The Truth Behind the Reaction to the Rolling Stones’ “Brown Sugar”

The Rolling Stones is one of the biggest rock bands of the last hundred years. So much of their music is still in rotation today, from “Paint It Black” to “Exile On Main St.” to “Let It Bleed”. And for a moment in 1971, everybody was talking about “Brown Sugar”. Some loved it, and others believed that it was a pretty controversial single from their album Sticky Fingers.

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There’s no smoke without fire, as they say. And there’s a reason why the Stones removed this song from their setlist back in 2021.

“We’ve played ‘Brown Sugar’ every night since 1970, so sometimes you think, we’ll take that one out for now and see how it goes,” Mick Jagger said in an interview on the matter. “We might put it back in.”

Were People Really Mad About The Rolling Stones’ “Brown Sugar”

A little more eloquently, back in 1995, Jagger acknowledged that the lyrics of the song were a bit too unfiltered and that he “never would write that song now. I would probably censor myself.”

So, for the uninformed, what’s the issue with The Rolling Stones’ “Brown Sugar”? Well, its lyrics explore quite a few taboo subjects, from slavery to interracial sex to drug use. A quick once-over of the song’s lyrics will paint a pretty clear picture of the problem some people had with it. Even if you love the song, you can’t really deny that most of it was written in poor taste. It could easily be deemed as an ode to sexualizing black women (and young girls) in a pretty repulsive way.

Despite the discomfort around the song that never really went away, “Brown Sugar” was a huge hit for The Rolling Stones. It made it to no. 2 on the UK charts back in 1971. The song did similarly well at no. 16 in the States. It has been listed as one of the greatest songs of all time by multiple publications. 

I think there’s something to be said about recognizing a song’s cultural impact without diminishing how damaging it was. “Brown Sugar” was a hard rock classic in a very different time. But that doesn’t make its lyrics any less objectifying, racist, and downright gross. The Stones were pushing the boundaries of culture in the 1970s, but they haven’t been pushing much in the last few decades. Some songs, while historically significant, are better left in the past.

Photo by David Redfern/Redferns

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