{"id":315885,"date":"2025-12-14T17:04:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-14T17:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/315885\/"},"modified":"2025-12-14T17:04:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-14T17:04:09","slug":"the-rolling-stones-song-keith-richards-hailed-as-a-beauty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/315885\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rolling Stones song Keith Richards hailed as a “beauty”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Keith<\/p>\n

(Credits: Far Out \/ Marcel Antonisse \/ Anefo)<\/p>\n

Sun 14 December 2025 15:30, UK <\/p>\n

Now that the frost has well and truly nipped the air, it gets us to thinking about all our favourite colder-edged tunes. As it turns out, The Rolling Stones<\/a> were imagining that even in the most polar opposite of climates.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With the seismic acclaim of Exile on Main St to follow up on, the early 1970s could have proved to be a total creative drought for the band as they felt pressured to somehow mine gold. But if there was ever trepidation, bravado and rock and roll hedonism soon took over with the production of their 1973 album Goats Head Soup. <\/p>\n

But the first track of the album, \u2018Winter\u2019, was somewhat of an exception for the typically tight-knit group. As much as he criminally took the credit, Keith Richards did not actually have anything to do with the song\u2019s creation or process; he\u2019s the only member of the band who doesn\u2019t appear on the track at all. But nevertheless, in his eyes, there was always something about it that glimmered with the band\u2019s essential formula. <\/p>\n

The slight irony in all of this is that \u2018Winter\u2019 was recorded amid the searing, baking heat of Jamaica, where the Stones based themselves<\/a> in those days as tax exiles from their native UK. As much as the landscape in itself no doubt provided a muse, in this instance it was the antithesis to where Mick Jagger\u2019s mind managed to wander.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it sure been a cold, cold winter\/ And the wind ain\u2019t been blowin\u2019 from the south\/ It\u2019s sure been a cold, cold winter\/ And a lotta love is all burned out,\u201d he sings in the opening lines, reminiscing on a good old English snowstorm but equally the pain and loneliness that can often come with that. The striking image was one that Richards branded as \u201ca Mick beauty\u201d. <\/p>\n

But Jagger was only really part of the equation \u2013 the other Mick on the team was just as instrumental to powering that song with the edge of heartbreak and yearning it possessed by the bucketload. Although it was one of his swan songs with the band, Mick Taylor\u2019s swooning, blistering solo added something to the track that only he was able to create. <\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cI always liked the way Mick picked out those pretty melodies around the tunes,\u201d Jagger chimed in. \u201cHe was very good at that sort of thing<\/a>.\u201d In a way, then, \u2018Winter\u2019 represented the beauty of the two Micks \u2013 one who was the wordsmith, and one who delivered the melodies. He may have loved the song, but it did make Richards look like a bit of a spare part.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But clearly, those Jamaican skies and that seminal time in his life had a massive effect on Richards as a person. \u201cThat was \u201973, the year Marley and the Wailers put out Catch a Fire. That\u2019s also the year the soundtrack of The Harder They Come came out. I remember being in Jamaica, there was a feeling in the air. Jamaica was starting to make a mark on the map. After the sessions, I just moved back and I stayed there for months. It became my second home, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n

And as such, although \u2018Winter\u2019 was palpated with his absence, it slowly became a song that meant a lot to Richards for the symbolism it represented in his life at the time. It was the opportunity to literally sit back, relax, and enjoy the view \u2013 and maybe for the first time, realise and appreciate just how massive the talents of his bandmates really were.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ Marcel Antonisse \/ Anefo) Sun 14 December 2025 15:30, UK Now that the frost…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315886,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,128,15747,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-315885","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music","10":"tag-the-rolling-stones","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}