#0107: Beggar's Banquet - The Rolling Stones

We were walking thru Glastonbury festival one year (I would guess 94) and there was some kind of rock music I don't remember blaring out of a tent on the side of the track we were walking dowb towards where a field opened out, possibly into where the Acoustic Tent was - not sure. 

Beyond the tent blaring the music, under the canopy of a bar tent there were a bunch of people grooving around in a circle in a sort of tribal way and they were pushing their hands up the air together at the same point in their dance.  But it was completely out of time with the music we could hear.  It was so surreal but as we neared the bar and stepped under the canopy it turned out they were dancing to Sympathy For The Devil and their hands were doing the "wooh woooh"s.

We joined them.  It was awesome.  Then we got a beer.  And it tasted weird.  Cuz we were off our faces.

I was surprised to find it opening up this album.  Firstly cuz I figured it was written much later.  But it feels very much like a finale song to me.  In bands, I've always played it later on in the set.   Not that it doesn't work but it does rather oblige the next track to back down and admit defeat.  That's why, I suppose No Expectations is next.  Nice and mellow, non-confrontational, you-can't-compete-with-satan-so-you-might-as well-as-sit-down-have-a-cuppa-while-we-regroup.  It's too long by about a minute, I'd say.  Having said that, Wild Horses is not my favourite Stones track for the same reason,  so those who *are* fans of overly repetitive dirges would probably love this.

And it seems the ground is still warm from all the scorching cuz Dear Doctor is treading very carefully in the direction of allegro with its white trash waltz that progresses steadily toward its eventual transition into a parody of itself.

In Parachute Woman we have the diddly-dink-a-dink-a-dink-a- blues.  It's unambitious but the closing harmonica solo is pretty satisfying.

There are shades of Hendrix in the rhythm and meter of Jig-Saw Puzzle.  Keef would be first to cry "three chords, two fingers, one arsehole" if I dared extend that comparison to the guitar work so let's not beat humility into the self-deprecating.  The use of a lap steel in this rocky context is pretty cool tho and the unexpected shift in the progression plays well to the slide effect.  I'm also drawn (somewhat unsurprisingly) to the piano track which is more interesting than Jagger's vocal.  It's a fairly repetitive ballad which at 6 minutes really needed a bit more work done on the arrangement in terms of texture and arc if Mick wasn't gonna make any effort to vary the melody.

Street Fighting Man is a well known tune, which again has Mick on a repeated tension note but then there are a couple of changes in this song and it's half the length so it really works.

Is it bluegrass?  I'm not sure what brand of acoustic, porch-swing blues this is but Prodigal Son pulls it off with some panache even down to the lyrics being completely inde-fucking-cipherable.   I assume they're about wasting money, coming home or forgiveness depending on the songwriter's level of Biblical understanding.

Stray Cat Blues is a pearl of rock.  Heavy on everything with shades of Iggy Pop's vocal.  It crashes about with an acceptable anarchism for a few minutes and then stops before the neighbours complain.  Tidy.

Back to acoustic country blues for Factory Girl which shows you a bit of tongue in the cheek of Keith's self-effacing demeanour and we have a nice little anthemic finale in Salt Of The Earth making this a well-rounded and enjoyable jaunt.

I wanna come back to this.   4 stars.