Released 24 August 1981 Length 3:31 | Genre Blues rock, hard rock Label Rolling Stones/Virgin | |
Recorded January–March 1978, June–October 1979, April–June 1981 Writer(s) Jagger/Richards/Ronnie Wood | ||
"Black Limousine" is a song by The Rolling Stones featured on their 1981 album Tattoo You.
Contents
The song
"Black Limousine" is one of the few credited to Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood (though incidentally one of two featured on Tattoo You). "Black Limousine" is a hard blues number (described as "fast mid-tempo blues of no specific nature" by Jagger) which heavily hearkens back to the Rolling Stones' earliest recordings from their ABCKO/London albums. Using a heavy bellow, Jagger delivers his lines and spells out the growing rifts in an aging romance:
On the lyrics, Richards said in 1981, "That song does have a more generous view of relationships with women... I guess, because the women in our lives at the moment have made a change in our attitudes toward it. I guess because everything that comes out from the Stones is just as it comes out... That's how we used to feel about it, and that's how we feel about it now. This is purely a guess... but it seems logical that the people you're with are the ones who are gonna influence you most, whether you intend it or not. Mick might intend to sit down and write a real Stones song - you know, 'Blechhh! You cruddy piece of shit, you dirty old scrub box!' But obviously, that's not the way he's feeling now. It's not the way I'm feeling now."
On the music, Wood said in 2003, "'Black Limousine' came about from a slide guitar riff that was inspired in part by some Hop Wilson licks from a record that I once owned... And there was another guy called Big Moose, who I've never heard of before or since... He was an old slide guitar guy who had one particular lick that he would bring in every now and again. I thought, 'That's really good, I'm going to apply that' - and so subconsciously I wrote the whole song around that one little lick, building on it, resolving it and taking it round again... That was something that clicked musically straight away with the guitars and drums and Mick, and then we immediately got into sparring about the lyrics for it, since it was obviously crying out for some words... Mick's got his own style and that's why I let him interpret it in his own way..."
Recording and aftermath
Recording began in January and ran through March 1978 during the band's sessions at Paris' Pathé Marconi Studios for the album Some Girls. "Black Limousine" would again be brought out to be worked on by the band during the 1979 sessions for Emotional Rescue. However it would again return to the vault before again re-emerging during the Tattoo You sessions in mid-1981. With Jagger on vocals and shrieking harmonica, Richards and Wood performing the song's electric guitars, with Wood providing the solo. Ian Stewart performs the song's piano. Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman perform the song's drums and bass, respectively.
On his rare credit, Wood continued, saying, "I fought until I was blue in the face to get the credit, going on and on: 'I wrote that, I wrote that.' One of the lessons I had to learn was that if you want to get a credit, it has to happen there and then in the studio, as you're recording it."
"Black Limousine" was performed heavily by the band during their American Tour 1981/European Tour 1982. It was also performed during the 1995 leg of the Voodoo Lounge Tour. A recording was featured as a bonus track on the Japanese release of 1995's Stripped, as well as being the b-side to the album's lead single "Like a Rolling Stone".