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50 years ago today, on July 12, 1962, at London’s Marquee Club, the Rolling Stones made their live debut with a set that featured covers of songs by American bluesmen including Jimmy Reed (“Big Boss Man”) and Bukka White (“Ride ‘Em on Down”). By the end of ‘63, with the lineup of vocalist Mick Jagger, guitarists Keith Richards and Brian Jones, bassist Bill Wyman, and drummer Charlie Watts, the Stones would find their way at or near the tops of singles charts with their covers and, eventually, original songs.
By the mid ‘60s, the Stones, with two-and-a-half- and three-minute R&B- and rock-infused songs like “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” “Ruby Tuesday,” and “As Tears Go By,” were seriously rivaled only by the Beatles. But by the late ‘60s, both acts were doing very separate things, as the Stones grabbed hold of their American influences (Muddy Waters, Little Richard, etc.) and began releasing more disparate material: audacious, structurally advanced songs like “Sympathy for the Devil” and “Gimme Shelter”; bluesy and/or countrified tracks including “Let It Bleed” and “Love in Vain”; and hard-rocking bulldozers like “Brown Sugar” and “Honky Tonk Women.” And, despite all the unconventionality, they ruled the top of the pops through it all. By 1972’s stylistically sprawling Exile on Main St.—the Stones’ best album and maybe the greatest album ever, period—the band had more than earned the right to think of themselves as the best rock-and-roll band in the world.
Later, as the ‘70s wore on, and as most of the bands they came up with burned out or faded away, the Stones kept pressing on, finding success in singles (“Angie, “Fool to Cry,” “Miss You”) and putting together an album, Some Girls, whose material was bettered only by the band’s Beggars Banquet-Exile output. The band’s ‘80s, due to feuding in the Jagger/Richards songwriting partnership, weren’t as kind, seeing just a few songs (“Start Me Up, “Waiting on a Friend,” “Mixed Emotions”) that would keep the Stones relevant. Still, though, those eras and even later periods were enough to cement the band as one of the most successful—critically and commercially—of all time.
The following list is by no means comprehensive, or even exhaustive of the Stones’ noteworthy output. Just about any song from Beggars Banquet–Exile could be here, and that material, 47 tracks in all, would nearly fill up the entire feature. That said, the following 50 still make for a set that identifies all of the most important contours of Jagger, Richards, and company’s 50-year career, consequently laying out some of the songs that have shaped rock and roll, and popular music, as we know it. Enjoy.
Written by Mike Madden (@_mikemadden)
Follow @ComplexMusic
50. “Fool to Cry” (1976)
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49. "Rip This Joint" (1972)
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48. "Mixed Emotions" (1989)
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47. "Star Star" (1973)
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46. "Angie" (1973)
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45. "As Tears Go By" (1965)
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44. "Shattered" (1978)
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43. "Bitch" (1971)
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42. "Plundered My Soul" (2010)
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41. "Ruby Tuesday" (1967)
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40. "It's Only Rock 'n' Roll" (1974
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39. "Jigsaw Puzzle" (1968)
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38. "I Got the Blues" (1971)
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37. "Waiting on a Friend" (1971)
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36. "Under My Thumb" (1966)
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35. "Miss You" (1978)
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34. "Sway" (1971)
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33. "She's a Rainbow" (1971)
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32. "Midnight Rambler" (1969)
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31. "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" (1971)
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30. "Country Honk" (1969)
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29. "Paint It, Black" (1966)
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28. "Let It Loose" (1972)
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27. "Let's Spend the Night Together" (1967)
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26. "Shine a Light" (1972)
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25. "No Expectations" (1968)
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24. "Torn and Frayed" (1972)
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23. "Loving Cup" (1972)
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22. "Heart of Stone" (1964)
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21. "Dead Flowers" (1971)
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20. "All Down the Line" (1972)
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19. "Sweet Virginia" (1972)
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18. "Happy" (1972)
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17. "Jumpin' Jack Flash" (1968)
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16. "Beast of Burden" (1978)
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15. "Tumbling Dice" (1972)
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14. "Time Is on My Side" (1964)
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13. "Street Fighting Man" (1968)
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12. "Let It Bleed" (1969)
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11. "Rocks Off" (1972)
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10. "Wild Horses" (1971)
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9. "Love in Vain" (1969)
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8. "Start Me Up" (1981)
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7. "Gimme Shelter" (1969)
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Album: Let It Bleed
Label: Decca/ABKCO
Producer: Jimmy Miller
Like “Street Fighting Man,” “Gimme Shelter” is an artifact of the rebellious spirit of late-‘60s youth. Opening with distinctive, ominous guitar playing, it’s one of many Stones songs that feels epic, even cinematic. Indeed, Martin Scorsese has used the song in three of his films (Goodfellas, Casino, and The Departed), as did, fittingly, the 1987 documentary Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam. As the song develops, it builds to such intensity that backing vocalist Merry Clayton’s voice cracks around the three-minute mark.
6. "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" (1965)
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Album: Out of Our Heads (US)
Label: Decca/ABKCO
Producer: Jimmy Miller
“(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” hit with the force of a bomb when it first appeared in 1965. As the first Jagger/Richards–penned single to not feature lyrics overtly about love, it became a No. 1 hit on both sides of the Atlantic, remaining on the charts for 14 weeks.
First, the lore. During the Stones’ third US tour, Richards woke up in the middle of the night in his Clearwater, Florida, motel room hearing the riff that would become the one of the most famous in music history. Realizing he had come up with something special, he grabbed a portable tape recorder and laid down a run-through, only to fall asleep right after (“The rest [of the tape] is snoring,” Richards would say).Taking that riff—which, as testimony to what can be done with a limited palette, consists of just three notes—Jagger/Richards added lyrics about the emptiness of commercialism: “When I’m driving in my car/When a man comes on the radio/He’s telling me more and more about some useless information/Supposed to drive my imagination.” Jagger later said the song “was about my view of the world, my frustration with everything,” though its instant commercial and critical success probably alleviated that frustration just a little.
5. "Moonlight Mile" (1971)
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Album: Sticky Fingers
Label: Rolling Stones/Virgin
Producer: Jimmy Miller
On the way to an emphatic string arrangement courtesy of Paul Buckmaster, and through skeletal guitar playing from Jagger and Taylor, the six-minute Sticky Fingers closer details the touring life and its effects, meanwhile alluding to one of the band’s favorite drugs of the time—cocaine—with lyrics like, “When the wind blows/And the rain feels cold/With a head full of snow/Don’t the nights pass slow?” Though it stands as one of the Stones’ most underrated songs, “Moonlight” was raved about by legendary critic Robert Christgau upon release: “[The song] re-created all the paradoxical distances inherent in erotic love with a power worthy of [Irish poet W.B.] Yeats.”
4. "You Can't Always Get What You Want" (1969)
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Album: Let It Bleed
Label: Decca (UK)/London (US)
Producer: Jimmy Miller
With maybe the most distinct intro ever (the serene choir that opens with the as-yet-unheard chorus), Let It Bleed’s seven-minute closer, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” unfolds seamlessly, with help from Richards’ bare strums and Jagger’s rousing vocal improvisation at the end. This is one song that nobody could, or should, go through life without hearing. And is there a more famous Stones line than the titular one?
3. "Brown Sugar" (1971)
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Album: Sticky Fingers
Label: Rolling Stones
Producer: Jimmy Miller
Featuring some of the most driving, to-the-point rhythms rock has seen this side of Chuck Berry, “Brown Sugar” runs through racy, provocative lyrics about a young African-American girl: “How come you taste so good?/Brown sugar, just like a young girl should.” It could be said that no Stones single rocks, or grooves, harder than this one, what with Richards’ legendary riffs and Bobby Keys’ romping sax solo.
2. "Honky Tonk Women" (1969)
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Album: Let It Bleed
Label: Decca (UK)/London (US)
Producer: Jimmy Miller
Marking the debut of Mick Taylor on guitar, “Honky Tonk Women” is beefed up through a pounding (albeit simple) Watts drum rhythm and twanged-out, open-G embellishments from Richards. Lyrically, few songs cover rock’s debauched lifestyle more concisely, as it brims with lines like “I met a gin-soaked bar-room queen in Memphis,” “I laid a divorcee in New York City,” and “I just can’t seem to drink her off my mind.” The cowbell’s a nice touch, too.
1. "Sympathy for the Devil" (1968)
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Album: Beggars Banquet
Label: ABKCO, Decca, London
Producer: Jimmy Miller
As previously mentioned, the Stones began to experiment with “Dylanesque” lyrics around the time of Beggars Banquet. And without question, no song illustrates Jagger and Richards’ sudden poeticism better than “Sympathy for the Devil.” Yes, “Dylanesque” is a very fuzzy term—after all, Bobby D. has traveled so much sonic ground in his career that it's unjust to label him, or his sound, as any one thing. But if we’re talking some of dude’s mid-‘60s epics, like “Desolation Row” and “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding),” then “Sympathy” had much in common with things the Stones’ peer had already mastered. Chronicling everything from Russian royalty to the crucifixion of Christ, the six-minute-plus song is practically heroic in scope, so evocative that it seems to nearly bust open with its Beelzebub-inspired imagery: “I was around when Jesus Christ/Had his moment of doubt and pain/Made damn sure that Pilate washed his hands/And sealed his fate […]”
In turn, “Sympathy” was also one of the Stones’ most musically ambitious songs. Though backed by omnipresent congas and maracas, it still sounded unmistakably rock. Piano chords are hammered and bass lines throb throughout, and a baffling sense of pacing emerges. By the time Richards finally drops in, with his screeching, technically astounding solo, it can feel like you’ve been in the song’s grasp for hours, when it’s really only been three minutes.
Even by the mid ‘60s, for a song to be truly revolutionary, it had to break ground that the standard two-and-half-minute single couldn’t: musically through unfamiliar textures and/or atypical structures, lyrically through unexplored topics and/or images. Following songs like Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone,” Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come,” and the Beatles’ “A Day in the Life,” the Stones used “Sympathy” to take popular music to heights that even they—at least at the outset of their career—probably couldn’t have imagined.