The Albums That Matter: Between the Buttons

Joe runs through every album on his iPod, mostly in alphabetical order, and offers some brief thoughts. Check out previous columns HERE.

Between the Buttons

The Rolling Stones

1967

Jesus, it feels like just yesterday we were talking about the Rolling Stones in this column. Okay, it was three months ago, but time works differently during a pandemic. Don't worry, even though the Rolling Stones have a penchant for album names that start with the letter B, I will refuse to check out Black and Blue, Bridges to Babylon, A Bigger Bang, and Blue and Lonesome until we are safely in the Cs. There's no need to type more about Charlie Watts than I have to.

And even though, yet again, the Rolling Stones seem to get an exorbitant amount of attention on this blog relative to how much I actually enjoy them (which is "most pretty much like them sometimes"), I'm actually really excited to spotlight Between the Buttons. As someone who is not familiar at all with over 50% of the Stones' discography, and as someone who is more willing to champion an underdog than a normal person, I might be willing to say that Between the Buttons is my favorite Rolling Stones album.

The reason which, if you read the hemming and hawing in my Beggars Banquet write-up, you should know already. To restate that thesis for those who skip The Albums That Matter during its weekly turn on the blog, I have a problem with the "classic" Rolling Stones albums because their massive radio hits have been inscribed into my skull my entire life, so not only do those songs on those albums seem tired before I even push play, but the songs around those hit songs consequentially feel somewhat like filler.

But Between the Buttons doesn't have that problem, because there are no massive radio hits on this album (well, at least the version I listen to—more on that in a sec). In other words, none of these songs are featured on Forty Licks, the greatest hits album that my parents bought when Boomer nostalgia for the Stones was cresting. When I first downloaded Between the Buttons (maybe a year or two ago?), I was hearing every song for the first time. It was a fucking REVELATION.

All the music sounded fresh to me, which is probably ironic since these tunes are older than the ones I am intimately familiar with. It's just really cool to see this band operating on such an effortless level before they entered their imperial phase and became legends. Songs like "My Obsession" operate like opposites of their big hits, like if "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" existed in the Upside Down. But it's still fun, because it doesn't carry the baggage that "Satisfaction" does. This is a rock band having fun. I have never said that about the Rolling Stones before.

Admittedly, liking Between the Buttons requires a stomach for the baroque alongside the pounding rock. The accordion on "Back Street Girl" makes the Stones sound like they are performing in a French alleyway; the kazoo and the sitar on "Cool, Calm & Collected" make the Stones sound like they are performing for some strangely rococo hillbillies. This is all Brian Jones, by the way, who apparently gave up trying to sound like he was part of a rock 'n' roll band in the final years of his life, before he gave up on a lot more than that.

I have the stomach for it, though, because I'll take the Stones in any mode besides bang-out-the-hits-for-millions-of-dollars mode. If they want to sound like the Who (like on "All Sold Out"), I'm fucking here for it. If they wanna do some '50s rockabilly homage (like on "Please Go Home"), I'm fucking here for it. If they wanna cut the bullshit and play a deep cut like they really were the best rock band in history, putting a knife to the Beatles' throat and daring them to make a move (like on "Miss Amanda Jones"), then, obviously, I'm here for it.

I should probably clarify at this point that there are technically two versions of Between the Buttons floating around out there. You may be aware of this if you are a Beatles fan, but: in the 1960s, U.S. music publisher would get copies of U.K. albums and chop them up for deviously craven purposes. Sometimes, songs were taken from albums and compiled on other made-up albums (more products = more profits). Sometimes, hit songs were added to albums so that the dumb American public would have more of a reason to buy it.

The latter is the case here. When Between the Buttons made it stateside, the double-sided single of "Let's Spend the Night Together" b/w "Ruby Tuesday" was placed on the album, and "Back Street Girl" and "Please Go Home" were both taken off. So, if you were listening to Between the Buttons in America in 1967, or if you haphazardly downloaded the album in 2018 without crosschecking the Wikipedia article, then you're going to be listening to an album that DOES contain hit singles that were featured on your parents' Forty Licks Disc 1, and my entire blog post above is rendered moot.

This annoys the hell out of me, honestly. Not only because the U.S. bastardization of Between the Buttons makes the album markedly worse (in my opinion), but also because the importance of Between the Buttons is muddled when there are two different versions existing at all. I'm not sure why the Stones haven't done what the Beatles have done in the past couple decades, and confirmed that the U.K. versions of the albums are the official ones, and then releasing an official odds-and-ends collection of the non-album singles.

For what it's worth, it looks like Between the Buttons is the final Stones album to exist in two forms. Their next album, Their Satanic Majesties Request, exists in one form worldwide. But the Stones have the power to go back and correct America's mistakes, and I don't know why they haven't done it.

Well, I have a suspicion or two. It's possible that Mick Jagger just doesn't give a fuck about his older records, and not just because they aren't netting him as much profits. In later interviews, when talking about the album, Jagger has said that he is "really disappointed" with how Between the Buttons came out (shades of the Killers vs. Battle Born). The man ostensibly has created enough music that he still likes that he doesn't have to think about Between the Buttons if he doesn't want to.

An argument against this theory, though, is that he went on to say that "I don't know, it just isn't any good. 'Back Street Girl' is about the only one I like." "Back Street Girl" is one of the songs that the U.S. version cut. So it would make sense that Jagger would want to disown the U.S. version, right? Since it's made up entirely of songs that he doesn't like. Wouldn't he want to restore the U.K. version as the only version, and make sure that the only song he likes is on there? Shouldn't he? Why doesn't he care? C'mon man!

But now I'm just getting way off track. These are my own idiosyncrasies when it comes to consuming music. Listen to whatever version you want, I don't care. I'm just making the case that Between the Buttons is a good album, and it's better without the distractions of a(n incredibly overrated) "Ruby Tuesday." There are dozens of worthy deep cuts in the Rolling Stones canon that you won't hear on WMGK, and you just happen to find twelve of them on Between the Buttons. That's what makes this album so special. Your uncle has been to every Stones concert at the Linc since '04 but he doesn't know "Miss Amanda Jones." He is a fraud. That's what makes this album special.

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If this album sounds interesting, try this song: "Connection"

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Stray Observations

• I do sincerely promise to try to not cover the Stones again for a long time in this column by not downloading any other album that starts with B until their spot in the alphabetical order is passed. But I also have promised myself to eventually get around to becoming familiar with the entire discography (30 studio albums). My ultimate goal is to create a Best Deep Cuts mixtape to compete with the Forty Licks Best Of of my youth. 40 of the Stones' best deep cuts. It's going to be called Tongue Scrapers.
• Speaking of albums not covered in this column, I missed Aftermath, which I got into after I would've covered it alphabetically. Aftermath was released nine months before Between the Buttons, but to my ears, they are radically different albums. Aftermath seems like a dour album, darker and angrier than a typical Stones release. I'm not sure if Between the Buttons' bright baroque pop was a reaction to that, or a simple leveling up.
• Speaking of baroque pop, there's nothing so fancily quaint as the talky section at the end of the album, on "Something Happened to Me Yesterday," where Jagger acts like an old-timey radio host, wishing his audience a thank you and a goodnight. Jagger described it as like "something I remember hearing on the BBC as the bombs dropped," which is a joke because Jagger isn't that old, but it's a fun description anyway. Apparently the song is really about being on LSD... that makes more sense.
• ALBUM TITLE: "Between the buttons" is British slang for "undecided." Allegedly, Watts asked the producer Andrew Oldham what the name of the album was, and that's what Oldham responded, so the band just took him literally.
• Watts asked him because he was drawing a comic strip to accompany the album's artwork. It took me a while to find a good quality copy of it. I'm sorry to report that Watts is as good of a cartoonist as I am.
• Also, seems like there was a falling out between Oldham and the band after Between the Buttons, and after producing all their albums up until this point, he had nothing to do with what would follow (i.e. one of the most successful runs in rock 'n' roll history).
• Oldham had been responsible for half-firing original Stones member Ian Stewart because he "looked too old," and wouldn't fit the profile of the Stones being a bunch of misfit ruffians (even though Bill Wyman is two years older than Stewart). He remained the Stones' studio pianist and road manager until he passed away in 1985. I think if he could see the Stones now, very old and very unbefitting of that original profile, he might have a strong word to say about it.
• ALBUM COVER: Wikipedia has a whole section about it, but mainly it's two paragraphs of explanation as to why Brian Jones looks like an asshole. I fucking love it. I love how he is the only one who understands who dumb and unimportant photo shoots are. I wonder what the Stones would look like today if Jones hadn't gone off the deep end.
• CHARTS: As noted, the only songs released as singles are the songs not included on my version of Between the Buttons. ("Ruby Tuesday" went to #1, somehow.) The album itself went to #2. The Beatles at #1 would've been a good guess, but they were actually blocked by THE MONKEES. Woah.
• YOUR MOMENT OF CHARLIE WATTS SUCKITUDE: You might be inclined to say that Charlie Watts actually sounds like he gives a fuck on that nasty "My Obsession" beat, until you realize that he just straight up played the same fucking beat that he does on "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction." He has never passed up a chance in his entire life to prove that he is the laziest drummer in history.

NEXT TIME: Beyond the Fleeting Gales by Crying