Mick Jagger / Keith Richards / 5:39
Musicians
Mick Jagger: vocals, electric piano
Keith Richards: rhythm and lead guitar
Bill Wyman: synthesizer
Ron Wood: bass
Charlie Watts: drums
Nicky Hopkins (?): electric piano
Bobby Keys: saxophone
Michael Shrieve: percussion
Recorded
EMI Pathé Marconi Studios, Boulogne-Billancourt, France: June 27–October 8, 1979
Electric Lady Studios, New York City: November–December 1979, April 1980
Technical Team
Producers: The Glimmer Twins
Associate producer: Chris Kimsey
Sound engineer: Chris Kimsey
Assistant sound engineers: Sean Fullan, Brad Samuelsohn, Ron “Snake” Reynolds, Jon Smith
Mick Jagger wrote both the words and the music to “Emotional Rescue,” which came into being in a similar fashion to “Miss You.” Here, Mick Jagger takes on the role of a man who is deeply in love with a poor girl in a rich man’s house, and cries over her absence. Initially fatalistic, in the second verse he resolves to rescue her. “You would never really write a song like that in real life. Comes out in the studio, ’cause it’s all ad-libbed, the end part. It was never planned like that,”117 commented Jagger in 1980.
“Emotional Rescue” is thus a love song and, at the same time, an ode to dance. What never fails to surprise, is the falsetto voice adopted by Mick Jagger, which is completely unlike anything he had done before. It inevitably calls to mind the Bee Gees of “Saturday Night Fever” or Marvin Gaye on “Got to Give It Up,” certainly not a rock singer, and even less a bluesman. Although atypical of the Stones’ output, “Emotional Rescue” would nonetheless perform more than creditably when released as a single (with the very bluesy “Down in the Hole” as its B-side) on June 20, 1980, rising to number 3 on the Billboard chart and number 9 in the United Kingdom.
“I wrote that on an electric piano in the studio, then Charlie [Watts] and Woody [Ron Wood] and I cut it immediately, live. It was all done very quickly,”117 Mick Jagger would later explain. As simple as that. “Emotional Rescue” is not as straightforward a song as it initially seems, however. Charlie Watts opens the number with bass drum on every beat and very effective use of the hi-hat. Chris Kimsey (or one of his assistants) then had the good idea of adding not only a reasonably long delay with generous feedback, but also some phasing and a short reverb. This gives the cymbal an airy, emphatically “dance” quality. And then there’s the bass, played by Ron Wood, whose funky style is a triumph in every respect. Bill Wyman, who has ceded his place to the guitarist, plays a subtle and highly staccato accompaniment on synthesizer, creating a sonority that is highly unusual for the Stones. And finally, an electric piano, probably a Wurlitzer, is played in symbiosis with the bass, almost certainly by Nicky Hopkins. There is also a second electric piano that does not come in until 0:22, this time played by Mick, and even a third, which can be heard in the refrains. Each part constitutes another building block in the creation of the whole, and it has to be acknowledged that a good groove is established. The key element in “Emotional Rescue” is, of course, Mick Jagger’s voice with its astonishing falsetto: “I think the vocals could’ve been better,”117 he would later concede. He would also reveal in an interview that his inspiration came from Don Covay and the Goodtimers, in particular the song “Mercy, Mercy,” which the Stones had covered in 1965 on Out of Our Heads, and would defend his choice of vocal technique by invoking the king of falsetto, Prince. In truth, it seems strange that one of the greatest of all rock ’n’ roll singers should give in to a passing trend, but when all is said and done, “Emotional Rescue” succeeded in winning over more than one fan from the earliest days. Clearly Keith did not care greatly for the number, even though he thought it a good song on the whole. He would complain that his sidekick was writing songs that were less and less guitaristic. Furthermore, he had had little to do with the song, other than playing some rhythm and a lead part that does not come in until around 3:00. Meanwhile, Bobby Keys has regained a certain legitimacy, delivering some very good phrases on the saxophone that have not been mixed down for a change. Finally, numerous percussion instruments are played throughout the track, probably by Michael Shrieve, such as a bongo, a shaker, a tambourine, and various others that are less easy to identify.
The Stones would shoot two videos for “Emotional Rescue”: the first in the traditional way, and the second using the technique of thermography, as on the album cover. For die-hard fans only.