“Honky Tonk Women” (The Rolling Stones)

This week’s final classic song that mentions Memphis in the lyrics of the day is “Honky Tonk Women” by the Rolling Stones. The word “Memphis” is right there in the first line:

I met a gin-soaked, bar-room queen in Memphis
She tried to take me upstairs for a ride
She had to heave me right across her shoulder
‘Cause I just can’t seem to drink you off my mind

It’s the honky tonk women
Gimme, gimme, gimme the honky tonk blues

The Stones released “Honky Tonk Women” in July of 1969 and it went to #1 in the U.S., the UK, Australia, Denmark, Ireland, New Zealand, and Switzerland. (It only hit #2 in Canada, you hosers!) It was certified Gold for selling 1 million copies in the U.S. Rolling Stone magazine called the song “likely the strongest three minutes of rock and roll yet released in 1969.” It was ranked #116 on the magazine’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time and, in 2014, was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

Musically, the song ain’t much, just I-IV-V (and the occasional major II) in the key of G. Lyrically, it’s not about much, either, just a couple of the loose women the singer has met. The line that everybody remembers is a good one, however: “She blew my nose and then she blew my mind.”

That interesting little cowbell lick and drum beat at the beginning, which generations of drummers have struggled to play, isn’t as complicated as it appears. Drummer Charlie Watts explains why the start of the song sounds so tricky:

“We’ve never played an intro to ‘Honky Tonk Women’ live the way it is on the record. That’s Jimmy [Miller] playing the cowbell and either he comes in wrong or I come in wrong—but Keith comes in right, which makes the whole thing right. It’s one of those things that musicologists could sit around analyzing for years. It’s actually a mistake, but from my point of view, it works.”

I must admit that I’ve never been much of a Rolling Stones fan. Back in the ’60s you were either a Stones guy or a Beatles guy and I was the latter. I prefer strong melodies and intelligent lyrics to raw rock and roll. But that’s just my preference. It’s obvious that there are millions of people around the world who disagree with me, and that’s okay.

My own personal experience with “Honky Tonk Women” came in my very first garage band when I was in 7th grade. My friend Lane Williams and I traded off playing drums and singing—although, to be fair, he was the much better singer of us two. I got most of the Stones songs to sing because they really didn’t need much of a singer. So if you happened to come across our little combo playing in one of our parents’ garages back then, that was me belting out “Honky Tonk Women” and “Brown Sugar” without really knowing all the lyrics. (We didn’t have the Internet back then; we had to figure out what Mick was singing just by listening to the record, which was often challenging.)

So there you have it, our last Memphis-flavored classic song of the day for awhile, this one written by two scrawny dudes from England (Mick Jagger and Keith Richards). Apparently you don’t have to be from Memphis to sing about Memphis.