Beggars Banquet
The Rolling Stones
1968
The idea of "being born in the wrong generation" is justifiably lampooned. It's a silly concept, that you look back on the pop culture of yesteryear and think that you were "supposed to be born earlier" just because you like that entertainment more than what is currently being made. It's dumb for a bunch of reasons, but primarily because it's a false comparison—you're comparing the endless mediocrity of today to the best of the decades prior, completely forgetting about the fact that there was endless mediocrity then too, but you don't hear about it fifty years later because it was mediocre.
I could keep going on this subject, but let me reveal why this is the preamble for a short essay about Beggars Banquet before I go too far. When it comes to the Rolling Stones, there are absolutely times when I wish I could've heard them with fresh ears in the late '60s. I won't go as far as saying that I WISH I WASN'T BORN IN 1988 because of it, but it's an undeniable fact that being born in 1988 did me no favors when it came to cultivating any type of fandom toward the Rolling Stones' discography.
I've already covered the sensation of enjoying the deep cuts more than the hits when I talked about R.E.M.'s Automatic for the People, but there isn't a band in history that embodies this flaw in my musical listening habits than the Rolling Stones. Since I am a human being in America who grew up in a home featuring a device that plays music, I have been intimately familiar with the "hits" in the Stones' catalog for as long as I can remember. Since I was also raised in a home where singles prevailed over albums, I had only been intimately familiar with the hits. No deep cuts growing up. (My dad has nothing against the deep cuts, I'm sure, but his favorite Stones album is a greatest hits album—Hot Rocks—so let that tell you what you need to know).
Probably about six years ago, I realized that my Stones knowledge was woefully inadequate in this regard, and I downloaded in quick succession the famous four-album-run of the turn of the decade—Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, Exile on Main Street (I'm glad it worked out that the first chronologically is also the first alphabetically of those four). The issue I've grappled with in the years since I delved into those four albums is a classic conundrum in my archival musical discovery. Each of these albums features a couple songs that have been ingrained in my brain so deeply that they feel like wallpaper at this point.
Beggars Banquet opens with "Sympathy for the Devil." You know this song. I know this song. It's a good song, possibly even great, but I've heard it so many times that I feel nothing when I hear it now. I am empty. Classic rock radio has sucked the soul out of this song like it was a fucking lobster tail.
That's what I mean when I say I wish I could hear this song in 1968. I think it might've rocked my world, to be honest. An epic song that sings about good vs. evil in the coolest and least cloying way possible. I would've been buying those $5 Rolling Stones concert tickets by the handful. I would've had a "Sympathy for the Devil" poster above my bunk bed, probably.
But I was born twenty years after the song came out, and now, 52 years after the song came out, I couldn't give less of a shit about "Sympathy for the Devil." I suppose we could call it "Apathy for the Devil."
There are other songs on Beggars Banquet, of course (I didn't mean to spend so much time on one song—should've saved some of that apathy for "Street Fighting Man" I guess). It actually always catches me off guard how many Stones songs from this era sound like backwoods hillbilly ditties. The two songs after "Sympathy" are "No Expectations" and "Dear Doctor," two songs during which you can easily see a vision of straw grass in Mick Jagger's mouth. "Parachute Woman" might not be country, but it's certainly country-adjacent. "Prodigal Son" is perfect for floating down the river on what's left of your house after a tornado hits.
For what it's worth, Jagger acknowledged how weird it must've sounded to have these rustic cowboy jamboree songs interspersed so heavily among the blues and rock 'n' roll, calling these songs "pastiche" in 2003. Yeah, no shit. "There's a sense of humour in country music anyway, a way of looking at life in a humorous kind of way—and I think we were just acknowledging that element of the music." Maybe I'm just taking this all too seriously.
But the problem is that I've been told my entire life that the Rolling Stones are one of the most important artists in history, if not the most important non-Beatles band ever. That point has been made so often by my elders that I started to believe it. But then so how does that square with the idea of a "classic" Stones album consisting of about 50% pastiche, jokes that were allegedly supposed to be "humorous" and not actually representative of who the Rolling Stones were at their core?
I seem to be constantly returning to this idea that the Rolling Stones are a band that I struggle with, that I "love to hate" or "hate to love" or whatever. And that's stupid to write about it so often, because it's not even the actual case. I really like the Rolling Stones. There are days when I like them better than the Beatles (let's talk about that some other time). As bizarre as it is to hear what basically amount to country music parodies, I still weirdly enjoy them.
And so we return to the idea that I like them because, at the end of the day, even the parodies are something fucking different than the goddamn hits. Let's also not overlook the fact that there are two sincerely amazing deep cuts on Beggars Banquet, songs that have nothing to do with Jagger's hillbilly persona, and songs that I would choose over anything from Forty Licks any day of the fucking week.
The first song is "Stray Cat Blues," which features one of the toughest Richards guitar riffs in the canon. This is what the Stones should've been doing instead of dicking around like a jug band. This is the badass rock group that everyone loves. The second song, and final song on Beggars Banquet, is "Salt of the Earth." You're gonna roll your eyes when I tell you think, but it's the socialist anthem that we all need right now. "Raise a glass to the hardworking people!" Maybe that's why the Stones don't play is incredible fucking deep cut on tour—can't be socialist when you're charging the hardworking people $350 for a ticket in the nosebleeds.
Despite everything bad I've said about this album in this blog post, I still sincerely enjoy listening to Beggars Banquet. It's not the best Stones album, and it might not even be close to it, but it's a treat all the same. It's the Stones! Still, at the end of the day, I wonder how much more I would've appreciated it if the alleged high points weren't ruined for me, if I wasn't left scrounging around for scraps. I guess we'll never know, since I was born in the wrong generation.
If this album sounds interesting, try this song: "Jigsaw Puzzle"
Stray Observations
- ALBUM COVER: The artwork you see above was the originally intended album cover, depicting bathroom wall graffiti. Apparently, this was too "rude" for wide release, and Beggars Banquet's release was pushed back six months while the Stones fought with their record label over the issue. Obviously, times have changed, and all albums since the '90s feature the toilet cover.
- ALBUM NAME: According to Keith Richards, the band had a general idea in mind of an oxymoron-type phrase, but an art dealer named Christopher Gibbs came up with that specific phrase. Apparently it was going to be called "Tramps Mushup" otherwise. So if you think "Beggars Banquet" sounds silly...
- And I will admit that I have to look it up every fucking time as to whether there is an apostrophe in the title. It makes sense that there isn't, though. The beggars don't own the banquet, they are just there (read this in the voice of my eighth grade English teacher).
- Very interesting to read that Beggars Banquet was considered a "return to the early Stones sound" when it was released. I guess you hear what you want to hear. I hear a country album with a couple spare blues parts. 1968 music critics must've just really loved "Stray Cat Blues."
- CHARTS: Weird to see that neither album nor single, "Street Fighting Man," hit #1 on either Billboard chart. Beggars Banquet peaked at #5 while The White Album was #1. "Street Fighting Man" only made it up to #48, during the reign of "Hey Jude" at #1 (man, I am definitely gonna touch on my Beatles vs. Stones thoughts at some point).
- AWARDS: It was not nominated for Album of the Year at the 1969 Grammys. But don't worry, Richard fucking Harris, a.k.a. fucking Dumbledore, was nominated in that category!
- This was Brian Jones' second-to-last album with any contributions. Apparently, he would just show up whenever he wanted, and occasionally would be told to "get the hell out" of the recording session.
- Still, even with minimal relevant contribution, he's still more essential than Charlie goddamn Watts. FUCK THIS MAN.'
- Yes, that's the vocals of Keith Richards at the very beginning of "Salt of the Earth." Not great, but STILL BETTER THAN CHARLIE WATTS' DRUMMING.
- Okay, that's enough for today. Don't want to get stuck in a Watts hole.
NEXT TIME: Begin to Hope by Regina Spektor
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