Street Fighting Man

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Street Fighting Man (in German "Street Fighter") is a song by the British rock band The Rolling Stones and can be assigned to the genre of blues rock . It was first released on the December 1968 studio album Beggars Banquet on Decca Records in a length of 3:16 minutes. The song was produced by Jimmy Miller and written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards . It is considered the most political song in the band. Among the 500 best songs of all time , the rock group's song ranks 301st.

History of origin

The original title of this song was Did Everyone Pay Their Dues? (in German about “Has everyone paid their debts / fees?”). The composition was practically identical, the music arrangement very similar, but the text and thus its meaning fundamentally different. This was about an Indian tribal leader and his family.

Street Fighting Man is considered the song of the Stones with the greatest political leaning. The text is about Tariq Ali , a British author, filmmaker and historian of Pakistani descent who organized public demonstrations against Pakistan's military dictatorship around 1968 as part of his work in the student movement . The sentence that appears several times in the text is said to come from him: “ The time is right for a palace revolution. ”(German: for example:“ It's time for a palace revolution . ”) Jagger processes a lot in the text on Street Fighting Man his visit to the anti-war rally in 1968 in front of the American embassy in London , where the police tried horses of 25,000 people forcibly kept under control.

The rising violence among student demonstrators on the left bank of the Seine in Paris as a harbinger of the student protests in France in May 1968 is said to have additionally inspired the song.

In a 1995 interview with Jann Wenner in Rolling Stone magazine , Jagger said :

“Yes, it was a direct inspiration because, by contrast, London was very quiet… It was a very strange time in France. But not only in France, but also in America, because of the Vietnam War and these endless disruptions. [...] I thought that was a great thing back then. This violence was everywhere. I mean, the French government almost fell; Charles de Gaulle got a lot of shit, as he did before, and practically locked himself in his country house. And so the government was almost unable to act. "

The song begins with a riff on the acoustic guitar . The American writer and journalist Richie Unterberger wrote: “[…] this is a great title that immediately captivates the audience with its sudden, bouncy guitar chords and the thunderous offbeat of the drums. The exciting, piercing guitar rhythm is the mainstay of the verses. Mick Jagger's typical half-buried texts seem to casually call the listener to revolution. "

Keith Richards mentioned in 1971, just three years after the title was recorded, in a Rolling Stone interview with Robert Greenfield that the text had been interpreted "in a thousand different ways". He mentioned how Jagger went to the Grosvenor Square demonstration in London and was sued by police, but insisted that the song was "really ambiguous".

Unterberger tries to interpret it: “Maybe they (the Rolling Stones) meant that they would have liked to have been on the front lines, but were in the wrong place at the wrong time; maybe they also meant - like John Lennon in the Beatles song Revolution - that they did not want to be involved in the violent confrontation or that they simply did not care about the tumult. "

Other writers interpret this a little differently. In 1976 the author Roy Carr rated the song as a "great summer street-corner rock anthem" and puts Street Fighting Man on the same level as Summer in the City , Summertime Blues and Dancing in the Street . In 1979, American music critic Dave Marsh wrote that the basic motive of the Beggars Banquet album was “to simultaneously playfully encourage action and not admit that actions can make a difference. As usual, the Stones were much more correct, if treacherous, philosophers on this point than any of their colleagues. "

In 1985, after integrating Street Fighting Man into the addition of several appearances on his Born-in-the-USA tour, Bruce Springsteen said : “This one line 'What can a poor boy do except to sing in a rock and roll band?' is one of the greatest rock 'n' roll lines of all time. […] [The song] has something of an on-the-edge-of-the-abyss thing when you reach it. And that's funny, there's humor in it. "

Jagger said in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine about the response 30 years later to the song: “I don't know if it has any. I don't know if we should really play it. I was convinced to bring it to the [1994] tour [for the album] Voodoo Lounge because it seemed to fit the picture, but I wasn't [sure] sure if it really had any meaning for today. [...] “Even so, the song has been performed on most of the Rolling Stones' tours since 1968.

text

The three-verse song was inspired by the demonstration against the Vietnam War on March 17, 1968 in London, which turned into a street battle . Mick Jagger was an eyewitness to this demonstration and had Tom Keylock , the Rolling Stones chauffeur, drive him to the venue in Grosvenor Square.

It begins with a description of the situation: It is summer and marching steps can be heard everywhere, which probably means that the uprisings are not limited to London. The following is a clear position on this: "the time is right for fighting in the street": The time is ripe to fight on the street. The specific reason for the unrest is not mentioned directly in the song, but the fact that a palace revolution is being sought whose implementation is immediately regulated by the question: “What can a poor boy do exept to sing in a rock 'n' roll band. “: What can a poor boy do other than sing in a rock 'n' roll band. This is justified with: "'Cause in sleepy London town there's just no place for street fighting man!": "Because in London, this sleepy city is simply no place for street fighters". Therefore, singing in a rock band also represents a kind of compromise solution.

The last two stanzas are identical. Here the lyrical self appears directly and is characterized as a “Street Fighting Man”, a street fighter whose name is “disturbance”, who screams and roars, kills the king and insults his servants. This engagement of the fighter is put into perspective again with the statement that the poor boy ("poor boy") only has the opportunity to sing in a rock 'n' roll band because there is no place in sleepy London for a street fighter. The striking repetition of this statement in the lyrics in each of the three stanzas suggests that the songwriters set their own position in the context of the politically motivated street fighters to music at this time. Therefore, Street Fighting Man is also considered a political song.

admission

Street Fighting Man began recording at Olympic Studios in March 1968 and continued into May and June of that year.

In 2003, drummer Charlie Watts said:

“ I put Street Fighting Man on a Keith cassette with a 1930's toy drum kit called the London Jazz Kit Set, which I bought from an antique store and still have at home. Everything was in a small suitcase and there were also wire hangers into which the drums could be hung, which were like little tambourines [but] without bells. […] The snare drum was fantastic because it had a very thin skin with another drum underneath, but only with two loops of intestine. [...] Keith loved playing with the earlier tape recorders because they could be overdriven. When overdriven, they sounded fantastic, even though they were not [actually] intended for that purpose. We usually played in one of our bedrooms on our tour. Keith sitting on a cushion and playing the guitar and the little kit was a way of getting closer to him. The drums were really loud compared to the acoustic guitar and the [different] position of the two made the [special] sound. There was always a great backbeat . "

occupation

In the original line-up, Mick Jagger was the main singer of the song and responsible for the percussion instruments , Keith Richards took over the background vocals and the acoustic guitar , which was equipped with an amplifier , and the electric bass and electric guitar , Brian Jones played the sitar and tambura , Charlie Watts was on drums , Dave Mason played a Shehnai and Nicky Hopkins played the piano .

In the earlier, unpublished version of Did Everybody Pay Their Dues , Rick Grech played an electric viola .

Recorded in 1969 and released for the first time in 1970, the Rolling Stones' live album Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! The line-up changed as follows: Mick Taylor took the position of lead guitarist and Bill Wyman played bass. Piano, wind and plucked instruments have been omitted. The song was 10th on the track list with a length of 4:03 minutes.

publication

Street Fighting Man was released as the pre-single of the album Beggars Banquet on August 31, 1968 in the USA. The publication was popular and reached number 48 in the US charts . A better ranking was missed because numerous radio stations refused to play a song with anti-subversive lyrics and thus support incitement to violence. This stance was reinforced by the fact that the song was released within a week of the 1968 Democratic National Convention riots in Chicago . Mick Jagger found this to be very positive and said that he was more pleased with the boycott of the stations, because when something like this was last done in America, it had sold a million times. He also noted that Street Fighting Man was of course anti-subversive, but it was stupid to believe that a revolution could be started with a record. Keith Richards added in the debate that the fact that a handful of Chicago radio stations were not playing the song shows how paranoid they are. At the same time, the Rolling Stones were asked to give concerts. “If you really want us to cause problems, we can do it with a couple of stage appearances. We are much more subversive when we go on stage. "

The B-side of the single was No Expectations , which was also included on Beggars Banquet . For reasons unknown, no publication was recorded in the United States prior to 1971 (supported by Surprise, Surprise , previously unpublished in the United States).

The US single version of the song, which was recorded in mono with an additional choir singing as an overdub , differs from the stereo version of the Beggars Banquet album .

The song was included in the compilations Through the Past, Darkly (Big Hits Vol. 2) (album version), Hot Rocks 1964–1971 (album version), Singles Collection: The London Years (1989: album version, 2002 original Single version) and Forty Licks (album version) included. Many of the Rolling Stones concerts, at which the band played the song since their 1969 US tour, were recorded and featured on the live albums Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! , Stripped , and Live Licks released.

Cover versions

Street Fighting Man was by many artists gecovert .

Street Fighting Man also found its way into various films. It plays a role in the credits of the 2006 comic book V for Vendetta and in the 2007 documentary Sicko . It is produced gangster film in 1990 In the forecourt to hell and in the soundtrack of the published 2009 stop-motion - animated film Fantastic Mr. Fox heard. In the film comedy Dirty Work , released in 1998, reference is made to the song. In the 2013 published Action - thriller White House Down the song is also played in the credits. The music project 1,000 Days, 1,000 Songs published the title on its website in March 2017 as a protest against the policies of US President Donald Trump .

Relationship with the Altamont Free Concert

At the Rolling Stones' Altamont Free Concert on December 6, 1969 at Altamont Speedway , California, Meredith Hunter , one of the spectators, was stabbed to death. The event was filmed and featured in the documentary Gimme Shelter . Street Fighting Man was the last song played by the Rolling Stones at the concert.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rolling Stone Magazine's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Retrieved March 26, 2013 .
  2. ↑ Lyrics: Did Every Pay Their Dues. Retrieved March 25, 2013 .
  3. ↑ Malcolm Azania: Tariq Ali: The time is right for a palace revolution. (No longer available online.) In: Vue Weekly. 2008, archived from the original on December 21, 2008 ; accessed on November 14, 2008 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.vueweekly.com
  4. ^ A b Roy Carr: The Rolling Stones: An Illustrated Record . Harmony Books, New York 1976, ISBN 0-517-52641-7 , pp. 55 .
  5. ↑ a b The Rolling Stone Interview: Jagger Remembers. (No longer available online.) December 14, 1995, archived from the original on November 9, 2010 ; Retrieved March 11, 2012 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.jannswenner.com
  6. ^ A b c Richi Unterberger: Street Fighting Man. In: allmusic. Retrieved July 22, 2006 .
  7. ^ Robert Greenfield: Keith Richards: Interview. In: Rolling Stone (magazine). August 19, 1971, accessed March 26, 2013 .
  8. ↑ Dave Marsh : Rolling Stone Record Guide . Randow House Inc., New York 1979, ISBN 978-0-394-41096-8 .
  9. ↑ Dave Marsh: Glory Days: Bruce Springsteen in the 1980s . Pantheon Books, New York 1987, ISBN 0-394-54668-7 , pp. 229-230 .
  10. ↑ a b c Street Fighting Man. Retrieved March 26, 2013 .
  11. ^ The Roots of “Street Fighting Man”. How the London Anti-War Protests Helped to Inspire a Rolling Stones Song. (No longer available online.) In: Rock Cellar Magazine. 2012, archived from the original on November 27, 2012 ; accessed on March 26, 2013 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.rockcellarmagazine.com
  12. ^ Cultural event: Anti-war demonstration in Trafalgar Square. In: Goethe-Institut London. Retrieved March 12, 2013 .
  13. ^ Tom Keylock: Rolling Stones fixer from the 1960s. In: The Independent. 2009, accessed on August 19, 2019 .
  14. ^ The Rolling Stones: According to The Rolling Stones . Chronicle Books, San Francisco 2003, ISBN 978-0-8118-6967-6 .
  15. ^ Album Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! Retrieved March 10, 2013 .
  16. ↑ Mark Paytress: The Rolling Stones: Off the Record . Ed .: Chris Charlesworth. Omnibus Press, London 2003, ISBN 978-1-84449-641-9 , pp. 153 (preliminary edition for the work of the same name from 2005).
  17. ↑ a b c Mark Paytress: The Rolling Stones: Off The Record . Omnibus Press, London 2005, ISBN 978-0-7119-8869-9 , pp. 153 .
  18. ↑ Musikmarkt Online ( Memento of the original from February 17, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed February 17, 2016 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.musikmarkt.de
  19. ↑ I'm Free. 2001, archived from the original on February 24, 2007 ; accessed on August 6, 2007 .
  20. ^ Film review by Maurice Lahde on critic.de, accessed on September 10, 2013
  21. ↑ 1,000 Days, 1,000 Songs. Dave Eggers & Jordan Kurland, accessed March 29, 2017 .
  22. ↑ Meredith Hunter. In: Find a Grave. April 2, 2006, accessed March 6, 2013 .
  23. ↑ Setlist of the Altamont Free Concerts. In: Setlist.fm. Retrieved March 26, 2013 .