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We counted down the complete Beatles’ catalog, and now we take on their rivals for title of best rock band ever – The Rolling Stones. This time we’re going to break down the band’s 40+ year career in easily digestible chunks. Because Universal will be reissuing the Stones’ studio albums from the seventies, we figured that would be a great place to start. Besides, it was arguably their most fertile decade, at least in terms of variety. Their output ranged from the ragged brilliance of 1971’s Sticky Fingers to the unbridled energy of 1978’s Some Girls. In between we find the sprawling Exile on Main Street, the decadent Goats Head Soup, the fiery It’s Only Rock and Roll and the soulful Black and Blue. Keep in mind, the countdown only includes studio album cuts, no live or unreleased tracks. Check back each day for the next five songs on the list, prepare to hit the message boards to defend your favorites, and follow the countdown all the way to Number 1.

The complete list to date.

The Last Five:

45. “If You Really Want To Be My Friend” (from It’s Only Rock ‘N Roll)

44. “Soul Survivor” (from Exile on Main St.)

43. “I Just Want To See His Face” (from Exile on Main St.)

42. “Hot Stuff” (from Black and Blue)

41. “Luxury” (from It’s Only Rock ‘N Roll)

40. “Dancing With Mr. D”

From Goats Head Soup

LISTEN HERE  

The “D” in question stands for Death. Only the stones could make the prospect of dancing with the Grim Reaper sound quite so seductive. Give credit for that to Keith Richards’ insinuating riff, which serves as the framework for the entire song. The Stones would years later rehash this groove on their minor hit “Harlem Shuffle,” but a band who’s been around as long as they have get a pass for a little recycling now and then.

The instrumental credits are typically off-the-wall. Mick Taylor played bass on the track as well as the wailing slide guitar fills. Billy Preston is on the track but cedes the piano role to Nicky Hopkins and contributes on the clavinet instead. A few percussionists are also credited, but all of that is secondary to the main riff, which sounds like Keith may have been inspired by one of John Fogerty’s swamp classics from his CCR days.

The song wants to be a little more shocking than it actually is, but it’s a gritty gem nonetheless and a good way to start off Goats Head Soup, even if the remainder of that album then veered away to a more mellow sound.

39. “Sway”

From Sticky Fingers

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A moody, interesting track off Sticky Fingers, “Sway” is one of the Stones tracks which Mick Taylor claims to have had a large hand in writing. I can see that, as most of Taylor’s contributions throughout his tenure with them really deepen the group’s core sound. There is no doubt that he handles the brilliant solo at song’s end, which sails high above Charlie Watts’ sharp snares and finds the spaces in between the creeping string section.

Richards doesn’t play guitar on the track, although he does provide backing vocals, joining Ronnie Lane and Pete Townshend to make quite the chorus. They back Jagger’s excellent vocal. The lyrics here are some of Mick’s most intriguing, as he makes no bones about his tunnel-vision in the face of hard times: “Ain’t flinging tears out on the dusty ground/For all my friends out on the burial ground.”

The “demon life,” he suggests, can’t be taken too seriously, or else it will eat you alive. At least, that is, until the final verse, when he finds himself surprised by his affection for a woman. It’s a fascinating glimpse at Mick past all the bravado and posturing, and it gives “Sway” an unexpected depth.

38. “Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)”

From Some Girls

LISTEN HERE  

Although this is the lesser known of the group’s two Temptations’ covers, the boys do a fine job with this one as well. Then again, the song is such impeccable source material that the band could have turned it into an electro-thrash rave-up (if such a thing exists) and it still would have likely emerged golden.

Perhaps realizing that slowing the pace down too much would expose the fact that their vocals aren’t in the same league as the Temps (and, really, how many people are in that elite league?), the Stones play the song as a mid-tempo rock song, with Charlie Watts’ steady beat even kicking into double-time during the instrumental passages.

Jagger plays fast and loose with the melody toward the song’s end, allowing him to emote the song more than sing it, and that’s when the song becomes their own. Give the group credit for both excellent taste and the chops to deliver the material winningly.

37. “Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)”

From Goats Head Soup

LISTEN HERE  

You don’t tend to think of The Rolling Stones as a band that specializes in social commentary. If anything, they’re the band for which pundits reserve social commentary. But they make an earnest stab at it on “Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker),” even if it clearly isn’t in their wheelhouse.

By providing two snapshots of youth senselessly wasted, Jagger tries to spotlight the apathy that is almost as heinous as the crimes themselves. But the two incidents are a little bit too random to pull together into a cohesive statement.

Luckily, the musical backdrop provides all of the fury that the lyrics want to conjure. The horns, arranged by longtime Stones sideman Jim Price, swirl with bluster around the crunching wah-wah of Mick Taylor. By the end, when Jagger is screaming “Oh yeah!” over the entire maelstrom, including the catchy backing vocals, it becomes clear that those exclamatory cries evoker injustice better than the lyrics ever could.

36. “Coming Down Again”

From Goats Head Soup

LISTEN HERE  

He’s known of course for his guitar-playing, his debauchery, and his indestructibility. But, at heart, Keith Richards is a great soul man.

Dotted all over the Stones catalog, especially in later years, are wounded-heart ballads sung in the key of Keith. The albums from the late-80’s on have been spotty affairs, but slow songs from Richards usually stand out in a good way. “Slipping Away” has always been a particular favorite of mine, and “The Worst” is far from it, actually. Seek ‘em out online, and thank me later.

In a lot of ways, “Coming Down Again,” found on Goats Head Soup, is the forerunner of those songs. You know that when Keith sings, he’s going to hit as many wonky notes as clean ones, but that’s part of the charm. The point is that he conveys the anguish inherent in the song without fail, aided by slyly ingratiating melodies like this one.

What is he coming down from? Take your pick: Life on the road, a bad relationship, drugs. Some of the lyrics seem to reference his wife Anita being the ex of his bandmate and friend Brian Jones, which caused a huge schism between the pair. At other times he changes the perspective to focus suddenly on a girl in the song, tossing off a killer line like nothing (“She was dying to survive.”) It’s all a part of the idiosyncratic brilliance of Keith Richards’ songwriting, a skill he only gets to flash occasionally. He always leaves us wanting more, and he always plays it from the soul.

The complete list to date.

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