Mick Jagger / Keith Richards / 3:27
Musicians
Mick Jagger: vocals
Keith Richards: lead guitar, acoustic guitar, backing vocals
Brian Jones: rhythm guitar (?)
Bill Wyman: bass
Charlie Watts: drums
Ian Stewart: piano
Recorded
RCA Studios, Hollywood: March 6–9, 1966
Technical Team
Producer: Andrew Loog Oldham
Sound engineer: Dave Hassinger
This song, written by Mick Jagger at the Beverly Hills Hotel shortly before the band entered the studio, tells of an unfortunate man who takes a flight in order to embark on a new life. He jumps into a taxi and asks the airline ticket agent to get him on flight number 505. The passenger has a glass in his hand and the world at his feet, and things could not be better. Until the airplane crashes into the ocean, that is. This is another example of black humor from Mick Jagger, a chronicler, in his own way, of lost illusions.
Some people have suggested that “Flight 505” refers to the plane crash that took the lives of Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens on February 3, 1959 (“The Day the Music Died”). There is no truth in this, however. Not only did the plane that was to take the three rock ’n’ roll pioneers to Fargo, North Dakota, come down on dry land, near Clear Lake, Iowa, Bill Wyman himself, in his book Stone Alone, states that this flight 505 was the number of the British Airways flight that carried the Rolling Stones across the Atlantic for their first US tour in June 1964.6
Ian Stewart opens this track for a change with some very good boogie-woogie piano, a style at which he excelled. He also injects a touch of humor, concluding his piano intro with an allusion to “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” (0:19)! The band responds by launching into this rock ’n’ roll number that is not unlike many others the Stones had been playing since their earliest days. There is nothing mind-blowing about it, with each member of the band performing his part conscientiously but without sparkle. Mick Jagger sings of the hero’s misfortunes, but there is something a little puerile about the lyrics, which are in a different league than what a certain Bob Dylan was capable of at this time. Keith Richards provides the vocal harmonies and plays both rhythm and lead guitar, supported, it would seem, by Brian Jones on second rhythm guitar. No doubt seduced by the fuzz bass used by Paul McCartney on “Think for Yourself” on the album Rubber Soul (released at the end of 1965), Keith adds some of the same to various tracks on Aftermath. On “Flight 505” he doubles sections of Bill Wyman’s bass line with fuzz bass, but this is not exactly indispensable to the overall effect.