The Story Behind “2000 Light Years from Home” by The Rolling Stones and the Unusual Place Where Mick Jagger Wrote It

On March 30, 1967, The Beatles arrived at photographer Michael Cooper’s Chelsea Manor Photo Studios to pose for the cover of their upcoming album Sgt, Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The project was unlike any album cover before. Images of dozens of iconic figures surrounded the four Beatles. The layout was designed by Peter Blake and Jann Haworth, and art directed by Robert Fraser. On the right side of the album, there is a Shirley Temple doll wearing a child’s sweater with the words, “WMPS Good Guys Welcome The Rolling Stones.”

A radio contest was held in Memphis, Tennessee, during the 1965 Rolling Stones American Tour. Mary Scruggs sewed the words onto the sweater and entered it into the art contest for the chance to meet the band. She won the opportunity to meet the band after their Memphis appearance. Scruggs gave Mick Jagger the sweater, and he brought it back home to England. It eventually ended up at Cooper’s studio and was included on the front cover.

On September 14, 1967, The Rolling Stones posed in a psychedelic setting for Cooper to shoot the cover for the album Their Satanic Majesties Request. Early pressings of the album included a lenticular 3D cover image with the four Beatles’ faces hidden in the flowers. Just as Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was a musical departure, Their Satanic Majesties Request was too. The Stones suffered from the comparisons between the two works of art as few albums before or since have stood up to The Beatles’ masterpiece. Let’s take a look at the story behind one of the songs from Their Satanic Majesties Request, “2000 Light Years from Home” by The Rolling Stones.

Sun turnin’ ’round with graceful motion
We’re setting off with soft explosion
Bound for a star with fiery oceans
It’s so very lonely
You’re a hundred light years from home

A Light Year

Often mistaken as a measurement of time, a light year is actually a measure of length. It is used on a galactic scale, as it is defined as the distance light travels in a vacuum in one year: 5.88 trillion miles. Photographer Michael Cooper was at Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards’ Redlands country home in West Wittering, England, when the police raided it on February 12, 1967. Richards, Jagger, and art director Fraser were charged with drug possession. Fraser insisted all the drugs were his and told police he was in possession of 20 heroin pills because of an upset stomach. He pleaded guilty to heroin possession and was sentenced to six months of hard labor. 

Freezing red deserts turn to dark
Energy here in every part
It’s so very lonely
You’re six hundred light years from home

Brixton Prison

Richards’ sentence was overturned, but Jagger was sent to Brixton Prison for what he thought was a three-month stay. On the night of June 29, 1967, Jagger wrote “2000 Light Years from Home” in his cell, where he felt isolated and helpless. He was released the following day when bail was posted, but the lyrics were a metaphor for what the band was going through with their legal problems. It’s reminiscent of the short story The Sentinel by Arthur C. Clarke, which would later be turned into the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Some critics have pointed out the song’s connection to an LSD trip. It does conjure comparisons to California bands like The Byrds doing “Eight Miles High” or Jefferson Airplane singing “White Rabbit.”

In The Rolling Stones: All the Songs, The Story Behind Every Track, Marty Balin of Jefferson Airplane said, “That was one of the great space songs. We were into that kind of stuff, too. When I first heard that, I loved it. The sounds on there were real unique. I think a good song can be done in any field by anybody. Anybody could do ‘2000 Light Years from Home.” It wouldn’t sound like the Stones, but it would translate for anyone because you could identify with what he was talking about and with the funky keys.”

It’s so very lonely
You’re a thousand light years from home
It’s so very lonely
You’re a thousand light years from home

Olympic Studios

Recording of the song began in July 1967, with Brian Jones playing a mellotron, Keith Richards on guitar and Bill Wyman playing bass. Charlie Watts played drums, Nicky Hopkins was on piano, and the working title for the instrumental track was “Toffee Apple.” Unidentified female backing vocals, Jagger on lead vocals, and maracas rounded out the recording session. Jones overdubbed electric dulcimer and Richards added fuzz bass after the fact, while Wyman’s oscillator and various percussion instruments were recorded at different speeds to add to the experimental flavor of the song. “2000 Light Years from Home” was released as a single, backed with “She’s a Rainbow,” and reached the Top 5 in Germany and Holland. It failed to chart in the UK or U.S.

Bell flight fourteen, you now can land
See you on Aldebaran
Safe on the green desert sand
It’s so very lonely
You’re 2000 light years from home
It’s so very lonely
You’re 2000 light years from home

Resurrection

Photographer Cooper suffered from depression and heroin addiction. He died by suicide in 1973. Blinds and Shutters, edited by Brian Roylance, is a collection of his photographs; it was published by Genesis Publications in 1990. In 2003, an exhibition of his work was held at the Atlas Gallery in London.

Art director Robert Fraser struggled with heroin addiction as well and died in 1986 of AIDS. 

For years, it seemed The Rolling Stones wanted to sweep Their Satanic Majesties Request under the rug. In 1989, during the Steel Wheels Tour, they dusted off “2000 Light Years from Home” and played it regularly throughout 1989 and 1990. Then it disappeared again, only to resurface 23 years later on June 29, 2013, at The Glastonbury Festival.

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Photo by Roger Jackson/Getty Images