Sir Mick Jagger used to get fed up with Keith Richards playing Beatles tunes non-stop when they shared a flat.
The Rolling Stones frontman admits a lot of their songs were inspired by their former rivals’ pop hits because guitarist Keith was obsessed with them.
Speaking to Mojo magazine, he said: “Originally, Keith was the pop person really.
“I mean, I used to just write lyrics to his pop tunes and he wrote all these pop tunes because he listened to The Beatles all the time.
“Drove me crazy listening to The Beatles when we shared a flat together.
“Keith sort of left that behind in a way, but he wrote Ruby Tuesday, Let’s Spend The Night Together – these were all Keith’s songs.
“But yeah, people will say ‘Keith was the one that liked blues.’
“I really like pop music now, listen to it all the time – Keith doesn’t.
“I still like blues but I like dance music and Keith doesn’t really like it.”
Beatle Sir Paul McCartney has brought “the dirt” with his fuzzy bass contribution to the Stones’ track ‘Bite My Head Off’ off their new album ‘Hackney Diamonds.
Keith said: “Macca wanted to put the dirt on it, we were like, ‘OK.'”
Bassist Ronnie Wood just let slip that Macca is on another song that had to be cut from the record but will be released at some point.
He said of teaming up with the ‘Let it Be’ hitmaker in an interview with NME: “The school boy! He was so happy. He actually played on two tracks, one which we’ve got up our sleeve for, you know, more music to come because we cut about 23 songs and we only picked the first 12.”
Ronnie would love for the Stones to play the entire album live, but his bandmates won’t allow it.
Asked how many of the new songs will make their setlist, he replied: “That’s the next thing. Next week, we’re going to see how they translate live. I have complete faith. We could play the whole album, you know what I mean? But [Mick and Keith] will go, ‘Oh no Ron, that’s so ambitious.’ We’re not gonna forget the back catalogue. There are certain songs, ‘Paint It, Black’ and ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’, that have got to be played. We’re only making room for, say, three or five songs.”
