107. The Rolling Stones - Beggar's Banquet (December 1968)

1. Sympathy for the Devil*

2. No Expectations

3. Dear Doctor

4. Parachute Woman

5. Jigsaw Puzzle*

6. Street Fighting Man*

7. Prodigal Son

8. Stray Cat Blues

9. Factory Girl

10. Salt of the Earth

A-

So in a lot of ways this album captures the best and worst of the Rolling Stones. Things open with the jaw-dropping "Sympathy for the Devil", arguably the coolest song ever recorded. Inspired in part by one of my favourite books, Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, it sets lyrics about the progress of Satan throughout human history and  the complicity everyone has in the presence of evil in the world to a driving blues-meets-Afro-Latin beat. It's an astonishing song, especially coming from Mick Jagger of all people. Then you have the brilliant "Jigsaw Puzzle", which locks into a hypnotic groove as Jagger gets his Dylan on. It's great, because the song just keeps building and building, getting more and more surreal and densely layered until all that's holding it together is the refrain of "I'm just trying to do this jigsaw puzzle". It's an underrated classic, and would play great over the closing credits of a film. And then finally you have "Street Fighting Man", easily the hardest rocking number we've had up to this point. Apparently the guitar and drums were recorded in a hotel room through an overdriven cassette recorded, and the rest of the song was built around it. Jagger is again in fine form here, with ambiguous lyrics about the protests rocking the world at the time, contrasted with the relative quietude of the UK and his own frustrations about not being able to contribute in any meaningful way except to sing in a rock and roll band. It's great.

Unfortunately, the rest of the songs on this album largely ignore the possibilities of the standout tracks, and instead opt for MOR white boy blues. I guess when this album came out it was a fresh new sounds, but almost sixty years on a song like "Parachute Woman" just sounds stupid. And the less said about the fucking dreadful "Stray Cat Blues", the better. I mean, aside from pointing out that it's another of Jagger's charming odes to fucking an underage girl. Which is a pity, because it rocks pretty hard.

The last two songs on the album are quite nice, however, and show an interesting side of the group. It's often overlooked, but the Richards/Jagger partnership were quite good at producing pretty ballads. "Factory Girl" is a lovely folk/blues number with great drumming by Watts, all about the simple joys of dating a simple woman and getting drunk together on a Friday night. And "Salt of the Earth" goes big with the simple message that we should all raise a glass to, well, the salt of the Earth.

So in a lot of ways this album sums up my view of the Stones - I would happily buy their Greatest Hits collections, but I don't have much time for their albums. That said, the high points on this album have rarely been bettered. I just wish it was good all the way through.