Tampa bound and Memphis too

Listening to the Rolling Stones' Exile on Mail Street album (CD) is like a trip -- not a journey, but rather a vacation or even just a long weekend -- strolling on a pier, watching the beauty of the water -- picking an orange off an orange tree -- walking in some countryside in France -- sipping a drink in a humble but interesting hole-in-the-wall nightclub -- enjoying benign, loose, flowing interactions with engaging people -- an artist painting images on the sidewalk...And -- or, however...when the listener starts this thing over, and arrives for the second time at the second song in the line-up, "Rip This Joint", then it is less like picking an orange off a tree & more like oranges in a blender, being made into orange juice or a fancy, obscure dessert -- starting off with frantic, celebratory string-strumming -- I think it's what Chuck Berry does, which Eric Clapton described as "double-string," I think -- or maybe "two-string."  ...Then from the strings, you're picked up and taken on a roller-coaster / tilt-a-whirl of sassy, wild, dream-inducing saxophone-playing --
Mama says yes, Papa says no,
make up you mind 'cause I gotta go.
I'm gonna raise hell at the Union Hall,
Drive myself right over the wall.

Rip this joint, gonna save your soul,
Round and round and round we go.
Roll this joint, gonna get down low,
Start my starter, gonna stop the show.
Oh, yeah!

Mister President, Mister Immigration Man,
Let me in, sweetie, to your fair land.
I'm Tampa bound and Memphis too,
Short Fat Fanny is on the loose.
Dig that sound on the radio,
Then slip it right across into Buffalo.
Dick and Pat in old D.C.,
Well they're gonna hold some shit for me.

Ying yang, you're my thing,
Oh, now, baby, won't you hear me sing.
Flip Flop, fit to drop.
Come on baby, won't you let it rock?

Oh, yeah!  Oh, yeah!
From San José down to Santa Fe,
Kiss me quick, baby, won'tcha make my day.
Down to New Orleans with the Dixie Dean,
'Cross to Dallas, Texas with the Butter Queen.

Rip this joint, gonna rip yours too,
some brand new steps and some weight to lose.
Gonna roll this joint, gonna get down low,
Round and round and round we'll go.
Wham, Bham, Birmingham, Alabam' don't give a damn.
Little Rock and I'm fit to top.
Ah -h--h!!  Let it rock!!...

{Mick Jagger / Keith Richards.  Exile on Main Street,
1972.}

"Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia" says,
-------------- [excerpt] - ..."Rip This Joint" is one of the fastest songs in the Stones' canon, with a pronounced rockabilly feel.  Jagger's breakneck delivery of the song's lines spells out a rambling tale set across America from the perspective of a foreigner. 

Richards comments on the speed of the song:  "It's one of the fastest ones of the lot and it really keeps you on your toes."

...In his review of the song, Bill Janovitz says, "The result is a frenetic pace that approaches the tempos played by hardcore punk banks roughly ten years later, certainly recognizing the raw excitement of early roots rock & roll years before...Though the band most likely did not sit down and preconceive it as such, the record seems to set out to cover nothing less than the wide-open spaces of America itself via the nation's music -- from urban soul to down-home country to New Orleans jazz.  'Rip This Joint' sets the tone for this journey, as a modern-day "Route 66" travelogue from Birmingham to San Diego."

...Nicky Hopkins performs Johnnie Johnson-like piano. ...[end excerpt]

----------------------------
Johnnie Johnson played piano in a band with Chuck Berry in their early days -- Johnson appears in the Berry documentary, "Hail, Hail Rock & Roll"...here, another Chuck connection, along with the guitar style....

Sometimes when I really really like a song, I'll read where a critic is using words like "rockabilly" and "roots" while I'm wishing-I'd-'ve-said-that but am only pleading, "Turn it up..."

-30-