The Rolling Stones’ songs have consistently pushed the envelope since they first got together in 1962. Some of those songs haven’t aged well, but even if they have, they definitely were considered very controversial when they were first released. Let’s look at just four examples!
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1. “Star Star”
This 1973 track is a shameless tribute to the groupies that followed The Rolling Stones around for years. The original title was “Starf***er”, after all. It’s a bit on the nose, and not entirely a flattering way to describe a particular group of fans.
A lot of people were shocked by the song’s vulgar lyrics, as well as the pretty casual misogyny in the song that was very much a product of its time. This one hasn’t been performed live in quite a few years.
2. “Some Girls”
The Rolling Stones’ songs weren’t always rooted in sexism. Again, their tunes were a product of their time; not that it’s any excuse. Still, one can’t deny that less-than-flattering descriptions of women made up a lot of their lyrical content, particularly in the 1978 song “Some Girls”.
It’s a pretty rough song that is made worse by its casual racist descriptions of black and Asian women. They got a lot of backlash for it, but Mick Jagger was insistent that the song was entirely rooted in satire and parody.
3. “I Go Wild”
A later-career song from 1994, “I Go Wild” is another song with some pretty not-great language directly toward women, complete with slurs and derogatory lyrics. Despite being so controversial, the song charted pretty high in the UK.
4. “Let’s Spend The Night Together”
The average modern-day music-enjoyer could listen to “Let’s Spend The Night Together” and not really feel any negative feelings about it. However, this tune from 1967 was one of The Rolling Stones’s most controversial songs for a hot minute.
It was a very scandalous tune in the 1960s, and the band had to famously change the song’s title lyric to something different (“Let’s spend some time together”) in order to perform it on The Ed Sullivan Show. Jagger made sure to roll his eyes throughout the song and even left in a few “nights” just to make the producers mad. They were subsequently banned from the show for two years.
Photo by Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
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