybe one of the most interesting tracks on the record, but that's a musicologist speaking, right? As a fan, I suppose there are other songs I might I might listen to more often. But his one is really interesting and maybe a little bit surprising because of the way in which it really brings us back to that whole world of psychedelia. The form of the song is a kind of modified contrasting verse chorus. And it's modified because the section that I'm calling the chorus here, has different lyrics, a lot of times when it comes back, sometimes it uses the same lyrics, sometimes it doesn't. And you know, the usual thing about a chorus is that it uses pretty much the same lyrics each times it comes around. But it's pretty clear, that the model here is a contrasting first chorus kind of format. You know that something is going on in this tune when the thing begins and you hear these kind of like, "why they must be like little finger bells or something that kind of remind us of the East, remind us maybe of meditation or something like that." And then you hear what sounds like a, a, a, a sort of, an ethnic flute of some kind, you know? And then, you hear this highly processed guitar processed through a Leslie speaker, with a lot of sort of compression and distortion. You know, the kind of thing that we're used to from 1967 or so. And then, some, sort of, sort of pentatonic piano runs. By pentatonic, I mean sounding as if it were kind of a harp, but, but playing on the piano. So the whole thing starts, by establishing this kind of meditative environment from the very beginning, and we haven't had a lot of that in Rolling Stones music since their Satanic Majesties. After the intro you get a chorus, then a verse, then a chorus, the second chorus the lyrics differ. And then when the verse comes back, listen to the guitar harmonies that you hear in the accompaniment there. For all the world they sound like, by Queen, and I'm not sure whether they were influenced by Brian May and, and Queen. We'd have to sort of get the dates together and figure out whether the Rolling Stones would've known that, but it really does have that kind of Queen sort of symphonic harmony guitar thing going on underneath there. Well then you get another chorus, a verse that's instrumental and then the song has a kind of re-introduction. Which is a, a an interesting thing to do to sort of start the song again and you get a chorus, a verse, and a chorus that repeats and fades. So the lyrics really be, seem to say that music makes things seem all right. Weather you are scared or being pushed around in life, just turn to music and all will be well. It's a very kind of hippy-ish kind of positive outlook right. It it's very similar to "Sing This All Together", the very first song from "Their Satanic Majesties Request". So, I would say here, the use of bells, flute, processed guitar, and piano arpeggios create unmistakable psychedelic textures and maybe the clearest return to this sound since "Moonlight Mile", which, remember, was another song that I, kind of, made a lot of these kinds of points about at the end of "Sticky Fingers". I would say when it comes to "Can You Hear the Music", there's a lot of the spirit of Brian Jones in this track. Of course the person playing the role of Brian Jones in many cases here is actually Mick Taylor, who's, you know, really sort of takes, in some ways, kind of takes control of this track, so it gives us the sense of who Mick Taylor is in a certain kind of way. Keith Richards' remark that this song began from one of his licks, you know, Keith with this sort of licks that begins song. But, then the lick was taken over by other members of the band and turned into something very unexpected. By him saying that, you get a sense that maybe he didn't have very much to do with the way this song was shaped, that, that he came in with a lick and it's the lick that sort of begins the, the tune once guitar starts to come in, that texture guitar and, the Leslie sort of distorted guitar. And that lick of course comes back a bunch in the tune, but what Keith is surprised is that it didn't turn into the kind of song he was imagining, and so that might give us the sense that he wasn't real involved in, in the writing or producing of the tune. Well, whatever the case may be, a real return to psychedelia. With the song "Star Star", and why is it called "Star Star"? Thereby hangs a tale. With the, with the song "Star Star" we re-, really get a tune that, that reminds us in many ways of things that we've seen from the Rolling Stones before. Let's first dispense with the form, contrasting verse chorus, form it, the intro, figu-, features a kind of a Chuck Berry guitar figure, so clearly, that 50's rock thing, this is the direction that song looks back at, you know, The Rolling Stones, really such big fans of Chuck Berry's music anyway, so this is kind of their their Chuck Berry tune on this record. It goes, form-wise verse-verse-chorus, then verse-chorus, then a verse with a guitar solo on a verse and a chorus, and then a coda that's based on the last part of the chorus and fades. So, pretty unspectacular from a formal point of view. Really kind of fits the recipe for what you might expect for this kind of a tune. Now, the lyrics tell the story of a woman who pursues celebrities in order to have sex with them. And at this, she is a real star. So of those that do this, and according to Mick Jagger and his life, he's seen plenty of 'em, this one is perhaps the star, right? And so, the lyrics use very explicit language. Taking the shock element really to a new level. By the way, Mick reportedly claimed that the song is about a, a real person. Now, the, these lyrics were so explicit, that even Atlantic Records, remember the Rolling Stones were on Rolling Stones Records but they were being distributed by Atlantic so in many ways they were kind of signed to Atlantic even though they had their own label. Atlantic Records reacted negatively to this explicit language, insisting that the original title of the song be changed to "Star Star". Now in order to give you an idea of what the original title of the song is, I will tell you that in many lyric sheets that were circulated, the original lyrics were printed as Starbucker. Right, and so you can imagine what, given what I've told you about the lyrics, what the actual original name of the song is and what the lyric is that comes back again and again and again in this lyric, golly. How, how can we really shock people? Why don't we just keep saying the f word over and over and over again? In fact, let's get people to sing along with it. [LAUGH] Really guys, but, but you know, and then they were surprised, "What, what, what, this is just the way it is". So anyway, when you, when you, when you shock Ahmet Ertegun at Atlantic Records you know you've probably crossed some kind of a line. Because there's a guy, there never, never was a record guy who was more on the side of, of the artists that Ahmet Ertegun was during the 1970s, and everybody that worked with him said the same thing during that period. There is interestingly a reference to Steve McQueen and Ali McGraw. If your my age you remember Steve McQueen and Ali McGraw as being a famous kind of married couple and there's kind of an explicit reference to them. And Atlantic Records said "well huh, we'll never be able to bring these lyrics out this way cause Steve McQueen will sue you", so they just sent the lyrics to Steve McQueen he was like, "aw sure, let it go". There was another reference to John Wayne, the famous actor of westerns and that kind of thing. And they didn't get, they didn't seek permission from John Wayne, maybe they were, afraid of John Wayne. [LAUGH] But what they were told, what Andy Johns was told to do was to blur the mention of John Wayne's name in the lyrics. So you listen to the recording, see if you can hear John Wayne or not. Mick's defense in this was that he was only writing about what he saw and this kind of thing happened all the time in the world that he was living in. So, shock, scandal in the lyrics, something that really is a continuity point with the Rolling Stones going back, at least to "I Can't Get No Satisfaction." Right? The instrumentation, a very basic rock and roll combo sound with guitars, bass, drums, piano, there's some sax in the background, and vocals. So it really is kind of the, the Chuck Berry sort of simple driving way forward for this. So that's, that's, that's what we see in, in this tune is a real sort of move a, a looking back. Now, as we go forward however let's see if when we look at "Its Only Rock and Roll", we see some of the same kinds of things happening that is the looks backward and looks forward. Look forward to that. Let's take an overview of what was happening in 1974. Some very big changes, and we'll look at those next.
