"As Tears Go By"

Sometimes a Song

This week’s Sometimes a Song will transport some of our readers back to the mid-1960’s, and, for us, to a bit of an unlikely singer/songwriter — and yet rather an inevitable one, as someone whose influence on popular music is undeniable. Like him or loathe him, Michael Philip Jagger and his childhood friend, Keith Richards — who’d lived in the same neighborhood and met in school at age 6 — are still rocking together over 60 years after they formed a band as teenagers in the early 1960’s. The two lost track of each other after grade school, but happened to meet in London some years and discovered that they had both become interested in jazz and blues. Jagger had already begun playing music with his friend, Dick Taylor, a guitarist, and Richards, also a guitarist, joined them. These fellows soon formed what was then called a “garage band,” The Blues Boys, and began practicing at each other’s homes, mainly covering music by such established musicians and singers as Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry, and Bo Diddley. While Jagger studied at the London School of Economics, he and Richards took a flat in London together, with a third roommate, guitarist and multi-talented singer and all-around musician, Brian Jones. Jones was playing with a group called Blues Incorporated at the Ealing Club in London, and that connection gave Mick and Keith a foot in the door to becoming a working band, which they shortly did, joined by Brian Jones, and calling themselves The Rolling Stones.

It was The Rolling Stones’ first manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, who persuaded the boys to begin writing their own music, and in a short time The Rolling Stones had two UK number 1 hits to their credit, each of these a reworking of a blues standard from the US. That was a good start, but Oldham was persistent in demanding fully original work from and for the band. The story has it that to make them produce something on their own, Oldham locked Jagger and Richards in his kitchen and refused to let them out until they had composed a song together!

And THAT song became “As Tears Go By,” our Sometimes a Song. The working name for the piece had been “As Time Goes By,” which was, of course, the title of the famous song from Casablanca. Oldham suggested the change to “As Tears Go By,” and persuaded Jagger and Richards to sell their song to a rising folk singer he was promoting, Marianne Faithfull. They did that, and Miss Marianne released a quick take of the song for a Top 10 spot on the UK Charts and a few months later for a Number 22 on the US Billboard Charts. And thus it came about, as Thomas Edison once famously observed, that “genius” happened by the application of “1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.” I find it rather endearing that when put on the spot to produce a fully original song the boys turned out a sweet and wistful folk ballad.

Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were only 20 years old when they composed a folk song fit for the oldest of old souls. Back then, their band was new and they were still finding their way in a developing music scene. The so-called “British Invasion” was about to take place in the US, with The Rolling Stones as major players in the musical campaign. As it happened, “As Tears Go By” was not entirely right for the “disruptive” image that Oldham was advancing for The Stones. As their manager, he knew that the song would be a hit, but he wanted to make sure that his band was not like the nearest competition, a “moppet” band called The Beatles. But he needn’t have worried. For today’s song was one of the earliest products of a songwriting collaboration that would last into the next millennium. But no one involved in the formation of The Rolling Stones could have foreseen in 1963 that this band would shortly begin to fill stadiums and would continue to do so for over six decades. And that’s a record-making accomplishment by any standards — no pun intended.

I love this little song, and I hope you enjoy it, too!

Note: Once The Rolling Stones established their persona as a band, they did record and release “As Tears Go By” in 1965. Their own version of the song hit Number 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and Number 10 on the Easy Listening Charts in the US, and Number 1 in Canada.

When I found this video, I said to Tony, “Mick Jagger looks like a choirboy.” Turns out, he was in fact a choirboy as a child. Just FYI.