crucial riffs

        Recently here we were recalling Bob Dylan saying those songs in the mid-1960s - he didn't know where they came from.

        I wanted to see if Keith Richards had a similar observation about Rolling Stones music:

-------------------- [excerpt from Life, Keith's autobiography] -------------- "Street Fighting Man," "Jumpin' Jack Flash" and half of "Gimme Shelter" were all made just like that, on a cassette machine.  I used to layer guitar on guitar.  Sometimes there are eight guitars on those tracks....

        That was a magic discovery, but so were these riffs.  These crucial, wonderful riffs that just came I don't know where from.  I'm blessed with them and I can never get to the bottom of them.  

When you get a riff like "Flash" you get a great feeling of elation, a wicked glee.  Of course, then comes the other thing of persuading people that it is as great as you actually know it is.  You have to go through the pooh-pooh.  "Flash" is basically "Satisfaction" in reverse.  Nearly all of these riffs are closely related....

... "Flash" is particularly interesting.  "It's alllll right now."  It's almost Arabic or very old, archaic, classical, the chord setups you could only hear in Gregorian chants or something like that.  

        And it's that weird mixture of your actual rock and roll and at the same time this weird echo of very, very ancient music that you don't even know.  It's much older than I am, and that's unbelievable!  It's like a recall of something, and I don't know where it came from.

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