Mick Jagger / Keith Richards / 4:36
Musicians
Mick Jagger: vocals, rhythm guitar
Keith Richards: rhythm and lead guitar, bass, backing vocals
Ron Wood: rhythm and lead guitar, backing vocals
Bill Wyman: synthesizer
Charlie Watts: drums
Sugar Blue: harmonica
Recorded
EMI Pathé Marconi Studios, Boulogne-Billancourt, France: October 10–December 21, 1977
Atlantic Studios, New York: March 15–31, 1978
Technical Team
Producers: The Glimmer Twins
Sound engineer: Chris Kimsey
Assistant sound engineers: Barry Sage, Ben King
This is one song to be avoided by any sensitive souls! Mick Jagger once again indulges in a settling of scores with women—and does not go in for half measures. Initially in the guise of a gigolo, the narrator describes his relationships with his female clients (Some girls give me money.…). He then reassumes the role of rock star and turns the spotlight on groupies (Some girls get the shirt off my back/And leave me with a lethal dose). All, wherever they hail from, are hauled over the coals. French girls they want Cartier, Italian girls want cars, American girls want everything in the world. Having found English girls so prissy, he then attacks black girls, who just wanna get fucked all night. This explains why the feminist and antiracist organizations were so outraged at the release of the album, a reaction that inspired the following response from Keith Richards: “Well, we’ve been on the road with a lot of black chicks for many years, and there’s quite a few that do. It could have been yellow girls or white girls.”2 One can only imagine the uproar that would have ensued had the most cynical and compromising verses not been cut from the song, which originally lasted nearly twenty-three minutes.
Keith launches “Some Girls” with a riff strongly colored by MXR phasing. The song is a rock ballad with Mick, Ron, and Keith on rhythm guitar. The latter two probably share the various solos, presumably Ron at 1:06, Keith, Chuck Berry–style, at 1:46, and the two together at 2:25. They also play the two acoustic parts in the refrains. Keith is on bass, in perfect symbiosis with Charlie’s drumming, while Bill creates layers of synthesizer in the refrains. Sugar Blue is brilliant once again on the harmonica, particularly in his closing solo (4:11). Listeners will notice that the overall sound is mono, with only the acoustic guitars and the synthesizer in stereo in the refrains. Furthermore, Chris Kimsey had to cut down the original recording from twenty-three minutes(!) and remembers the outer face of the master tape being practically continuous Scotch tape! Although his work is highly accurate, two edits remain audible, at 0:51 and 3:40 (small problems with the rhythm).