The excesses of the rock \u2018n\u2019 roll lifestyle make it hard to remember everything about one\u2019s career with detailed clarity, which might be why a Rolling Stones track that hit No. 1 in the fall of 1973 has multiple backstories, most of which contradict one another. On their own, each story has a certain level of plausibility (even the explanation that there is no explanation). When listed out altogether, suddenly, none of them seems likelier than the other. So, who really was Angie, anyway?<\/p>\n
The titular character of The Stones\u2019 1973 track, \u201cAngie\u201d<\/a>, from Goats Head Soup could be plenty of people\u2014or no one at all, depending on which band member you asked and when. One of the most salacious theories is that Mick Jagger wrote the song about David Bowie\u2019s wife, Angie Bowie. In her memoir, Backstage Passes<\/a>, Angie wrote about catching her husband and Jagger in bed together. \u201cI felt absolutely dead certain that they\u2019d been screwing. It was so obvious, in fact, that I had never even considered the possibility that they hadn\u2019t been screwing,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n According to this theory, Jagger wrote \u201cAngie\u201d as a sort of apology. But per Jagger himself, he wasn\u2019t even the one who wrote the song. Keith Richards did, and he had no in-bed romps to apologize for (with Bowie, anyway). However, Richards\u2019 explanations are no less murky.<\/p>\n Keith Richards Offers Conflicting Backstories for No. 1 Rolling Stones Hit<\/p>\n \u201cAngie\u201d by The Rolling Stones topped the charts in the U.S. in the fall of 1971. The song was a softer offering compared to songs like \u201cPaint It Black\u201d<\/a> and \u201cStreet Fighting Man\u201d, which would make sense, given the state of mind Keith Richards was in when he wrote it. In his memoir, Life<\/a>, he recalled being in a Swiss rehabilitation clinic while his partner, Anita Pallenberg, gave birth to their daughter. He wrote what would later become \u201cAngie\u201d in one afternoon, although he clarified, \u201cIt was not about any particular person. It was a name, like \u2018Ohhh, Diana.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t know Angela was going to be called Angela when I wrote \u2018Angie\u2019. Anita named her Dandelion. She was only given the added name Angela because she was born in a Catholic hospital where they insisted that a proper name be added,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n Richards offered a slightly contradicting story in the liner notes of a best-of compilation<\/a> from 1993. In this interview, Richards claimed he wrote \u201cAngie\u201d sometime after Angela was already born. \u201cThe name was starting to ring around the house,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I\u2019m not into writing about my babies. Angie just fitted. I mean, you couldn\u2019t sing \u2018Maureen.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Adding to the mystery of who \u201cAngie\u201d might really be is the fact that Jagger contributed most of the lyrics, which paint a bleak picture of a failed relationship. \u201cAll the dreams we held so close seemed to all go up in smoke.\u201d For this reason, some listeners speculated Jagger wrote the song about his relationship with Marianne Faithfull<\/a>.<\/p>\n No matter who the song was actually about, \u201cAngie\u201d has become a beloved addition to The Rolling Stones\u2019 catalogue, enjoyed by Angies and non-Angies alike.<\/p>\n Photo by Robert Knight Archive\/Redferns<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The excesses of the rock \u2018n\u2019 roll lifestyle make it hard to remember everything about one\u2019s career with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":239520,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,216,2156,1735],"class_list":{"0":"post-239519","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-rock-music","11":"tag-the-rolling-stones"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}