Wild Horses (song)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| "Wild Horses" | ||
|---|---|---|
 |
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| Single by Rolling Stones | ||
| from the album Sticky Fingers | ||
| Released | 1971 | |
| Format | 7" | |
| Recorded | December 1969-February 1970 | |
| Genre | Rock | |
| Length | 5:42 | |
| Label | Rolling Stones/Virgin Records | |
| Producer(s) | Jimmy Miller | |
| Chart positions | ||
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| Rolling Stones singles chronology | ||
| "Brown Sugar" (1971) |
"Wild Horses" (1971) |
"Tumbling Dice" (1972) |
- For other uses, see Wild Horses (disambiguation).
"Wild Horses" is a song by the Rolling Stones from their 1971 album Sticky Fingers. Written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, Rolling Stone named it the 334th greatest song of all time in 2004 in its "500 Greatest Songs of All Time."
Recorded between December of 1969 through February of 1970, "Wild Horses" is to have been originally written by Richards in response to his having to leave his then-infant son Marlon to go on tour with the band. Although it is said Jagger re-wrote most of this song to reflect the end of his relationship with Marianne Faithfull, Jagger himself said in the liner notes to the 1993 Stones collection "Jump Back: The Best of The Rolling Stones", "Everyone always says this was written about Marianne but I don't think it was; that was all well over by then. But I was definitely very inside this piece emotionally."
The Flying Burrito Brothers first recorded a version of the song that was released in 1970. Gram Parsons had befriended Jagger and (particularly) Richards the previous year and this was said to be one of his favorite songs. (Alternatively, there was a disagreement between Parsons and Jagger over songwriting credits.) The Stones recorded this (along with other songs off of Sticky Fingers) at the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama in early December of 1969 without the assistance of producer Jimmy Miller. The pianos on this song are of note as they are not played by Stones regular Ian Stewart, but by session man Jim Dickinson.
Released as the second (US-only) single in June of 1971, "Wild Horses" reached #28 on the singles chart. Despite not making the Top 20, the song has proved to be a popular cover song for other artists, eventually leading the Rolling Stones to rerelease it as a single in 1996. "Wild Horses" has been covered by The Sundays, Guns N' Roses, Bush, Labelle, The Lovemongers with Chris Cornell, Dave Matthews, Garbage, and most recently Alicia Keys, Adam Levine and Tre Lux.
Although popular at the Stones' live shows "Wild Horses" has never been recorded for an official release. The band did record a re-worked version for their 1995 acoustic/live album Stripped.
On April 8, 2006, Chinese rock star Cui Jian sang this with Jagger when The Stones played a concert in Shanghai.
As of 2006, Jagger sings the song in concert with a much heavier twang than on the original records.
Eva Avila of Canadian Idol performed this song for Rolling Stones night in the Top 9 night.
