Released 1973
Dancing With Mr. D
100 Years Ago
Coming Down Again
Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)
Angie
Silver Train
Hide Your Love
Winter
Can You Hear The Music
Star Star
"After Exile, such a beautifully set up list of songs that all seemed to go together, it was difficult for us to get that tightness again. We hadn't been in the studio for a year. But we had some good ideas. "Coming Down Again", "Angie", "Starfucker", "Heartbreaker". I enjoyed making it. Our way of doing things changed while we were recording it, and slowly I became more and more Jamaican, to the point where I didn't leave.'" (Keith Richards, 2010)
Once upon a time, if you'da asked me to rate Goats Head Soup I'd have said it sucked. One of their worst. The beginning of the end. The only copy I ever owned was one i picked up for $1 at a garage sale. The inner sleeve had been lost, replaced with one from a Hot Tuna album. It was scratched. But it had a couple good songs I wanted for the post-Exile Stones comp which I've made and remade many times, always with different track listings.
Fast-forward to the 00's, and I'm now burning my Stones comp to CD, rather than cassette. So I get hold of the lesser albums from the library, rip them, and start building my comp from the tracks.
And here, in my late 30's, I discover that, while It's Only Rock and Roll and Black and Blue yield only some tracks (actually, most of Only is pretty good), I really wanted all of Goats Head. Even the duff tracks.
"Dancing With Mr. D" - much maligned, I dig it. Keef's guitar uncoiling the song like a snake (is it really any sillier than the Stones other horror-movie songs? I think not). The Stones were always assimilating whatever was going on in the musical world around them, inhaling it and exhaling it, Stones-ified. They've been doing it since the beginning, taking in The Beatles, Merseybeat, Dylan, Motown, Stax, psychedelia, the Velvets, The Band in the 60's. In the 70's (and since), they just kept it up. Goats Head is one big inhale/exhale. "Mr. D" is Alice Cooper country - but it's all Stones, down to the "Sympathy"-style whoops in the background and Mick's street violence lyrics. Hidin' in a corner in New York City/Lookin' down a .44 in West Virginny.
It's a slow album. Even the rockers are slow. "Dancing" is slinky, not manic. It gives way to "100 Years Ago", which illustrates another ish. It's a patchwork song. Part Band-ish, loping roots, then country lilt on the bridge ("call me ... lazybones"), then veering into a Billy Preston-led jam before falling back to earth. It's all longing and regret:
Now all my friends is wearing worried smiles, Living out a dream of what they was; Don't you think it's sometimes wise not to grow up?
Went out walkin' through the wood the other day; Can't you see the furrows in my forehead? What tender days, we had no secrets hid away
Good stuff, and easy to miss, buried in the murk and haze of the album's sound. Mick has rarely before or since sounded so vulnerable.
Then Keef answers him. "Coming Down Again", a lugubrious soul ballad, sung by Mr. No-Sleep, with some gentle backing vocals from Mick ("sky fallin' down"). More regrets. "Slipped my tongue in someone else's pie; Tasting better ev'ry time;He turned green and tried to make me cry; Being hungry, it ain't no crime." Was this the story of the Brian-Anita-Keef triangle?
Things pick up speed. "Heartbreaker" kicks in with crashing electric piano chords and "Bitch" style horns. More violence, drugs, New York streets. Another .44. Mick in social protest mode - which isn't his strongest. But the music kicks hard - its the one Stones classic on the record.
"Angie" - the big hit and the big ballad. Ack! I used to hate this one, too. Despite Mick's affected vocal, now I find it affecting. The air of regret and sadness continues. The strings work.
Side Two is where things start to break down. "Silver Train", a loping blues-rocker about a prostitute, with shining Mick Taylor slide. "Train" seems to be a minor fave of Stones fans (frequently covered), maybe cause its the closest to Stones 101 this album gets.
What's left is one minor classic, two basically filler jams (with interesting qualities), and one Chuck Berry-style rocker that many adore. The jams are "Hide Your Love", a loping Jimmy Reed on quaaludes blues that sounds fine but never goes anywhere, and the more intriguing "Can You Hear The Music", an odd bit of ethno-musical wandering, shimmering Latin/African/who knows flashing around - the whole track seems to emerge from a strange, drug-fueled haze. Or enter one. It doesn't go anywhere, either, but its a fun trip. The rocker is "Star Star" aka "Starfucker". This one's much loved by Stonesophiles, mainly cause Mick says "fucker" repeatedly on the chorus. Me, I've always gone for "honey I miss your two-tone kisses, legs wrapped around me tight/If I ever get back to Fun City girl, gonna make you scream all night". It also has some of the dirtiest lyrics in the whole Stones catalog (which is saying a LOT!). But it's no masterpiece.
In between all this, comes "Winter". And that's not a masterpiece, either. But its close. Very much in the "Moonlight Mile" mode (my favorite Stones ballad). Strummed open chords. It's sure, been a long, long winter. And Mick rolls out his tale of longing and loneliness (on an album loaded with regret and remorse).
And I wish I'd been out in California
When the lights on all the Christmas trees went out
But I been burnin' my bell, book and candle
And the restoration plays have all gone 'round
Goats Head may be the least of the Jimmy Miller-era (i.e. the Golden Age) of Stones albums. It may be lacking in top-of-the-line material. But its a statement of how strong the band was at that moment that an album of lesser material resonates as powerfully as this. I keep coming back to it, again and again. That's a sign.
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