space to be explored

[Life, Keith Richards' autobiography - excerpt]----------------...We didn't care what they wanted out there.  That was one of the charms of the Stones.  And the rock-and-roll stuff that we did come out with on Beggars Banquet was enough.  You can't say apart from "Sympathy" or "Street Fighting Man" that there's rock and roll on Beggars Banquet at all.  "Stray Cat" is a bit of funk, but the rest of them are folk songs.

We were incapable to writing to order -- to say, We need a rock-and-roll track. ...It was not the interesting thing about the Stones, just sheer rock and roll.

A lot of rock and roll on stage, but it was not something we particularly recorded a lot of....And also it kind of made the up-tempo numbers stand out even more, against a lovely bedrock of really great little songs like "No Expectations."

...We had barely explored the stuff where we'd come from or that had turned us on.  The "Dear Doctor"s and "Country Honk"s and "Love In Vain" were, in a way, catch-up, things we had to do.  The mixture of black and white American music had plenty of space in it to be explored.

We also knew that the Stones fans were digging it....Without thinking about it, we knew that they'd love it. 

...By then we were thinking, hey, give us a good song, we can do it.  We've got the sound and we know we can find it one way or another if we've got the song -- we'll chase the damn thing all around the room, up to the ceiling.  We know we've got it and we'll lock on to it and find it.

...That's the freedom recording gives you, to [play] around with the sound.  And it's not a matter of sheer force; it's always a matter of experiment and playing around.  Hey, this is a nice mike, but if we put it a little closer to the amp, and then take a smaller amp instead of the big one and shove the mike right in front of it, cover the mike with a towel, let's see what we get.--------------------[end excerpt]

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{Life -- Copyright 2010, Mindless Records LLC.  Back Bay Books / Little, Brown and Company.  Hachette Book Group.  237 Park Ave.  New York, New York.  10017.}

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