The Rolling Stones - Street Fighting Man

London (US) 5N909, 1968

One of my first Stones records. My favorite single of theirs, for sure. I remember finding this in the remainder bin at Woolworth's (39 cents), which was strange because it didn't seem to chart. Never heard it on the radio at the time, either.

Get down!
 
Hey, said my name is called Disturbance
I'll shout and scream, I'll kill the King,
I'll wail at all his servants... 
 
Mick Jagger, 1995:
It was a very strange time [1968] in France. But not only in France but also in America, because of the Vietnam War and these endless disruptions... There was all this violence going on. I mean, they almost toppled the government in France; De Gaulle went into this complete funk, as he had in the past, and he went and sort of locked himself in his house in the country. And so the government was almost inactive. And the French riot police were amazing. Yeah, it was a direct inspiration, because by contrast, London was very quiet...
 
Keith Richards, 1977:
Street Fighting Man was all acoustics. There's no electric guitar parts in it. (Even the high-end lead part was through) a cassette player with no limiter. Just distortion. Just two acoustics, played right into the mike, and hit very hard. There's a sitar in the back, too. That would give the effect of the high notes on the guitar. And Charlie was playing his little 1930s drummer's practice kit. It was all sort of built into a little attaché case, so some drummer who was going to his gig on the train could open it up - with two little things about the size of small tambourines without the bells on them, and the skin was stretched over that. And he set up this little cymbal, and this little hi-hat would unfold. Charlie sat right in front of the microphone with it. I mean, this drum sound is massive. When you're recording, the size of things has got nothing to do with it. It's how you record them. Everything there was totally acoustic. The only electric instrument on there is the bass guitar, which I overdubbed afterwards.
 
There's three mixes of the original recording in existence: the original UK single on Decca (found on the remastered singles box), which is very crude sounding and has an earlier vocal take; there's the common stereo album version, which everyone has heard... and this, the US mono 45, which is similar to the album version except that the drums are brought way up and sound fantastic.



Edit to mention how awesome Nicky Hopkins' piano work is on this track. He was such a huge part of their sound at the time, probably more of a contributor to the band than Bill Wyman or Brian Jones (see Sympathy For The Devil, Salt Of The Earth).