Thursday March 18, 2021 “Time is on My Side” The Rolling Stones
Earlier in the week Culture Club suggested philosophically that ‘time won’t get me time’ and here we have the Rolling Stones offering a counterpoint with ‘time is on my side’. And after all isn’t that what great rock & roll does, create valuable dialog?
This is early Rolling Stones, before band founder Brian Jones joined the 27 club ‘drowning’ in his swimming pool, before their manager Andrew Loog Oldham demanded that the band start writing their own songs, before Mick Jagger learned how to be a frontman from the James Brown school of performing and long before they became known as ‘the greatest rock & roll band in the world’.
This song was originally recorded by Irma Thomas, a much more exciting version IMHO, and then recorded twice by the Stones, first with a heavier organ introduction and then this version which is more guitar oriented.
As the Rolling Stones were emerging as rock stars in the UK behind the already successful Beatles they were positioned as a darker, more dangerous version of the Beatles and they were marketed with the slogan “Would you let your daughter marry a Rolling Stone?”. The Stones were actually good friends of the Beatles rather than competitors.
Unconfirmed rumor but interesting, and aren’t those always the best, that Mick Jagger was being considered for the lead role in the movie Clockwork Orange with the rest of the Stones as his Droogs. Jagger had appeared in the film Performance earlier, a very strange movie.
Stay safe and well...and time is on our side, yes it is.