‘All Down the Line’ is one of the greatest songs on one of The Rolling Stones’ greatest albums, Exile On Main Street. It bursts with the energy and attitude of all their best work.
This was the first track recorded for Exile On Main Street and Mick’s pick as the first single, though he was overruled when the band went with ‘Tumbling Dice‘ instead.
‘Tell Me’ was the first song co-written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.
At the time they were making an ok living recording covers of R&B songs, but their management knew the real money was in publishing. So the boys reluctantly kicked off what would become one of the most prolific and celebrated songwriting partnerships in music history.
In a neat bit of confluence, the first day of 2014 coincides with my 2,000th Song of the Day post. Funny to think that’s been destined to be the case since I posted Song of the Day #1 on July 25, 2008, but I didn’t know it until now.
Los Angeles is so different from San Francisco. In the immediate aftermath of traveling to both cities, my take is that I love visiting San Francisco as a tourist but I could see myself living in L.A.
It sounds funny, but we kind of ran out of touristy things to do in Los Angeles after a few days. So we spent a lot of time doing things we might do back home — going to the movies, shopping, walking through pretty promenades. And browsing at what has to be the greatest music store in the country — Amoeba Music.
I’m still in the process of discovering just how great the Rolling Stones were. Perhaps I should say “are” as the band is still touring together 42 years after today’s song was released, but I doubt they’ve had anything as good as Sticky Fingers or ‘Moonlight Mile’ in them for a long time now.
They still sound great, though. Keith Richards is as ingenious a guitar player as ever and Mick Jagger still sings the hell out of every song. But it was their songwriting that really set them apart.
