For most of the 1980s, The Rolling Stones were in turmoil. Band members took on side projects or solo albums. They came together to record Dirty Work in the summer of 1985. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were at odds as they worked in the studio. Bassist Bill Wyman, drummer Charlie Watts, and guitarist Ron Wood were often absent. It was rare for all five principal band members to be present. The band scrapped plans for a tour to promote the album because of the tension.
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Richards began writing songs with Steve Jordan, who had played drums with The Blues Brothers on Saturday Night Live and in The World’s Most Dangerous Band on Late Night with David Letterman. The pair holed up in a studio in New York City, and Richards began channeling his frustration with Mick Jagger into new songs. He wanted to start a new band. They enlisted Waddy Wachtel, Ivan Neville, and Charley Drayton, with Jordan co-producing with Richards. The X-Pensive Winos were born. Let’s take a look at the story behind “Take It So Hard” by Keith Richards and the X-Pensive Winos.
You’re giving up lovin’
It’s easy to do
People so pitiful
They never come through
Honey, honey, honey
I ain’t that way
Once in a while
Come on and get it
Like a Rocket
As Richards and Jordan worked on material, they created a song called “You Don’t Move Me.” Richards wasn’t sure if it was about a man talking to a woman or vice versa. As the song evolved, he realized it was about his relationship with Mick Jagger. Richards wrote in his 2010 memoir, Life: “This core band, from the first few bars we ever played, took off like a rocket. I’ve always been incredibly lucky with the guys I’ve played with. And there’s no way you can stand in front of the Winos without getting off. It’s a surefire high. It was so hot you could hardly believe it. It brought me back to life. I felt as if I’d just gotten out of jail.”
You shouldn’t take it so hard (yeah)
You shouldn’t take it
You shouldn’t take it so hard (yeah)
You shouldn’t take it so hard (yeah)
As Richards put together the X-Pensive Winos, Jordan was up for switching instruments. Although primarily a drummer, he played bass on “Take It So Hard.” Drayton handled the drumming. Continued Richards: “I’d never really written with anybody on a long-term basis except Mick, and I wasn’t really writing much with Mick anymore. We were writing our own songs. And I didn’t realize until I worked with Steve Jordan how much I’d missed that. And how important it was to collaborate. When the band was assembled in the studio, I often composed the songs there, just standing up and voweling, hollering, whatever it took, a process that was unfamiliar to Waddy at first.”
Take a look around you
Tell me, what do you see?
(People with little bits)
Try, tryin’ to smile
And most of what you’ve gotten is free (yeah)
You shouldn’t take it so hard (yeah)
You shouldn’t take it so hard (yeah)
“We’ve Conquered Everest Already”
Waddy Wachtel produced and played guitar on albums by Stevie Nicks, Jackson Browne, Bryan Ferry, George Thorogood, Steve Perry, and Warren Zevon. He co-wrote several songs with Zevon, including “Werewolves of London.” In Life, Wachtel said: “We went up to Canada and did the whole of the first record Talk Is Cheap there. I think the second track we cut was ‘Take It So Hard,’ which is a magnificent composition. And I just thought, I get to play on this? Let’s go. And we played it a few times. I guess you could call it rehearsing. And there’s one take that is just a great pass. It’s just ridiculously good. It was the second tune of the night, and it was this killer take of our strongest tune. I went back to the house, going, ‘We’ve conquered Everest already.’ These other mountains we can climb easily if we’ve got the big one down. And Keith didn’t want to believe it; he was going, ‘I don’t want these guys thinking they’re that good.’ He made us do a retake. I don’t know why. The take was shouting, ‘Hey, dude, I’m the take.’ I think Keith just did it to make sure people stayed in focus. But it never sounded as good as that first take.”
You shouldn’t take it so hard (yeah)
You shouldn’t take it so hard
(You shouldn’t take it so hard) (yeah)
You shouldn’t take it so hard (yeah)
Learning to Sing
Richards developed the song beginning with a guitar riff and the refrain. He then used a vowel exercise, singing vowel sounds to the music and creating lyrics to match those sounds. Wrote Richards: “I did start writing as well as singing songs differently. For one thing, I wasn’t writing for Mick songs that he’d have to deliver on stage. But mostly, I was learning to sing. First off, I put the songs in a lower key, which allowed me to get my voice down from high-pitched songs like ‘Happy.’ The melodies, too, were different from the Stones melodies. And I was learning to sing into the microphone rather than waving in and out while I played air guitar, which I used to do while I sang on stage.”
Yank it up, baby
Or go get yourself a new name
You want a little bit once in a while
Yeah, you got a taste for it
You shouldn’t take it (yeah)
You shouldn’t take it so hard
“It Was Really Magic”
In the liner notes for Live at the Hollywood Palladium, December 15, 1988, Kurt Loder called “Take It So Hard” the “perfect Keith single.” Richards was aware of his changing vocal style: “Pavarotti it ain’t, but then I don’t like Pavarotti’s voice. When you sing lead in a band, it’s an exhausting business. Just the breathing involved. Singing song after song is enough to knock most people on their ass. It’s an incredible amount of oxygen you’re going through. So we would do shows, and we’d come off stage, and I’d go to bed! Sometimes, of course, we’d be up till the next show, but a lot of times it would be forget it! We had the time of our lives touring with the Winos. We had standing ovations at almost every show, we did small theaters, sellouts, we broke even. The caliber of musicianship across the stage was astonishing. Fabulous playing every night, the music flowing like crazy. We were flying. It was really magic.”
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