Remember When The Rolling Stones Made a Meal Out of Leftovers with ‘Tattoo You?’

There was a running joke going for a while that every Rolling Stones album would automatically be labelled by many critics their “best since Tattoo You.” The 1981 record does indeed represent a high-water mark for the quality of Stones LPs; it sounded more cohesive than the band had been for years (and more than they would for the years following as well).

If you just listened to the record and didn’t know anything about its creation, you might never know that Tattoo You was a Frankenstein’s monster of sorts, built from the parts of old Stones material. Let’s take a look back at what precipitated the record being made this way, and how the record provided the band with one of their highest peaks while they were in the midst of some of their deepest turmoil.

Stones in Crisis

The Rolling Stones weren’t in a great place at the beginning of the ‘80s. Forget for a moment that the foundations of pop and rock music were shifting rapidly underneath the feet of heritage rockers like them. In terms of their interpersonal relationships, things were also at a nadir. Mick Jagger had largely taken control of the band’s artistic direction at the end of the ‘70s while Keith Richards dealt with drug and legal issues. As Richards re-inserted himself more forcefully into the decision-making process, he wasn’t exactly thrilled at Jagger’s attempts to modernize the group’s sound.

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Emotional Rescue (1980) displayed a band at odds over how they should sound. Much of the album was in-your-face rock. But the title track sunk into a sultry disco groove—and landed the band a big hit. It was pretty telling that the final song on the record, “All About You,” was written and sung by Richards and featured lyrics that took pretty brazen potshots at Jagger.

The following year, the Stones needed an album they could use as an impetus for a tour. But neither Jagger nor Richards felt too enthusiastic about sitting in the same room for hours, days, and weeks writing and recording 10 songs. A solution was needed for how to proceed.

From Outtakes to Outstanding

Chris Kimsey had worked with the Stones as an engineer and associate producer on both Emotional Rescue and their 1978 album, Some Girls. When trying to figure out what to do about the Stones’ conundrum, Kimsey remembered there was much unused material from the sessions for those records. Thus, he hypothesized there might also be some leftover stuff on the cutting-room floor from the albums before that. 

Kimsey was right, as he explained in an interview with Counterpunch.org. “So I just went into the tapes, and went through all the outtakes,” he said. “And so that’s what Tattoo You is. It’s virtually an outtake album, but one of their best. It took me about three months to assemble it all and get it all together, and then I just had to get Mick to finish off vocals on it, because they were never finished obviously.”

Jagger also did some searching, and the end result was a record with tracks recorded for four previous Stones albums (the two already mentioned along with Goats Head Soup and Black and Blue). The band didn’t bother playing over the parts of the songs they already felt were satisfactory. Hence, Tattoo You contains contributions from guitarist Mick Taylor, who had left the band in the middle of the ‘70s, plus famous session keys players like Nicky Hopkins and Billy Preston, who also hadn’t been involved with the group for a while.

The Perfect Start

A prime example of the archaeology that went into the record is the massive hit single “Start Me Up,” which leads off the album and turned into a massive hit single. Richards had brought the track to a session during Some Girls, and the band recorded a solid version by Take 2. But as they continued to work on it, it morphed into a reggae tune, and they lost interest. Once excavated for Tattoo You and given lyrics and a preening performance from Jagger, well, the rest is music history.

[AS OF THIS WRITING: Stones Tickets Are Available! – Get ‘Em Right Here]

Tattoo You also benefited from an interesting bit of sequencing. Side One features mostly high-energy rockers. There’s “Hang Fire” with Ronnie Wood’s cackling guitar solo, Richards on vocals on “Little T&A,” and the manic “Neighbours,” featuring Charlie Watts’ snapping drums. This was the Stones at their raunchiest and most feral.

But Side Two pulled back for a series of soulful ballads. “Worried About You” benefits from a great guitar solo from Wayne Perkins, who was only around for the Black and Blue album. “Heaven” is a mesmerizing mood piece. And “Tops” allows Jagger the opportunity to play the role of a sleazy movie producer, which he does with gusto.

Tattoo You closes out with the gorgeous “Waiting on a Friend,” all watery guitars, Hopkins’ elegant piano, and jazz great Sonny Rollins’ knockout sax solo. It’s ironic that the album would end on such a note of amity at a time when the two principals in the band weren’t getting along. But then again, maybe it’s fitting, considering the Stones as a whole sounded so together on Tattoo You at a time when they were seemingly so far apart.

Photo by Allan S Adler/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

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