Tattoo You is the 16th British and 18th American studio album
by The Rolling Stones, released in 1981. The follow-up to Emotional Rescue, it
proved to be a big critical and commercial success. A very popular album upon
release, it is the last Rolling Stones album to reach the top position of the
US charts, concluding a string of #1's dating back to 1971's Sticky
Fingers.
Tattoo You is an album primarily composed of outtakes from
previous recording sessions, some dating back a decade, with new vocals and
overdubs. Along with two new songs, the Rolling Stones put together this
collection in order to have a new album to promote for their worldwide American
Tour 1981/European Tour 1982 beginning that September.
Guitarist Keith Richards commented in 1993;
"The thing with Tattoo You wasn't that we'd stopped
writing new stuff, it was a question of time. We'd agreed we were going to go
out on the road and we wanted to tour behind a record. There was no time to
make a whole new album and make the start of the tour."
The album's producer, Chris Kimsey, who had been associated
with The Stones dating back to Sticky Fingers said Tattoo
You, "...came about because Mick and Keith were going through a
period of not getting on. There was a need to have an album out, and I told
everyone I could make an album from what I knew was still there." He began
sifting through the band's vaults: "I spent three months going through
like the last four, five albums finding stuff that had been either forgotten
about or at the time rejected. And then I presented it to the band and I said,
'Hey, look guys, you've got all this great stuff sitting in the can and it's
great material, do something with it.'
Many of the songs consisted at this point of instrumental
backing tracks for which vocals had not been recorded. Jagger said in a 1995
interview, "It wasn't all outtakes; some of it was old songs... I had to
write lyrics and melodies. A lot of them didn't have anything, which is why
they weren't used at the time - because they weren't complete. They were just
bits, or they were from early takes". Despite the eclectic nature of the album, the
Rolling Stones were able to divide Tattoo You into two distinct halves:
a rock and roll side backed with one focusing on ballads.
The earliest songs used for Tattoo You are "Tops"
and "Waiting on a Friend". The backing tracks for both songs were cut
in late 1972 during the Goats Head Soup sessions and feature Mick Taylor, not
Ronnie Wood, on guitar; Taylor later demanded and received a share of the
album's royalties.
The album opens with "Start Me Up," originally
rehearsed under the working title "Never Stop" and as a
reggae-influenced number in 1975 during the Black and Blue sessions, and the
balance of it was recorded during these particular sessions and during the 1978
Pathe Marconi sessions for Some Girls where the more
rock-infused track was recorded. Also dating from these sessions are the
backing tracks for "Slave" and "Worried About You". They
feature Billy Preston on keyboards and Ollie E. Brown on percussion. Wayne
Perkins plays the lead guitar on "Worried About You".
"Start Me Up", "Hang Fire" and
"Black Limousine" were worked on during the 1978 Pathe Marconi
recording sessions for Some Girls.
The basic tracks for "No Use in Crying", "Little
T&A", "Start Me Up", and re-recordings of "Black
Limousine" and "Hang Fire" came from the Emotional Rescue
sessions.
"Neighbours" and "Heaven" were recorded
during sessions in October–November 1980, after the release of Emotional
Rescue. "Heaven" has an unusual lineup, consisting of only Charlie
Watts on drums, Bill Wyman on synthesizer and bass, Mick Jagger on guitar, and
producer Chris Kimsey on piano.
Many of the vocal parts for the songs on Tattoo You were
overdubbed during sessions in October–November 1980 and April–June 1981. Mick
Jagger was the only member of the band present at some of these sessions. Other
overdubs, such as Sonny Rollins's saxophone parts on "Slave" and
"Waiting on a Friend", were also added at these sessions. Most of the
album was mixed at this time as well.
"Start Me Up" was released in August 1981, just a
week before Tattoo You, to a very strong response, reaching the top 10 in
both the US and UK. Widely considered one of their most infectious songs, it
was enough to carry Tattoo You to #1 for nine weeks in the US, while reaching #2 in
the UK with solid sales. It has been certified 4x platinum in the US alone. The
critical reaction was positive, many feeling that Tattoo You was an
improvement over Emotional Rescue and a high-quality release. "Waiting on a
Friend" and "Hang Fire" became Top 20 US hits as well.
"Start Me Up" would prove to be The Rolling
Stones' last single to reach as high as #2 in the US, while Tattoo You is their
last American #1 album to date.
The album title was originally planned to be simply
"Tattoo". Jagger claims to this day that even he has no clue how the
"You" became attached to the title. The title caused friction between
Jagger and Richards, with Richards suspecting that Jagger had changed the title
without seeking his input.
There were several videos directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg
for this album including:
"Start Me Up", "Hang Fire" and
"Worried About You": Consisting of a standard band performance
setting, miming to a backing tape.
"Neighbours": An homage to Hitchcock's Rear
Window, it features the band playing in one apartment of an apartment building
with various happenings seen in the windows of the other apartments: A
working-class couple relaxing and making love, a t'ai chi practitioner
exercising, and most notoriously, a man putting bloody body parts in a
suitcase. This video was heavily censored when presented on television.
"Waiting on a Friend": Filmed on location in New
York City's East Village, it consists of Keith walking down the street, meeting
Jagger, who is sitting on the front steps of a house (the same house used on
the cover of Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti) with several other men, one of
whom is the late reggae musician Peter Tosh, who also shakes Keith's hand. They
then proceed down the street and enter a bar where the rest of the band is
waiting. The video also features Wood, rather than Mick Taylor on guitar
(similar to the videos for "Hot Stuff" and "Worried About
You" in which Harvey Mandel and Wayne Perkins respectively actually
played). The bar in the video was co-owned by Wood during that time.
In the 1995 Rolling Stone interview during which editor Jann
Wenner called Tattoo You the Stones' "most underrated album," Jagger
said, "I think it's excellent. But all the things I usually like, it
doesn’t have. It doesn’t have any unity of purpose or place or time."
Reviews for Tattoo You were largely positive,
proclaiming the album a return to form and ranking among the Rolling Stones'
finest works. Debra Rae Cohen commented in Rolling Stone, "Just when we
might finally have lost patience, the new record dances (not prances), rocks
(not jives) onto the scene, and the Rolling Stones are back again, with a
matter-of-fact acceptance of their continued existence – and eventual
mortality..."
Though Robert Christgau gave the album a good review,
however, when criticizing "Start Me Up" in his Pazz and Jop essay in
1981, said, "...its central conceit--Mick as sex machine, complete with
pushbutton--explains why the album it starts up never transcends hand-tooled
excellence except when Sonny Rollins, uncredited, invades the Stones' space.
Though it's as good in its way as "Street Fighting Man," how much you
care about it depends entirely on how much you care about the Stones' technical
difficulties."
Patty Rose, in Musician, said, "The feel of the
album... is more one of rediscovered youth, of axes to play, not grind, of the
latest cope, not dope. After Emotional Rescue, it seems the Stones couldn't
make it anymore with the theme of life getting harder and harder. The old
themes are not invalidated by the new, but rather taken for granted, like
knowing how to tie one's bootlace. The Stones have shed yet another layer of
self-consciousness and their shiny vinyl new skin tingles with an open,
early-decade kind of excitement."
In 1989, it was ranked #34 on Rolling Stone magazine's list
of the 100 greatest albums of the 1980s. In 2003, the album was ranked number
211 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
The cover of the album was designed by artist Peter
Corriston, who won a Grammy Award in the category of best album package for the
design. The photography was done by Hubert Kretzschmar and illustration by
Christian Piper.
In 1994, Tattoo You was remastered and reissued by Virgin
Records, and again in 2009 by Universal Music. It was released on SHM-SACD in
2011 by Universal Music Japan.
Track listing:
All songs by Mick
Jagger and Keith Richards, except where noted.
Side one
No. Title Length
1. "Start Me Up"
3:31
2. "Hang Fire"
2:20
3. "Slave" (Remastered CD version is longer...
6:34) 4:59
4. "Little T&A" 3:23
5. "Black Limousine" (Jagger/Richards/Ronnie Wood)
3:32
6. "Neighbours"
3:31
Side two
No. Title Length
7. "Worried About You" 5:16
8. "Tops"
3:45
9. "Heaven"
4:21
10. "No Use in Crying" (Jagger/Richards/Wood) 3:24
11. "Waiting on a Friend" 4:34
The Rolling Stones
Mick Jagger – lead and backing vocals, electric guitar on
"Heaven", harmonica on "Black Limousine"
Keith Richards – electric guitar, backing vocals, lead
vocals and bass guitar on "Little T&A"
Ronnie Wood – electric guitar, backing vocals, bass guitar
on "Hang Fire"
Charlie Watts – drums
Bill Wyman – bass guitar, synthesizer on "Heaven"
Mick Taylor – electric guitar on "Tops" and
"Waiting on a Friend" (1972)
Additional personnel
Nicky Hopkins – piano on "Tops", "No Use in
Crying" and "Waiting on a Friend"
Ian Stewart – piano on "Hang Fire", "Little
T&A" and "Black Limousine"
Billy Preston – piano and organ on "Slave" and
"Worried About You" (1975)
Wayne Perkins – electric lead guitar on "Worried About
You" (1975)
Ollie Brown – percussion on "Slave" and
"Worried About You" (1975)
Pete Townshend – backing vocals on "Slave" (1975)
Sonny Rollins – saxophone on "Slave",
"Neighbours" and "Waiting on a Friend"
Jimmy Miller – percussion on "Tops" and
"Waiting on a Friend" (1972)
Kasper Winding – tambourine on "Waiting on a
Friend"
Chris Kimsey – piano on "Heaven"
Barry Sage - handclaps on "Start Me Up"
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