How Come You Taste So Good?

The Guardian has a great piece on what might just be the greatest song of all time, "Brown Sugar":

Sympathy for the White Devil

Brown Sugar falls into that spellbinding category: Jagger-Richards songs least likely to be covered by Paul McCartney. This is not merely because the Rolling Stones' 1971 single embodies rock at its most primordial, but because the lyrics are intensely controversial, and to many people, offensive. Yes, despite its throbbing, upbeat tempo and exuberant getaway chorus, Brown Sugar is a song about slave owners having their way with nubile young black women. This is not very nice. It is so not very nice that when the Stones scheduled their 2003 trip to China, the heirs of Mao Zedong, that paragon of cultural sensitivity, singled out Brown Sugar as one of four numbers they were forbidden to play. One can only wonder what the commissars would have made of David Bowie's China Girl or George and Ira Gershwin's flamboyantly condescending Porgy and Bess. Whatever the case, nobody in Chicago, Los Angeles or Leeds ever suggested banning Brown Sugar. Well, at least not any white people.

The emotional apex of virtually every Stones concert, Brown Sugar is an unusual song, in that it is has horns and a bridge and is exquisitely crafted but doesn't end up sounding like Steely Dan schlock. It kicks off with a catchy intro that immediately modulates into a completely different riff, gathers steam with Mick Jagger's sassy vocal, careens off into Bobby Keyes' festive saxophone solo and concludes with one of the most beloved sing-along refrains in the history of rock. A hit single off Sticky Fingers, whose controversial cover was designed by Andy Warhol, Brown Sugar captured the Stones at their apogee, when Mick Taylor was driving the band away from Jones' psychedelia and mysticism and back into blues-based rock. After Taylor made the catastrophic decision to leave the band in 1974, and Ronnie Wood replaced him, the Stones never made another great album.

[Read the whole article]

Listen:

[Download the MP3 Here]
[Song Lyrics]
[Band Website]
[Band Wiki]
[Read my piece on Stones' producer Jimmy Miller]

On "Top of the Pops":