The Rolling Stones have crafted an image through the years, from their early “bad boy” days to their lips-and-tongue logo to their iconic seasoned stage presence. Mick Jagger’s star turns and Keith Richards’s swagger come to mind instantly. An epic career spanning generations has evolved into a big business, including licensing, publishing, merchandising, and touring revenues. It’s easy to forget about their early days playing Chicago blues billed as the Rollin’ Stones.
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Their residency at the Crawdaddy Club in London led to a business relationship with club owner Giorgio Gomelsky, who went about trying to secure some press coverage for the group. One of the writers Gomelsky persuaded to come and see the band was Peter Jones. He didn’t get any press, but Jones did bring his friend Andrew Loog Oldham. The band hit it off with the young impresario and agreed to a management deal. The only problem was Oldham was only 19. He was not old enough to sign a contract without his mother’s signature. The solution was a partnership with booking agent/manager Eric Easton, who was older and more established. Not only did Easton set up the band with better earnings, but he also expanded their reach as they toured the UK. He also produced some of the band’s earliest recordings, including a song from John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Let’s take a look at the story behind “I Wanna Be Your Man” by The Rolling Stones.
I wanna be your lover, baby
I wanna be your man
I wanna be your lover, baby
I wanna be your man
Tell me that you love me, baby
Tell me you understand
Tell me that you love me, baby
Tell me you understand
“It Sounded Pretty Commercial”
The Rolling Stones relied on songs by Chuck Berry, Howlin’ Wolf, and Bo Diddley in their infancy. Their first single was the Chuck Berry song “Come On,” which was only 18 months old when they recorded it. The song reached No. 21 on the UK charts. When it came time to pick a song for the follow-up, they recorded “I Wanna Be Your Man.” The way the song made its way to the Stones is remembered differently by the different parties. In 1968, Mick Jagger told Rolling Stone magazine, “We knew [Lennon and McCartney] by then, and we were rehearsing, and Andrew brought Paul and John down to the rehearsal. They said they had this tune. They were really hustlers then. I mean, the way they used to hustle tunes was great. ‘Hey Mick, we’ve got this great song.’ So they played it, and we thought it sounded pretty commercial, which is what we were looking for, so we did it like Elmore James or something. I haven’t heard it for ages, but it must be pretty freaky ’cause nobody really produced it. The guy who happened to be our manager at the time was a 50-year-old northern mill owner. It was completely crackers, but it was a hit and sounded great on stage.”
I wanna be your man. I wanna be your man
I wanna be your man. I wanna be your man
I wanna be your man. I wanna be your man
I wanna be your man. I wanna be your man
“Right in Front of Their Eyes, We Did It”
John Lennon had a slightly different version. In 1980, he told author David Sheff, “I Wanna Be Your Man’ was a kind of lick Paul had: ‘I want to be your lover, baby. I want to be your man.’ I think we finished it off for the Stones … yeah, we were taken down to meet the Stones at the club where they were playing in Richmond. … They wanted a song and we went to see them to see what kind of stuff they did. Mick and Keith had heard that we had an unfinished song—Paul just had this bit, and we needed another verse or something. We sort of played it roughly to them, and they said, ‘Yeah, OK, that’s our style.’ So, Paul and I just went off in the corner of the room and finished the song off while they were all still there talking. We came back, and that’s how Mick and Keith got inspired to write because, ‘Jesus, look at that. They just went in the corner and wrote it and came back!’ Right in front of their eyes, we did it.”
Tell me that you love me, baby
Tell me you understand
Tell me that you love me, baby
Tell me you understand
“It Was Clear We Had a Hit”
Keith Richards shared his memory in his memoir Life, “They came back to the studio with him and gave us a song that was on their next album but wasn’t coming out as a single, ‘I Wanna Be Your Man.’ They played it through with us. Brian [Jones] put on some nice slide guitar; we turned it into an unmistakably Stones rather than Beatles song. It was clear that we had a hit almost before they’d left the studio. They deliberately aimed it at us.”
I wanna be your lover, baby
I wanna be your man
I wanna be your lover, baby
I wanna be your man
The Beatles’ Version
Many Beatles songs were captured in single sessions, however “I Wanna Be Your Man” took much longer. They recorded a single take on September 11, 1963, one day after offering it to Jagger and Richards. The next day, they laid down six more takes. A few weeks later, producer George Martin added an organ to the seventh take. Ringo Starr overdubbed a maraca part on October 3, and it wasn’t until the October 23 that the song was finished with the addition of a tambourine.
Meanwhile, The Rolling Stones recorded their take on October 7 and released it on November 1. The Beatles included it on their album but did not release it as a single. McCartney told author Barry Miles, “We often used to say to people, the words don’t really matter, people don’t listen to words, it’s the sound they listen to. So ‘I Wanna Be Your Man’ was to try and give Ringo something like ‘Boys,’ an uptempo song he could sing from the drums. So again, it had to be very simple.”
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