It doesn’t matter how long you spend in the spotlight or how many hits your band churns out; the public remains just as predictable as they ever will. Mick Jagger and The Rolling Stones are constantly finding this out, as songs they believe will be well received and loved by all are knocked back, whereas others fly under the radar and become classics.
After getting so many top fives, you would think The Rolling Stones would know what goes into a track to guarantee its success. Well, it turns out this isn’t the case, as one of the band’s most popular tunes, ‘Beast of Burden’, wasn’t expected by any of them to do that well.
“I quite like it,” said Jagger, discussing the track, “but I didn’t expect anyone to really go for it… It’s surprising. But I wonder what other people are going to think of the album. I mean, we’ve been knocked a lot recently – I don’t really know what they expect us to do.”
It’s unclear what has led to the song’s success. It sounds good, which may be one of the most significant factors, but given that it discusses romantic relationships, the perceived speculation around the track also plays a part. There is a lot of speculation surrounding who the piece is about and what inspired the lyrics.
When asked, Keith Richards commented on the inspiration, saying, “Those who say it’s about one woman in particular, they’ve got it all wrong. We were trying to write for a slightly broader audience than just Anita Pallenberg or Marianna Faithfull. Although that’s not to say they didn’t have some influence in there somewhere. I mean, what’s close by is close by!”
Another subconscious influence on the song, which might have resonated with fans more and struck some nostalgic nerve, is the unintentional reference to Buddy Holly’s ‘Peggy Sue’. When the track leans into saying, “you’re a pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty girl,” it seems to be a more sexual version of what Buddy Holly sings about when he describes “pretty Peggy Sue”.
“Yeah, it’s true I never thought of it,” Jagger commented, “It’s funny, that. But to me, it’s just a sound – it could be ‘pretty pretty happy happy’… or whatever. I wasn’t thinking of Buddy Holly at all; it’s a completely unconscious thing.”
When the track was released, it charted at number eight, which is impressive, but it wasn’t the most successful Rolling Stones song ever released. They had plenty of top fives before that and would have plenty more after. Its initial placement in the charts is probably closer to what Jagger and co expected. However, as time has passed, the track seems completely unwavering in its appeal, now considered one of the best songs on the Some Girls album and one of the most eagerly awaited during live shows.
There is simply no telling how people are going to react to music, and the album Some Girls is one of the best representations of that, given the lead single nearly incited a civil rights movement, whilst a song the band didn’t have high hopes for is now considered a classic.
