Mick Jagger / Keith Richards / 2:56
Musicians
Mick Jagger: vocals
Keith Richards: lead guitar, acoustic guitar, backing vocals
Brian Jones: rhythm guitar (?)
Bill Wyman: bass
Charlie Watts: drums
Ian Stewart: organ
Jack Nitzsche: tambourine (?)
Recorded
RCA Studios, Hollywood: March 6–9, 1966
Technical Team
Producer: Andrew Loog Oldham
Sound engineer: Dave Hassinger
Mick Jagger’s obsessive misogyny reached a climax in “Stupid Girl.” Everything about the young woman in the song is subjected to mockery. And the attack becomes increasingly vicious from verse to verse. This stupid girl is grasping, critical of people without knowing them, and bitches about things she has never seen. In short, despite purring like a pussycat, this lady is the sickest thing in this world.
A more explicit condemnation of the opposite sex is difficult to imagine. Is this diatribe directed against all women? It is not impossible that the Rolling Stones’ singer was targeting his girlfriend of the time, Chrissie Shrimpton, the younger sister of the top model and sixties muse Jean Shrimpton. Mick and Chrissie met in 1962 at the London School of Economics. She was still a secretary in Covent Garden (her modeling career had not yet started) when their relationship ended abruptly in 1966. Mick then started to make eyes at Marianne Faithfull. In December 1995, Jagger acknowledged that he was going through a difficult period at that time: “Obviously, I was having a bit of trouble. I wasn’t in a good relationship. Or I was in too many bad relationships. I had so many girlfriends at that point. None of them seemed to care they weren’t pleasing me very much.”19 “Stupid Girl” is the favorite Stones song of Scottish folksinger Jackie Leven: “The song has this kind of football chant rhythm and I like the fact that the playing’s awkward and sounds like they could only just play it. And they [Mick and Keith] never attempt to blend harmonies like everyone else, they still sound like two geezers shouting in a pub. It’s really hopeless and very exciting.”47
Charlie Watts leads in with a tom break. “Stupid Girl” is a medium-pace rock number whose rhythm owes something to Stevie Wonder’s “Uptight (Everything’s Alright).” Mick Jagger delivers his lyrics in a sarcastic tone bordering on invective, with the occasional childish overtone. Keith Richards plays lead guitar and acoustic guitar, most probably leaving the second, electric, rhythm guitar part to Brian Jones. Ian Stewart is on the organ, and his playing is the key element on the track, despite a number of wrong notes (for example at 0:29). Bill Wyman supports his bandmates with a solid bass line, and it is probably the loyal Nitzsche on tambourine.