Today, Dec. 5, marks the 45th anniversary of the Rolling Stones' classic 1969 album Let It Bleed, which was their last to feature founding member Brian Jones, who tragically passed away five months before the album's release at age 27. It also marked the band's first release featuring Jones' replacement, Mick Taylor. To celebrate the anniversary of this incredible album, here are its nine songs ranked, from worst to best.
9. Monkey Man
"Monkey Man" isn't a bad song (the guitar riff in the verses makes that very clear), but the lyrics are a bit much. "I'm a cold Italian pizza/I could use a lemon squeezer"; seriously, Mick? You wrote the lyrics for "Sympathy for the Devil" the previous year, so you could have clearly done better than this.
8. Let It Bleed
Being the title track and all, "Let It Bleed" has the promise to be a stellar track, but it comes up short. Though it utilizes the album's signature country/blues hybrid, no hook really ever arises, though the slide guitar playing from Ry Cooder is one of the album's highlights.
7. Live With Me
On an album ranging from apocalyptic rock to country jams, "Live With Me" is perhaps the most straightforward rock song of the bunch, which makes it both refreshing and slightly disappointing. The opening bassline is incredibly promising, sounding almost like a test run for "Bitch" two years later, but coming after the chilling "Gimme Shelter" and the charming "Country Honk," the rest of the song is relatively safe and predictable.
6. You Got The Silver
During their late '60s-early '70s period, country music was just as important to the fabric of the Rolling Stones as the blues, as seen in tracks such as "You Got The Silver." The track is a gorgeous blend of country and blues, and marks Keith Richards' debut as a lead vocalist on a Rolling Stones song.
5. Love in Vain
Though the Rolling Stones were mostly performing original material by this point in their career, they still made time to occasionally pay tribute to their old blues heroes, such as Robert Johnson. "Love in Vain" was written by Johnson back in the '30s, and the Stones do a beautiful interpretation of it for Let It Bleed, boosting the song's arrangement to include some electric guitar leads and mandolin (courtesy of Ry Cooder).
4. You Can't Always Get What You Want
Being the last song on perhaps the last great rock album of the '60s, "You Can't Always Get What You Want" serves as a sort of requiem to the entire decade, a sobering declaration that the counterculture ultimately failed in its attempts to change the world. That may have been a pretty depressing sentiment (depending on your politics), but it also provided optimism for the decade to come, with its promise that sometimes "you get what you need."
3. Country Honk
Though "Honky Tonk Women" is one of the Rolling Stones' most famous songs, it was originally recorded in a more stripped down, acoustic fashion for Let It Bleed as "Country Honk." As someone who loves Hank Williams and old-school country, I actually prefer "Country Honk" to "Honky Tonk Women" and love its sloppy, off-the-cuff atmosphere, which sounds like someone snuck a microphone into Mick Jagger's living room while he was having a get together with some of his musician friends.
2. Midnight Rambler
Being the second longest song on Let It Bleed (at nearly seven minutes), "Midnight Rambler" should come off as a monotonous bore, but it's perhaps the most organic and dynamic composition on the entire album. Though "krautrock" isn't something that often comes to mind when thinking of the Stones, the song's propulsive middle section sounds like something that Can would have thrown onto Tago Mago, if it had been 18 minutes long.
1. Gimme Shelter
While "You Can't Always Get What You Want" closes out Let It Bleed on an optimistic note about the turbulence of the '60s, "Gimme Shelter" opens up the album with far more paranoia, fear, and pessimism about the decade's turmoil. It's perhaps the greatest song that the Stones ever wrote, in no small part due to the monumental vocal performance of Merry Clayton, who sings the chorus so forcefully that her voice cracks on more than one occasion.
What are your favorite songs from Let It Bleed? What did I get wrong? Let me know down in the comments section!
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