It’s such a perfect Mick Jagger chorus: provocative as fuck, and yet at the same time fully distancing himself from it. There’s just no place for a street fighting man, no Well, what can a poor boy do except to sing for a rock and roll band? Just as Bruce Springsteen would do a decade later with “Racin’ in the Street,” Mick Jagger nicked a lyric from the already-immortal “ Dancing in the Street,” which had evolved into a civil rights anthem, but he was talking about all of the unrest happening around the world in 1968 and coming to a conclusion about his own part in it.
‘Cause summer’s here, and the time is right for fighting in the street, boy While the original version of the song was called “Did Everybody Pay Their Dues?” and is actually pretty good, “Street Fighting Man” is streets ahead, a never-ending churn that always feels like it’s about to explode in your face.Įverywhere I hear the sound of marching, charging feet, boy And that was just the beginning.Īll of those drums are awesome, especially the overdubbed floor tom “whack-whack-whack-whack!” that doubles with the snare and adds an off-kilter flavor to the beat, which kinda matches the back-and-forth melody line on the verses.
Then, Jimmy Miller stuck a professional studio microphone in front of the cassette speaker and that became a single track over which they dubbed a shit-ton of other instruments: Charlie added a second drum part, Keith added bass and a bunch more acoustic guitars, and Brian added sitar and tambura that whirled in and around the final mix. Charlie was playing a 1930s toy drum kit.
Keith was on acoustic, Mick on maracas and Charlie. In this case, Keith, Mick and Charlie all gathered around the cassette recorder, like teenagers recording their garage band. Like “ Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” an overloaded Phillips cassette recorder was integral to the basic track, but on “Street Fighting Man” it was even more elaborate. “Street Fighting Man” just might be my favorite Rolling Stones song, and one of the Rolling Stones most unique studio productions.