Honky Tonk Women

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Honky Tonk Women
The Rolling Stones
publication 4th July 1969
length 3:03
Genre (s) Hard rock
text Mick Jagger , Keith Richards
music Mick Jagger, Keith Richards

Honky Tonk Women ( English for 'pub women' or 'tavern women') is a song by the British composer duo Mick Jagger and Keith Richards .

background

Jagger and Richards wrote the song while on vacation in Brazil. You wanted to spend the turn of the year until the beginning of January 1969 with your friends at Copacabana. However, it was too turbulent for them and were happy to have a friend invited to a ranche near São Paulo .

There they experienced how the Brazilian “ Caipiras ” lived their rural life in the interior of Brazil. Inspired by cowboys, horses and spurs, as Richards later put it, they sat on a farmhouse porch and improvised chords to an old Hank Williams country song .

In the song, Jagger sings about how he gets together with two different honky tonk women. The first is a "gin-soaked, bar-room queen" ( English for, gin-soaked Barkönigin ') in the city of Memphis, possibly a prostitute. He speaks of the second as a divorced woman from New York City. As is so often the case in songs by the Rolling Stones, the text is packed into language images that are daring enough to avoid being banned on the radio and still give the impression of being lewd.

A good example is the line "She blew my nose and then she blew my mind" ( English for 'You blew my nose and then my mind'). In English usage, the words point in the direction of a sexual or drug-related context, but do not give sufficient cause for censorship, because it is not clearly understandable what exactly is being said.

The band recorded two versions of the title. The world-famous hit that went on sale as a single and a second version, called Country Honk , with slightly different lyrics and released on the album Let It Bleed . In March 1969, the Rolling Stones began the country variation Country Honk . These sessions took place with the participation of the founding member Brian Jones and he was probably also involved in these first recordings and demo tapes. A little later he left the Rolling Stones and died shortly afterwards.

Around the spring of 1969, the song was developed into the popular version, which starts with a cowbell and the catchy electric guitar motif, even before Mick Taylor joined the group. In an interview for the music magazine Crawdaddy! highlights Richard Taylor's influence on the further development of the song: “… the song was originally written as a real Hank Williams / Jimmie Rodgers / 1930s country song. And it got turned around to this other thing by Mick Taylor, who got into a completely different feel, throwing it off the wall another way “( English for 'The song was originally a real 1930s Hank-Williams-Jimmie-Rodgers-Country -Song was written. With his completely different feeling for music and how he interpreted the song, Mick Taylor turned me around '). Taylor remembered 1979 as follows: "I definitely added something to Honky Tonk Women, but it was more or less complete by the time I arrived and did my overdubs" (Eng .: I definitely added one or the other to Honky Tonk Women, but it was more or less finished when I put in my overdubs).

The single was released in the UK the day after Jones' death and in the United States a week later. It reached number one in various charts for several weeks in 1969, especially in the English-speaking world. On the B-side of the single was You Can't Always Get What You Want . In contrast to the country version Country Honk, Honky Tonk Women was never part of a studio album.

The title is still part of the show at many of the Rolling Stones' concert appearances. Jagger repeatedly announced it as "a song for all the whores in the audience" ( English for 'a song for all the whores in the audience').

occupation

reception

When the song hit the charts, Rolling Stone magazine paid homage to Honky Tonk Women as "likely the strongest three minutes of rock and roll yet released in 1969" ( English for 'probably the strongest three minutes of rock and roll, published in 1969 so far were ') and they deserved to take twenty minutes. In April 2010 the song was listed at number 116 on Rolling Stone 's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time .

Charts and chart placements

Charts Top ranking Weeks
Chart placements
Germany (GfK) Germany (GfK) 2 (16 weeks) 16
Austria (Ö3) Austria (Ö3) 4th (16 weeks) 16
Switzerland (IFPI) Switzerland (IFPI) 1 (13 weeks) 13
United Kingdom (OCC) United Kingdom (OCC) 1 (17 weeks) 17th
United States (Billboard) United States (Billboard) 1 (15 weeks) 15th

Awards for music sales

Honky Tonk Women was awarded a gold record for over one million units sold in the United States in 1969. In the UK, the single sold over 250,000 copies. Worldwide sales add up to over two million singles sold.

Country / Region Award Sales
Awards for music sales
(country / region, Award, Sales)
United States (RIAA) United States (RIAA) Gold record icon.svg gold 1,000,000
United Kingdom (BPI) United Kingdom (BPI) - 250,000
All in all Gold record icon.svg 1 × gold
 1,250,000

Main article: The Rolling Stones / Music Sales Awards

Interpretations of other artists

  • Ike & Tina Turner played the song in 1970 for their album Come Together and was also used as the B-side for two of their singles from it.
  • Waylon Jennings used the title on his 1970 LP Singer of Sad Songs .
  • Joe Cocker presented the song with altered lyrics on his live album Mad Dogs & Englishmen from 1970.
  • Elton John sings and plays the song on the piano, only accompanied by drums and bass, to be heard on his live album " 17-11-70 "
  • Ricky Nelson recorded a version for the 1971 album Rudy the Fifth with the Stone Canyon Band .
  • Weird Al Yankovic added the title to the Rolling Stones polka medley "The Hot Rocks Polka".
  • Willie Nelson and Leon Russell used the song for Nelson's 1985 duet collection Half Nelson .
  • Taj Mahal released the title on his album Blue Light Boogie in 1999 . This version was featured in the TV series Dr. House used in the episode "Sex Is Underrated". Taj Mahal used the song again in 1997 in the tribute album Paint It Blue: Songs of the Rolling Stones .
  • Jerry Lee Lewis and Kid Rock featured the song on Lewis' 2006 album Last Man Standing
  • Humble Pie performed the song in 1973, to be found on the album Eat It .
  • Albert King played the song on his 1971 album Lovejoy .

Country Honk

Country Honk
The Rolling Stones
publication 5th December 1969
length 3:10
Genre (s) Country rock
text Mick Jagger , Keith Richards
music Mick Jagger, Keith Richards
album Let it bleed

Country Honk is the original composition of Honky Tonk Women . Nevertheless, it was only released on the album Let It Bleed a few months after the hard rock variation .

The inclusion of Country Honk occurred predominantly during the Olympic Studios , violin and all the songs were in Elektra recorded -Studio. Producer Glyn Johns suggested that the violin play by Byron Berline , violinist for the Flying Burrito Brothers band, should be recorded on the sidewalk outside the studio to create a live atmosphere. Sam Cutler , the Rolling Stones' tour manager, sounded the car horn at the beginning of the recording. There are pirated copies that contain neither the violin playing nor the slide guitar by Taylor. Richards repeatedly stated that Country Honk was the original version, not Honky Tonk Women .

occupation

credentials

  1. ↑ https://www.ndr.de/ndr1niedersachsen/Rolling-Stones-Honky-Tonk-Women,rollingstones300.html
  2. ↑ Kappa Magazine . Retrieved October 2, 2016.
  3. ↑ Honky Tonk Women . Keno.org. Archived from the original on February 1, 2014. Retrieved March 27, 2014.
  4. ↑ Country Honk - Lyrics . Keno.org. Archived from the original on January 8, 2015. Retrieved March 27, 2014.
  5. ↑ Steve Appleford: The Rolling Stones It's Only Rock and Roll: Song by Song . Schirmer Books, New York 1997, p. 88.
  6. ↑ Ian McPherson: Track Talk: Honky Tonk Women . Retrieved August 27, 2009.
  7. ^ Martin Elliott: The Rolling Stones: Complete Recording Sessions 1962-2002 . Cherry Red Books, 2002, ISBN 1-901447-04-9 , p. 148.
  8. ↑ https://www.songfacts.com/facts/the-rolling-stones/honky-tonk-women
  9. ↑ https://greilmarcus.net/2014/07/22/rolling-stones-honky-tonk-women-071169/
  10. ↑ https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/500-greatest-songs-of-all-time-151127/the-rolling-stones-honky-tonk-women-36230/
  11. ↑ a b c d e Chart sources: DE AT CH UK US
  12. ↑ a b Gold & Platinum. riaa.com, accessed August 17, 2020 .
  13. ^ A b Joseph Murrells: The Book of Golden Discs: The Records That Sold a Million . 2nd Edition. Limp Edition, London 1978, ISBN 0-214-20512-6 , pp. 266 .
  14. ↑ Ike & Tina Turner - Honky Tonk Woman 1970 . YouTube. Retrieved January 6, 2012.
  15. ↑ https://www.discogs.com/de/Taj-Mahal-Blue-Light-Boogie/release/2829133
  16. ↑ House MD Episode Guide: Season Two # 214 "Sex Kills" . Housemd-guide.com. March 7, 2006. Retrieved March 27, 2014.
  17. ↑ Cutler, Sam. You Can't Always Get What You Want - My Life with the Rolling Stones, the Grateful Dead and Other Wonderful Reprobates ; ISBN | 978-1-74166-609-0