Most of the Rolling Stones’ No. 1 songs come in the upbeat persuasion. One departing, somber moment that found success on the same level is their 1973 release “Angie.”
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The song’s lyrics are credited to Keith Richards. The name-drop in the chorus has left fans wondering for decades, “Who exactly is Angie, and why is Mick Jagger singing about her?”
Uncover the inspiration behind this Stones hit, below.
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Behind the Meaning
Angie, Angie / When will those clouds all disappear? / Angie, Angie / Where will it lead us from here / With no loving in our souls / And no money in our coats / You can’t say we’re satisfied / But Angie, Angie, Jagger sings in the opening verse to “Angie.”
When taking the lyrics at face value, Richards seems to have written them about the ending of a relationship with a woman named Angie. Many theories of Angie’s inspiration have popped up over the years. The most notable ones point to David Bowie’s wife, Angela, or Richards’ daughter, Angie, who was born the year prior.
Jagger shut down any notion of the song being inspired by Angela Bowie in 2002, by saying (per Consequence), “I’ve said about a hundred million times that it wasn’t [about Angela Bowie]… I don’t think I had even met Angela Bowie when I wrote the rest of the lyrics.”
According to Richards, the song is less about a particular person and more about capturing a feeling. He penned the song while recovering from a heroin addiction in Switzerland.
“I wrote ‘Angie’ in an afternoon, sitting in bed,” Richards explained in his 2010 memoir (per Far Out). “Because I could finally move my fingers and get them in the right place again…It was not about any particular person, it was a name, like ‘Ohhh, Diana.'”
However, he contradicted himself in the liner notes for the 1993 compilation album Jump Back: The Best of The Rolling Stones.
“The basic melody and the title were mine,” he wrote. “I’d recently had my daughter born, whose name was Angela, and the name was starting to ring around the house. But I’m into writing about my babies. Angie just fitted. I mean, you couldn’t sing ‘Maureen.'”
Despite Richards’ explanation, many fans doubt the fact that “Angie” is simply a matter of coincidence.
Another pervasive theory points to the fracturing relationship between Jagger and Marianne Faithful. The pair broke up in 1970, meaning that the feelings of loss and longing present in the song could be inspired by the singer.
Perhaps it’s an amalgamation of a few sources of inspiration. The title is confirmed to be about Richards’ daughter but, the raw emotion Jagger imbues into the song could be tinges of heartbreak leftover from his relationship with Faithful.
Like many great songs, the meaning behind “Angie” can be determined by audience interpretation.
(Photo by Michael Ward/Getty Images)
