Rolling Stones Songs, In Ascending Creepiness -The Toast

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Previously: The Beatles, In Ascending Creepiness.

Perfectly Pleasant: “I Need You Baby (Mona)” 

I tell you Mona what I wanna do
I’m gonna build a house next door to you
Can I see you sometime?
We can blow kisses through the blinds
Yeah can I out come out on the front
And listen to my heart go bumpety bump
I need you baby that’s no lie
Without your love I’d surely die

Only Vaguely Unsettling: “You Can Make It If You Try” 

Sometime you had to fall
Don’t you know sometime you want to cry
Don’t it make you feel so bad sometime
You wanna lay down and die

Coming On Too Strong: “Time Is On My Side”

Now you always say
That you want to be free
But you’ll come running back (said you would, baby)
You’ll come running back (I said so many times before)
You’ll come running back to me
Oh, time is on my side, yes it is
Time is on my side, yes it is
You’re searching for good times
But just wait and see

Slightly Sinister: “Grown Up Wrong” 

Well, you’ve grown up all wrong, well you’ve grown up all wrong
You come on too strong, well you’ve grown up all wrong
Well, you were easy to fool when you were in school
But you’ve grown up all wrong

This Seems To Be A Recurring Theme For You (Why Would You Even Expect Her Mom To Know Those Things): “Stray Cat Blues” 

I can see that you’re fifteen years old
No, I don’t want your ID
I can see that you’re so far from home
But it’s no hanging matter
It’s no capital crime
Oh yeah, you’re a strange stray cat
Oh yeah, don’tcha scratch like that
Oh yeah, you’re a strange stray cat
I bet, bet your mama don’t know you scream like that
I bet your mother don’t know you can spit like that

I Don’t Really See What Money Has To Do With This: “High and Dry”

It’s lucky that I didn’t have any love towards her
Next time I’ll make sure that the girl’ll be much poorer

No, The Age Thing Is Definitely A Thing For You: “Little Queenie” 

There she is again standing over by the record machine
She’s looking like a model on the cover of a magazine
Why, she’s too cute to be a minute over seventeen
Meanwhile, I was thinking
She’s in the mood
No need to break it
I got the chance
I ought to take it

I..Hmm: “Sweet Black Angel”

But the gal’s in danger,
Yeah, the gal’s in chains,
But she keep on pushin’,
Would ya take her place?
She countin’ up the minutes,
She countin’ up the days,
She’s a sweet black angel,
Not a sweet black slave.

Some Questions Maybe Do Not Need To Be Asked: “Brown Sugar”

Scarred old slaver knows he’s doing alright
Hear him whip the women just around midnight
Brown sugar, how come you taste so good?
Brown sugar, just like a young girl should

Right-ho: “Live With Me” 

Come on now, honey
Don’t you wanna live with me?
Whoa, the servants they’re so helpful, dear
The cook she is a whore
Yes, the butler has a place for her
Behind the pantry door

Well, Recyclers For One: “Yesterday’s Papers” 

Who wants yesterday’s papers
Who wants yesterday’s girl
Who wants yesterday’s papers
Nobody in the world

Everyone Is Entitled To His Opinion I Guess But I’m Sure She’s Not All That Bad If You Gave Her A Chance: “Stupid Girl” 

Look at that stupid girl
She bitches ’bout things that she’s never seen
Look at that stupid girl
It doesn’t matter if she dyes her hair
Or the color of the shoes she wears
She’s the worst thing in this world

This Isn’t Nearly As Fun As Uptown Girl Or Even The Backstreet Boys: “Backstreet Girl” 

Don’t want you out in my world
Just you be my backstreet girl
Please don’t be part of my life
Please keep yourself to yourself
Please don’t you bother my wife
That way you won’t get no help
Don’t try to ride on my horse
You’re rather common and coarse anyway
Don’t want you out in my world
Just you be my backstreet girl

Well, They’re Not Really Her Friends Then: “Ride On, Baby”

By the time you’re thirty, gonna look sixty-five
You won’t look pretty and your friends will have kissed you goodbye

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What I'm getting from this is that The Rolling Stones prefer girls to be young enough that the girls don't realise how gross The Rolling Stones are.
I think "I..hmm" sums up almost everything they wrote.
Where's Under My Thumb????? I swear every time that song comes on I get twitchy and vaguely unsettled in a rapey way.
5 replies · active 590 weeks ago
Under My Thumb! Dude, you know you can just break up with her, right?
I was gonna say this, though I thought maybe it wasn't included because it is so OBVIOUSLY creepy. Like, too creepy for the list. Creepy!
Oh my glob I was listening to the Scott Pilgrim soundtrack on the way to work today. Somehow I had missed the words to this song..? I ended up screeching like some kind of raptor and blindly punching at buttons to skip it. Creepy overload.
PERFECT song to misandrize, though
I thought that was actually explicitly about domestic abuse, so too self-aware for this list.
Ohhh, I never got until now that "50 Foot Queenie" by PJ Harvey was a response to "Little Queenie". Also, PJ Harvey could certainly give the Rolling Stones a run for their money re creepiness.
1 reply · active 590 weeks ago
'Little Queenie' was written by Chuck Berry! To open a whole other can of worms.
Oh God, I can't even listen to Brown Sugar anymore after reading the lyrics. I get shivers just thinking about it. So very awful.

"How can anyone with so many vests be so mad" is an excellent question.
5 replies · active 590 weeks ago
I shudder now to think how much I sang along to the chorus of that song when I was a kid. Had no idea what it was about. I wonder if my parents ever caught all the lyrics.
Whenever they go on about how music now is more corrupt lyrically, I quote back songs like this that they played around me all the time.
Ooo, I want a compendium.
I used to sing "brown sugar / how come you taste so good? / brown sugar / just like a sucrose should" but gave it up after a while because the original song just creeped me out too much.
I kind of figured it was bad, but I really had no idea it was THIS bad. That's just horrifying and disgusting.
It was used in a Pepsi commercial in the 90's. We can just pretend he's talking about Pepsi, right?
I am – once again – forced to admit that I pay way too little attention to lyrics, even as I am singing them. I’m looking at you, Brown Sugar. I knew it was “like a young girl should” and “just around midnight” but somehow missed the rest of that? Off to hang my head in shame… again…
Jagger looks just like Theon Greyjoy in that picture, y/y?
1 reply · active 590 weeks ago
I've seriously been waiting for them to cast Alfie Allen as Mick Jagger in a Stone biopic. I mean, look at him!
See, now this is a list that I fully support.

Oh, god, the tags. LOL forever at "i don't know who else is in this band."
Emotional Rescue needs to be mentioned. It's altogether creepy.
This is why my immediate reaction to "Moves Like Jagger" was "WHAT, THE RACIST RAPEY KIND?"
This was the only thing I needed on this particular Monday. Despite being reasonably affectionate towards the Stones (even/especially after I read "Life", which is actually pretty fascinating if unsettling), I do think they have some of the most uncomfortable lyrics out there. But then again, I was raised on Zeppelin, so...do with that what you will.
1 reply · active 590 weeks ago
"Life" was such a great read, both for the insight into the era and the peek inside the mind of Keith Richards. I like the part where he's casually explaining that sometimes you just need to fire a gun into the floor to be taken seriously, and he didn't know why everybody was so upset, because obviously he already knew that the downstairs neighbors weren't in at the time. Or even just the opening scene, where as Caitlin Moran puts it, he gets pulled over driving a car made of drugs while wearing a hat made of drugs. Not a decision-making process often discussed on the page.
"Stray Cat Blues" was one of the ones that I really listened to and then had a "god dammit why do all my favorite songs have to be about date rape" moment, which distressingly, has happened multiple times. When I kill all the men, the first thing I do will be write songs about informed consent. And killing all the men.
goddamnit.
Cannot wait for the Beach Boys one. Maybe then I can exorcise the creepy crawlies I get every time I hear 'I'm Waiting For The Day'.
Pretty sure that "Little Queenie" isn't originally a Stones song; it's a cover of a Chuck Berry song (which doesn't make it any less creepy)
I used to love "Brown Sugar." I never could understand the lyrics. Now that I have looked them up, I want to go back in time and, at all the college parties at which I danced to "Brown Sugar,"leave instead. I feel dirty. I really do.
jorgediablo's avatar

jorgediablo · 474 weeks ago

I like to think, and would like to continue to think, that Brow Sugar is about heroin. Not sure if I can..

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