'Exile on Main Street'

Drugs, dirt and decadence? Divine. (The Bus 3.30)

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The Stop

Released on 12 December 1972, Exile on Main Street is the 10th English and 12th American studio album by the Rolling Stones. Produced by the Stones and Jimmy Miller, and featuring guest musicians Nicky Hopkins (piano), Jim Price (horn), and Bobby Keys (sax), the band’s first double album was released to mixed reviews but by the end of the decade had become recognised as a masterpiece. Recorded largely at Keith Richards’s rented villa Nellcôte in Villefranche-sur-Mer on the Côte d'Azur in southern France, the album is noted for its free-wheeling, disorganised, party feeling - largely because that is exactly the environment in which it was recorded.¹

A ‘darker and more personal album’ than the band’s previous work, Exile on Main Street is noted for its raw, unpolished sound achieved by the live recording of the tracks. The result is a ‘sprawling, weary double album encompassing rock and roll, blues, soul, and country.’ The bleakness found in the Stones’s previous three albums - Beggar’s Banquet (1968), Let it Bleed (1969) and Sticky Fingers (1971) - is taken to an ‘extreme’ through lyrics reflecting the band's personal experiences of drug addiction, decadence, and exile. Having decamped to France to avoid a punitively heavy tax bill,² the band by now was defining the ‘outlaw rock'n'roll lifestyle.’ High-profile drug busts, the death by drowning of founding member Brian Jones, the near death by overdose of Jagger’s former girlfriend Marianne Faithfull, and the murder of a fan at the Altamont festival by Hell's Angels,³ all informed a hedonistic atmosphere which led to, in the ‘best possible way … an album made by a bunch of drunks and junkies who were somehow firing on all engines.’

Unable to find a suitable recording studio, the band decided to record in the ‘cavernous, multi-roomed basement of Nellcôte,’⁴ parking their mobile recording studio outside in the driveway. Difficulties arose immediately: the intense heat of the humid basement caused the guitars to go out of tune, communication issues with the mobile studio meant Miller had to run back and forth from the truck to the basement to give instructions, and the band had to set up their instruments in separate rooms. In addition, by this point Richards had developed a full-blown, daily heroin addiction that meant recording sessions were scattered and unpredictable, often not beginning until late at night with whatever band members happened to be around and conscious.

The primary result of this environment is that the album differs musically from the slicker productions of the band’s previous ones. Jagger’s vocals are often buried, and instead of brief, repetitive phrases, the music is a ‘series of dark, dense jams, with Keith Richards and Mick Taylor spinning off incredible riffs and solos.’ The band’s relatively new country sound is as ‘lived-in and complex’ as their experiments in soul and gospel. The individual songs - including the ‘masterpieces’ ‘Rocks Off,’ ‘Tumbling Dice,’ ‘Torn and Frayed, ‘Sweet Virginia,’ ‘Happy,’ ‘Let it Loose’ and ‘Shine a Light’ - ‘blend together, with only certain lyrics and guitar lines emerging from the murk.’

Exile on Main Street is the kind of album that is ‘gripping on the very first listen,’ but which repays each subsequent encounter by revealing something new. Few albums - ‘let alone double albums’ - are as ‘rich and masterful,’ and for Stones fans it is not only one of their best records, but one that ‘sets a remarkably high standard for all of hard rock.’ It is also Richards's ‘swan song of sorts, a final blast of rock'n'roll energy before he descended into a protracted heroin addiction that would often make him seem – and sound – disconnected from the rest of the group during live shows.’ From this point in their career, Mick Jagger would step in to steer the band’s direction, but though there are ‘some great moments on subsequent albums,’ the Stones would never again sound ‘so sexy, so raucous and abandoned, so low-down and dirty.’

Of course, the only way to experience what The Guardian called a ‘messy, inchoate, rock'n'roll masterpiece; the Rolling Stones in excelsis,’ is to listen to it yourself. So, when you have the time, follow this link - but be sure to listen to it in order - no shuffling!

The Detour

Today’s Detour is to Steve Mould’s ‘Space filling curves filling with water’, a very satisfying video (12:06) which explains fractals and curves by using water to illustrate their utter coolness. Space filling curves are fractals that- while one dimensional - nevertheless are able to fill 2 or 3 dimensional space. Don’t let that put you off - the models and explanations are more than clear, and it’s certainly worth a watch!

Space filling curves filling with water

The Recommendation

Today’s Recommendation is Alfred Hitchcock’s Frenzy (1972). Hitchcock’s penultimate production, the film - written by Anthony Shaffer⁵ and starring Barry Foster, John Finch and Alec McGowan - is the story a serial killer - known as the ‘Necktie Murderer’ for his method of dispatching his victims - in contemporary London and the ex-RAF serviceman he implicates in his crimes. It’s Hitchcock’s most violent film, and the only one of his to receive a R-rating upon its release. Filmed in England, a good deal of the movie is set in and around Covent Garden, at the time still a working produce market. It’s a great way to see London as it was when Exile on Main Street was being recorded - a London long lost today.

Frenzy (1972) Trailer

Frenzy streams on various platforms.

The Sounds

Today’s playlist is composed of five Rolling Stones tracks released before Exile on Main Street: ‘Under My Thumb’ (Aftermath, 1966), ‘She’s A Rainbow’ (Their Satanic Majesties’ Request, 1967), ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ (Beggar’s Banquet, 1968), ‘Monkey Man’ (Let It Bleed, 1969), and ‘Can’t You Hear Me Knocking’ (Sticky Fingers, 1971).⁶ Enjoy!

The Thought

Today’s Thought is from the Rolling Stone’s track, ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want.’ I find it to be apropos to … everything:

‘You can't always get what you want/But if you try sometime you find/You get what you need.’

If you have a thought on this Thought - or any part of today’s issue - please leave a comment below:

And that’s the end of this Stop - I hope you enjoyed the diversion!

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Until the next Stop …

1. Exile on Main Street is one of my favourite albums, ranking up there with Revolver, Atom Heart Mother, The Pod, Live Seeds, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness and OK Computer - to name a few. Sources for today’s Stop include Exile on Main Street (The Guardian), Exile on Main Street (Allmusic.com) and Exile on Main Street (Discogs).

2. The Labour government at the time had implemented a 93% tax bill for high earners. Which might be an idea … imagine if Bezos, Musk, et al had to pony up that sort of dough.

3. In an irony lost on no one, the Hells Angels had been hired as security for the festival held at California’s Altamont Speedway held on Saturday, 6 December 1969. An estimated 300,000 people showed up for what was intended to be the ‘Woodstock of the West,’ but became the symbolic of end of the peace and love promise of the late 60s. For an interesting (if stiltedly narrated) documentary, see: The Altamont Free Concert.

4. Nellcôte had been occupied by the Nazis, and Richards said that working in it was ‘like trying to make a record in the Führerbunker. It was that sort of feeling … very Germanic down there – swastikas on the staircase .… Upstairs, it was fantastic. Like Versailles. But down there … it was Dante's Inferno.’ And this dichotomy pervades the album.

5. Shaffer (1926-2001) was an English barrister, advertising executive, playwright, novelist and screenwriter. He’s best known for the play Sleuth (1970) and the film The Wicker Man (1973). For more information, see: Anthony Shaffer (The Guardian). Oh, and his identical twin was the playwright Peter Shaffer (1926-2016) writer of Equus (1973) and Amadeus (1979), among many others.

6. I love the Rolling Stones and have for decades. My friend Chan, who lived across the street when I was growing up, championed them against my allegiance to The Beatles. At the time, I liked the Stones, but in comparison to The Beatles, I didn’t give them as much time as I thought they were ragged, sloppy and rough. Which, I eventually realised, was exactly the point.