{"id":627996,"date":"2026-06-08T19:18:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T19:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/627996\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T19:18:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T19:18:11","slug":"the-1968-anthem-keith-richards-has-listened-to-over-500-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/627996\/","title":{"rendered":"The 1968 anthem Keith Richards has listened to over 500 times"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Keith<\/p>\n

Credit: Far Out \/ Alamy<\/p>\n

Mon 8 June 2026 16:00, UK <\/p>\n

It is a common theme within rock and roll that artists eventually grow tired or even resentful of their most popular material. At this point in The Rolling Stones<\/a>\u2019 extensive and illustrious career, though, it seems there are still a few old classics that Keith Richards will never grow tired of churning out. <\/p>\n

Since their first emergence way back in 1962, when most of their modern-day audience were wearing short trousers, or weren\u2019t yet acquainted with this mortal coil, The Rolling Stones have remained one constant of the ever-changing rock and roll landscape. Although, to their credit, Mick Jagger and the gang have released upwards of 30 studio albums, their hedonistic golden age of the late 1960s<\/a> and early 1970s is still where the vast majority of their classic anthems and fan favourites arise from.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Given that their golden age was well over half a century ago, at this point, Keith Richards\u2019 existence would be rather depressing if he had grown to detest those tracks. Regardless of the quality of their new material<\/a>, there are a few Stones tracks that will never be omitted from their setlists, and yet Richards seems rather content with that fact. Particularly, as it turns out, in the case of their 1968 classic \u2018Jumpin\u2019 Jack Flash\u2019. <\/p>\n

A non-album single recorded during the band\u2019s Beggars Banquet sessions, \u2018Jumpin\u2019 Jack Flash\u2019 became one of The Stones\u2019 surprisingly low number of chart-topping singles<\/a> in 1968. Not only that, but it went on to define the sound of the blues rock heroes for a number of years in its wake, something that came as a surprise to Richards. <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know that I was aware of creating a \u2018trademark\u2019 sound on that track,\u201d he once shared, per Uncut<\/a>. \u201cIn a way, the style kind of imposes itself upon you. I don\u2019t quite know how it all works.\u201d<\/p>\n

Richards\u2019 discovery of that sound came courtesy of the primitive cassette recorder he used to lay down the demo. Through overloading its tiny microphone with the kind of anarchic acoustic guitar you would expect from a Rolling Stone, the single\u2019s distinctive guitar tone was born, and endeared itself to Richards forevermore. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat song has got a lovely spirit on it, and it\u2019s a joy to play,\u201d the guitarist declared. \u201cFor all of its limitations\u2026 in the musical sense, the wonderful rhythmic possibilities still keep you interested.\u201d<\/p>\n

Further reading: From The Vault<\/p>\n

Explaining his unique philosophy as a rock and roll veteran, he added, \u201cThe thing is, with a good song, I find, you ask, \u2018Hey, do you look forward to playing it the 500th time?\u2019 And if you do, then it\u2019s a good song.\u201d<\/p>\n

By that metric, \u2018Jumpin\u2019 Jack Flash\u2019 is among the greatest songs that Keith Richards has ever written. Not only has it retained its rock and roll appeal among The Stones\u2019 audience, but it has never aged a day in the eyes of Richards, either. To date, in fact, the band have performed that 1968 single well over 500 times, with a current estimate stretching over 1,200 performances.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Whether the guitarist still looks forward to playing it is up for debate, but he certainly hasn\u2019t grown sick of its sound over the past nearly 60 years. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

ADD AS A PREFERRED SOURCE ON GOOGLE \"\"\/ <\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Far Out \/ Alamy Mon 8 June 2026 16:00, UK It is a common theme within rock…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359470,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[137400,96,25721,128,15747,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-627996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-137400","tag-entertainment","tag-keith-richards","tag-music","tag-the-rolling-stones","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627996","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=627996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}