By 1969, the Rolling Stones started dipping into more country sounds with “Country Honk” on Let It Bleed, an homage to the music of Hank Williams and Jimmy Rodgers, then with their cover of bluesman Robert Johnson’s “Lore in Vain,” a song Mick Jagger said they made “more country” on Hyde Park 1969. That year, the Stones also recorded “Wild Horses” during a stop at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama.
By the ’70s, the band added the darker, drug and country-tinged “Dead Flowers” to Sticky Fingers, and more country slipped into the Stones’ repertoire from there with songs like “Sweet Virginia” on Exile on Main St. and “Far Away Eyes” from Some Girls in 1978.
“I love country music, but I find it very hard to take it seriously,” said Jagger of the genre in 1995. “I also think a lot of country music is sung with the tongue in cheek, so I do it tongue-in-cheek. The harmonic thing is very different from the blues. It doesn’t bend notes in the same way, so I suppose it’s very English, really. Even though it’s been very Americanized, it feels very close to me, to my roots, so to speak.”
By the early 2000s, Jagger was still dabbling in country music here and there, including collaborations with Don Henley, Miranda Lambert, and more into the 2010s.
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[RELATED: 5 Country Songs by The Rolling Stones]
“Too Far Gone,” Featuring Joe Perry (2001)
Written by Mick Jagger and Pamela Quinlan
The penultimate “Too Far Gone” from Jagger’s fourth solo album Goddess in the Doorway is the most country-leaning track, and features Aerosmith‘s Joe Perry on guitar; Perry also plays on the Goddess in the Doorway track, “Everybody Getting High.” Written by Jagger and Pamela Quinlan, “Too Far Gone” is a remembrance of more carefree days and the swiftness of life.
I always hate nostalgia
Living in the past
No use getting misty-eyed
It all screamed by so fast
When life was so much calmer
Severely buttoned up
The future rich in promises
Milk flowing from the cup
I would spend those lazy days
Lying on a ridge
Watching girls in cotton dresses
Diving off the bridge
Is it too far gone
“Bramble Rose” with Don Henley and Miranda Lambert (2015)
Written by Tift Merritt
In 2015, Don Henley released his fifth solo album, Cass County, a collection of country songs with a long line of duets with Merle Haggard, Dolly Parton, Jamey Johnson, Lee Ann Womack, Martina McBride, Alison Krauss, his Eagles bandmate Vince Gill, Trisha Yearwood, Lucinda Williams, and more.
Opening the album is a cover of “Bramble Rose,” sung by covered by Henley, Jagger, and Miranda Lambert. The song was originally written and recorded more than a decade earlier by country artist Tift Merritt on her 2002 debut album, Bramble Rose.
The lyrics follow the story of a tougher-skinned woman who has had some difficult loves. Henley takes on the first verse and makes a minor switch with Merritt’s My mind turns determined, dark as a storm / So my love has grown as sharp as a bramble rose by adding the pronoun “her.”
The ungrateful few who tangle inside
Don’t care where they’re born, they’re growing up wild
The rain makes me thirsty and fighting to go
Her mind turns determined, dark as a storm
Lambert comes in on the second part with Jagger on the third.
I get so ashamed for making you blue
I come back to this porch to make it all up to you
The rain’s got me thirsty, falling wasteful and slow
I’m restless enough, I’m so scared to go
Do you think I’ll be happy out on the wind?
Do you think I’ll get halfway ‘fore it’s raining again?
Will I find that I’m true when it’s hardest to be,
Or will the notions I follow have all turned on me?
All three close on the final chorus with Jagger on harmonica.
Once my love has blown as far as a bramble rose
Just a real good woman nobody knows
“Drive of Shame” with Brad Paisley (2017)
Written by Mick Jagger, Brad Paisley, and Matt Clifford
In 2013, Brad Paisley was first invited to join the Rolling Stones for a show in Philadelphia during the band’s 50 & Counting Tour. Just two years later, Paisley was invited back to open for the Stones’ stop in Nashville on their Zip Code Tour.
Jagger had been a fan of Paisley’s since his 1999 debut Who Needs Pictures and even sent his assistant to pick up the album from the record store when it came out. “He [Jagger] said, ‘You may not know it, but when your first album came out, I wanted to hear what you were doing lyrically, and I had heard a few of the songs and the guitar playing and thought, I need to hear this guy,’” recalled Paisley. “And he had kinda kept up with me.”
After the 2015 concert, Paisley and Jagger kept in touch and even had dinner a few times. When Paisley started working on his twelfth album Love and War, he called on Jagger for a little help. Jagger not only duets on the opening “Drive of Shame,” but also co-wrote the song with his longtime collaborator Matt Clifford, and Paisley.
Okay this is it
My finest moment by a long shot
As I walk through this casino knowin’ there ain’t now one up at 6 O’clock
With my hair messed up and my shirt untucked I hit the parking lot
“I had a real good time”, that’s what she said
As she threw me my shirt and kicked me out of bed
Now as the sun comes up
It’s shining a light
On the big mistake, I made last night
Vegas strip turned to memory lane
Now pullin’ on to the interstate
Excuse me while I take
The drive of shame
The drive of sham
Along with Jagger, Love and War also features a cast of special guests, including John Fogerty, who wrote the title track, and collaborations with Timbaland, Bill Anderson, and others. The album also features Paisley’s interpretation of a long-lost poem by Johnny Cash from 1967, “Gold All Over the Ground” in song.
When the Rolling Stones released their 2018 compilation Honk, Paisley joined Jagger on a new rendition of the band’s country Sticky Fingers track “Dead Flowers.” In 2019, Lainey Wilson also joined the Stones on stage in Chicago for a rendition of the Sticky Fingers track.
Photo: Mick Jagger (l) and Brad Paisley perform at the Wells Fargo Center on June 18, 2013, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Jeff Fusco/Getty Images)
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