(Credits: Far Out / Bent Rej)

Keith Richards once made the bombastic claim that “you’ve got the sun, you’ve got the moon, and you’ve got The Rolling Stones”. It’s a proclamation that would make a peacock with a rosette on its breast seem humble and reserved. They are a band who made self-confidence part of their schtick, strutting an outlaw edge into the galloping stride of rock ‘n’ roll.

So, it should perhaps come as reassurance to us drab mere mortals that even self-asserted pillars of the solar system have off days. In fact, amid the golden discography of The Stones, there are even a few duds that the band themselves have disowned; ashamed to tag their lauded name to the odd glaring blemish.

Paul McCartney might have recently joked that they were simply “a blues cover band”, but often their worst outings come when they veer away from the safety of that beloved realm. We’ve praised the magnificence of their comfort zone enough, so we decided that it’s only right to appraise the weaker side of things. Lord knows, the world doesn’t need more cynicism right now, but there are certain songs in their back catalogue that simply deserve to be questioned.

We have gathered these turds in the punch bowl and called them out as party poopers. From maudlin messes that make you feel like you’ve just wandered into the sonic equivalent of Morrissey’s stag-do to downright offensive disaster, these are the ten worst songs that the band have ever produced, the polar opposites of ‘Gimme Shelter’ and other shimmering stunners.

The Rolling Stones’ 10 worst songs:

‘Cherry Oh Baby’

Reggae is a dated venture for rock ‘n’ bands. It’s such a distinct style that it’s hard to hybridise with the riff pattern of usual bluesy melodies. So, the Rolling Stones decided to just dive into it headfirst. They dived a little bit too deep. Mick Jagger singing in an affected Jamaican accent implies that they might’ve, in fact, jumped so far that they missed the pool entirely and caused some temporary cerebral damage to themselves.

Singing affectations can be grating enough at the best of times, but a man from Dartford doing a swaggering vocal like he’s from downtown Kingston is just obscene. The band may well have genuinely loved reggae, but there is an arrogance to thinking, ‘oh, well, we’ll just do it ourselves’. That appropriation firmly backfires here. This off-colour piece of Mick Jah-ger arrogance induces the sort of David Brent-like cringe that could snap a weak jaw.

‘It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll (But I Like It)’

Paul McCartney’s criticism didn’t just stop at calling his rivals a blues cover band. He finished up his jibe by saying that The Beatles’ net was cast wider than theirs. If by that he also implied deeper, then it’s songs like ‘It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll (But I Like It)’ that certainly help his argument. Granted, when it comes to rock ‘n’ roll, not every song has to have the bottomless depth of ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ or some other timeless piece of folk poetry. This track, ironically, makes that point continually, but it’s also hoisted by its own petard as it does so. Upon release in ‘74 this fun-professing jog seemed oddly stilted: ‘We all love rock ‘n’ roll, Mick, but you’re 31 and this point is no longer yours to proclaim’, emerging punks may well have thought in retort.

‘Start Me Up’ is a song that shows how there is a plus side to shallow rock ‘n’ roll—it’s an infectious piece of fun that taps toes as involuntarily as the knee-jerk reflex. It’s about as deep as a Saharan puddle, but it biologically taps into the human genome somewhere, thanks to its irresistible riff. ‘It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll (But I Like It)’ is exactly the same, except it triggers a migraine gene into action with prolonged exposure.

‘Fool to Cry’

Backed by the rather luscious string synthesiser sound that runs throughout 1976’s Black and Blue, the band whisked the revelry of that soulful tone towards gag-inducing Hallmark sentimentalism with this shocking B-movie pastiche of a sad working-class dad. In a bid to remain resonant with their now ageing fanbase, they paint the picture of a father returning home from work late, popping his daughter on his lap, and weeping.

However, it turns out this poor bastard has given birth to some sort of four-year-old Albert Camus, who sweetly whispers, “Ooh daddy, you’re a fool to cry.” Paired with Jagger’s trademark sultry croon, that whole thing borders on being creepy. And that only gets worse when he ventures to “his woman” in the “poor part of town”, and she makes the exact same remark to him as he weeps his way around town for no discernible reason other than potentially being haunted by a maudlin riff and cheesy production from his former favourite rock band. It’s as though, after a lifetime spent in a huge group, they got together and tried to simply imagine what a normal man’s life is like.

Furthermore, it’s fine to cry. Better sentimental songs have made that empowering point rather charmingly, but it’s not okay to annoyingly croon “fooooool” with extended vowels 24 times in the same song. ‘Memory Motel’ might be masterful, but ‘Fool to Cry’ showed where you can go wrong if you suddenly trade rocking riffs for sombre reflection.

‘Wanna Hold You’

If this was a band’s first single, you’d write them off as heading straight for the ash heap of history. They’ve cooked up nothing here other than clichés, manufactured offensiveness, and the world’s most simple riff. The whole thing implies that the track was conjured up during a quick studio toilet break, and the slapdash result certainly should’ve been flushed away.

It’s a song that reeks of laziness, conjuring the image of a band writing beside a private swimming pool. For some reason, in 1983, at the age of 40, with a wealth of cash under him, Keith Richards chose to write from the perspective of a broke fellow imploring some stand-in “baby” to love him for “free”. And then, there is absolutely no development beyond that–it sticks with the dated platitude of having nothing but love to give, a trope that was already growing tired in the 1950s. It’s a track that pairs perfectly with Super Hans’ famed quip, ‘Bullshitters turning wank into cash’.

‘Sing This Song All Together (See What Happens)’

Keith Richards once told Esquire: “If you’re the Beatles in the ’60s, you just get carried away—you forget what it is you wanted to do. You’re starting to do Sgt. Pepper. Some people think it’s a genius album, but I think it’s a mishmash of rubbish, kind of like Satanic Majesties — ’Oh, if you can make a load of shit, so can we.’” ‘Sing This Song All Together (See What Happens)’ is surely the height of the defecation flinging that he was referring to.

I’m not even sure that you can aptly call this a song. It’s just an assortment of carnivalesque sounds that have sailed over the pretentious sea from the Democratic Republic of Faecal Flingers on HMS Clownshoe to blight the brilliant psychedelic era with an Achilles heel of overcooked nonsense. It’s like being waterboarded by the spittal spray of whichever flatulist is playing the brass. It exhibits a strange sort of self-indulgence whereby you can’t even fathom who is being indulged.

‘Indian Girl’

In this song, Jagger evangelically travels in a private jet to a worn-torn country to tell the only living girl left in her village that life gets harder. This sage lesson was instilled in Jagger the hard way during his own middle-class upbringing in the peaceful town of Dartford, where the neighbourhood bullies frequently threatened to give him a papercut or steal his quince sandwiches—a hard knocks lesson that was reaffirmed during his time at the London School of Economics.

Paired with an Eagles-like soft rock sound, everything seems so casually insincere that somehow condemning war comes off as wildly offensive. It doesn’t have the same punk effrontery that is used to bail out ‘Brown Sugar’ either—it’s just a soft and lulling tale of a misguided white saviour bringing more bad news from nowhere to a poor beleaguered child. With appropriated mariachi horns inexplicably entering the mix – to give some fun local flavour, I suppose – the whole thing is a crass, ill-fought affair with an equally foolish musicology dragging along behind Jagger’s strangely flowery vocals.

‘Dirty Work’

Prior to its release, the fifty shades of bile album cover for Dirty Work was a warning sign that accursed ‘80s production might have befallen the Stones. They didn’t let the bookies down and disappointed everyone with what is quite possibly their worst record. I mean, when the title track is one of the worst songs you’ve ever written, what hope does the album have?

The irony is, there’s nothing particularly terrible or offensive about the tune. It’s just got absolutely nothing about it—and that’s one of the worst things you can say about anything. It’s as messy and disordered as the top shelf of a dwarf’s fridge. Jagger’s blindly sustained enthusiasm simply adds credence to Bob Dylan’s critique when he argued: “To see [Jagger] jumping around like he does — I don’t give a shit in what age, from Altamont to RFK Stadium — you don’t have to do that, man.” Especially not when your heart’s not in it.

‘Cocksucker Blues’

When the band approached the height of their decadent success, they wanted to leave Decca Records to start their own label to ensure they got a greater cut of their royalties. The issue was that they were still under contract with Decca and had one more single to release to fulfil their end of the deal. However, things had turned tempestuous. Thus, out of contempt for their bosses, the band decided that their best plan of bird-flipping action was to write them a single so flagrantly offensive that it could never be played on the radio.

The song talks about a lonely schoolboy who is lost in London and meets a policeman. The boy later reveals, “he f–ked me with his truncheon”. So, they certainly fulfilled their end of the bargain. But as any sane-minded person would ask, why did they have to do it like that? If it was a case of handing in something that Decca would never play, then they could have offered up a smorgasbord of fart noises. Why did they have to indulgently rock out about child molestation? It’s not something that affords them the liberty of ‘oh well, at least it was never meant to be played’. It’s a sorry mistake that deserves condemnation.

‘Sex Drive’

David Bowie once quipped, “I think Mick Jagger would be astounded and amazed if he realised that to many people, he is not a sex symbol, but a mother image.” That’s certainly something that poured ice on the flaccid concept of a 49-year-old Jagger gyrating and boasting about his libido in the soft rock song, ‘Sex Drive’.

The song is a teenage boy’s idea of sexiness that ought to grow up and start performing. The sultry sonics might think they sound hot, but so is a junkie’s spoon, and that’s not an image that gets anyone going. The whole thing is a jarring experience, and weirdly, the mix refuses to blend the lyrics into the beat, so they sit awkwardly on top of everything. That is, ironically, the inadvertent postmodernist highlight of the song, illuminating the misplacement of Jagger’s wanton shoe-humping that comes on a bit too strong even for a knackered sneaker.

‘Stray Cat Blues’

The Stones knew better than to place a track on an official album about a schoolboy being molested, but when it comes to schoolgirls, they clearly saw that as a part of the rock ‘n’ roll iconography, at best. The nettlesome song sheet for ‘Stray Cat Blues’ reads: “I can see that you’re fifteen years old / No I don’t want your ID / You look so restless and you’re so far from home / But it’s no hanging matter / It’s no capital crime.”

Those are undeniably thorny lyrics, but by the time The Rolling Stones’ 1969 tour of the USA came around, they got even thornier as Jagger reduced the age down to 13. “I can see that you’re only 13,” the song would go, “I bet your mama don’t know that you scratch like that / I bet she don’t know that you can bite like that.” The argument that it was written to test the provocative limits of rock ‘n’ roll is morally invalid. Vladimir Nabakov’s novel Lolita, which charts a similar subject matter, was popular at the time, but the book has a subverted subtext and postmodern depth that showcases the misguided evil of the protagonist–this is absent from the sickeningly sultry ‘Stray Cat Blues’ so it just comes off as a celebration of paedophilia.

The song is a disgrace, and no hackneyed blues riff repurposed from the past or rousing drumbeat can save it from the subject matter that it obviously repugnantly revels in with pouting infancy.

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