THE HIT HAMMER: The Rolling Stones' "Paint It Black"
- Ryan Paris
- May 6, 2020
- 3 min read
(The Hit Hammer is where I'm reviewing each #1 song on the Billboard Hot 100. Starting from when the chart started in 1958 and eventually working my way to the present. To see my inspiration and more information about this blog, please refer down below)
The Rolling Stones - "Paint It Black"
Hit Number 1: June 11, 1966
Stay at Number 1: 2 Weeks
Brian Jones seems to be the forgotten member of the Rolling Stones. But without him, the song "Paint It Black" might not exist. With the Stones' rise in popularity, lead guitarist Keith Richards and lead singer Mick Jagger became the main songwriting team for the group, where as Jones contributed greatly in the prior years. He became bored with being overshadowed by Jagger and Richards and began looking into eastern instruments such as the sitar to help alleviate his boredom. Being a multi-instrumentalist, it didn't take Jones very long to get going with the sitar. After talking with George Harrison, who had just recorded sitar on the song "Norwegian Wood" for the Beatles (It's a 7), Jones began tinkering with melodies on the sitar, and overtime, one of those melodies became the one we hear on "Paint It Black".
Bassist, Bill Wyman, deserves some love on the making of the track too. The group was recording the song in a session in March 1966, with the keys of the track modeled after the Animals' 1964 #1 hit "The House of the Rising Sun", but they weren't satisfied with the way it sounded. But Wyman started tampering with a Hammond organ, a very popular instrument used at the time, and started searching for a heavier bass sound. The group grew to like what they were hearing from Wyman, and along with someone happening to walk in the studio with a sitar, the group began recording "Paint It Black" with the Eastern pentatonic melody that we all know today.
That Eastern sound, along with the depressing lyrics, makes "Paint It Black" a unique song. It's hard to pinpoint exactly what the song is about, but it seems to me that the song is about a guy who is grief-stricken after his lover unexpectedly dies. In my opinion, lyrics like "Both flowers and my love both never to come back" and "I could not foresee this thing happening to you" all but give that away. The narrator is so depressed, that he hates all the color and happiness around him, and wants everything painted black. He says a couple times that he wants his "red door" painted black, and doesn't even want to see the sun rise in the sky. You guessed it, he wants that painted black too.
The song doesn't SOUND depressing though, but it certainly isn't happy. It's a song that somehow bottles up its emotions, while still exposing them to the listeners. Instead of sitting around thinking how horrible his life is, the narrator looks for a solution by painting everything around him black. Almost like "If I'm not happy, no one can be happy". It's the classic Stones approach to sorrow, and they do it in the most genius way possible. They incorporated foreign sounds, to a song that has somber lyrics, and for some reason, making it upbeat. And the kicker here, it WORKS. It's not your typical love gone wrong song, cause the lover seems to have died, but it's also not like those god awful teenage tragedy bull crap songs that have no business existing. These lyrics actually make you think. There was a lot of thought put into them, and it shows.
Along with the Eastern inspiration, the band gracefully weaves in and out between loud soft. That sitar riff is one that will live on forever. Sure, it might not be your typical Stones rocker, but it shows that they were more than just a band to rock out with. And to think that this song might not have gone anywhere if it weren't for Jones and Wyman, two of the underappreciated Stones members. Wyman stayed with the band through the rest of their glory years, but left them in the 1990s, while Jones unfortunately got hooked on drugs, and died in a drowning accident in 1969. He's part of that infamous 27 club. But even though the song is credited as being written by the Richards/Jagger team, "Paint It Black" might not be here if it weren't for the other guys.
GRADE: 10/10
JUST MISSED:
The Lovin' Spoonful just missed out on #1 again, with their laid back song "Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind" peaking at #2 behind "Paint It Black". It's a 7. (The Lovin' Spoonful will get their moment in this blog very soon)
SONGS REFERENCED:
The Beatles - "Norwegian Wood"
The Animals - "The House of the Rising Sun"
MY INSPIRATION / MORE INFORMATION:
Comments