While the Rolling Stones have a long history of hits making it to the charts, one track never did and still managed to become a fan-favorite classic. "Moonlight Mile" was released in 1971 and was considered one of their underappreciated ballads that still holds up decades later.
Many may remember the band's album Sticky Fingers for their hit chart-topping track "Brown Sugar." While the band continued their history as rock n' roll legends, "Moonlight Mile" was a deviation from their usual sound with a prominent acoustic guitar and a more heartfelt story behind its lyrics.
The track was written by Mick Jagger while the Rolling Stones were on their 1970 European tour, with many of the band members feeling the strain of traveling and performing. So much so that Keith Richards was often absent from recording sessions while producing their next album. As a result, "Moonlight Mile" has the members playing other instruments to make up for it. Jagger remembers having fiddled around with the acoustic guitar riff and having a songbook of ideas, but he never thought the track would be recorded.
"I also came up with an Oriental-Indian riff on my acoustic guitar. At some point during the tour I played it for Mick Taylor, because I thought he would like it. At that point, I really hadn't intended on recording the song. Sometimes you don't want to record what you're writing. You think, 'This isn't worth recording, this is just my doodling,'" he said, according to SongFacts.
The European tour proved to be a rough time for the band, with Jagger reportedly being affected by fatigue and a feeling of loneliness. "Moonlight Mile" lyrics focus on the emotional alienation that takes place while on the road. Many critics called it a "rare example" of the music icon letting go of his rocker image to showcase the reality of life in the spotlight. The track was later misinterpreted by some as a "cocaine song" due to its lyrics in the first stanza.
"The feeling I had at that moment was how difficult it was to be touring and how I wasn’t looking forward to going out and doing it again. It’s a very lonely thing, and my lyrics reflected that," explained Jagger, according to The Wall Street Journal.
"Moonlight Mile" was recorded during an all-nighter between Jagger and Mick Taylor, with them having reworked an old guitar piece into the track. The song never charted on the Billboard charts as it was never released as a single, with Sticky Fingers spending four weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200.
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