Mick Jagger / Keith Richards / 5:14
Musicians
Mick Jagger: vocals, keyboards, arrangement
Keith Richards: acoustic guitar, bicycle (sound effect)
Charlie Watts: drums
Ron Wood: bass, acoustic guitar
Matt Clifford: percussion programming, arrangement
Sarah Dash, Lisa Fischer, Tessa Niles, Sonia Jones Morgan, Bernard Fowler: backing vocals
The Master Musicians of Joujouka with Bachir Attar: Moroccan instruments
Farafina: African instruments
Recorded
AIR Studios, Montserrat: March 29–May 5, 1989
The Palace of Ben Abbou, Tangier: June 16 and 17, 1989
Olympic Sound Studios, London: May 15–June 29, 1989
Technical Team
Producers: Chris Kimsey, the Glimmer Twins
Sound engineer: Christopher Marc Potter
Assistant sound engineer: Rupert Coulson
Mixing: Christopher Marc Potter, Chris Kimsey
With “Continental Drift,” were the Stones following along the path pioneered by the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Peter Gabriel, and Talking Heads, who had been some of the first to combine Eastern and Western musical influences? It may be tempting to think so, but on the other hand it should not be forgotten that, under the aegis of Brian Jones, the London quintet had developed an interest in sonorities from outside Europe as early as the mid-sixties, as can be heard on “Paint It Black” and the albums Aftermath and Their Satanic Majesties Request.
“Continental Drift” enabled the Stones to go a step further. In an interview with Rolling Stone in 1989 with David Fricke, Mick Jagger explained the band’s need to move on to something else: “The hard-rock thing just took over, and we lost a little bit of sensitivity and adventure. And it’s boring just doing hard rock all the time. You gotta bounce it around a little.”126 Mick Jagger wrote “Continental Drift” in Barbados. “I woke up one morning,” says Richards in the same interview, “to find Mick playing this thing on the keyboard. And I thought, ‘Ah, that’s nice, that reminds me of Morocco.’”126 A few days later, Mick and Keith were in Tangier to meet the Master Musicians of Joujouka, the Moroccan group recorded by Brian Jones twenty years before. Musically, “Continental Drift” is therefore a stirring homage to Brian Jones! And so too are the words: Love comes at the speed of light… It’s as pure as silver/It’s as pure as gold…
A long way from “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” the Stones are paying tribute to the sonorities of the sixties that were given a new lease on life by the founding of Real World Records in 1989. “Continental Drift” was initially recorded in Montserrat, with drum machine and synthesizer programing by Jagger and Clifford. Richards and Wood are on acoustic guitars, and the latter even plays an acoustic bass. It almost goes without saying that these three instruments are submerged in the mass of sound. Charlie is excellent on drums, accompanied by numerous Moroccan percussion instruments recorded in Tangier in mid-June and African percussion recorded by the Farafina ensemble, from Burkina Faso, between June 18 and 29. Mick gives a good vocal performance supported by the numerous backing vocalists.