Let It Bleed (song)
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| “"Let It Bleed"” | |||||
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| Song by The Rolling Stones | |||||
| Album | Let It Bleed | ||||
| Released | December 5, 1969 | ||||
| Recorded | March 9, 1968, finished on June 10, 1969 | ||||
| Genre | Rock | ||||
| Length | 5m:28s | ||||
| Label | Decca Records/ABKCO | ||||
| Writer | Jagger/Richards | ||||
| Producer | Jimmy Miller | ||||
| Let It Bleed track listing | |||||
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"Let It Bleed" is a song by rock 'n roll band The Rolling Stones. It was written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and is featured on the 1969 album of the same name. The lyrics are highly suggestive, dealing mostly with sex and drugs, which might be the reason why it was never released as a single. (However, the much more explicit Brown Sugar was released as a single.)
"Sixth Stone" Ian Stewart plays piano on this track (his only appearance on the album) while Bill Wyman plays autoharp. Many believe that this song was a take on the Beatles' song/album Let It Be. The titles are very similar, and there was a running history of the Stones and the Beatles tweaking each other. The Stone's "Let It Bleed" was released months before "Let it Be," but it should be noted that most of the songs from Let It Be had been recorded earlier than most of the songs in Let It Bleed, and was a known project.
The song opens with a slide piece and quickly moves into a solo acoustic guitar strumming C, F, and G chords before bass, drums, and piano join in respectively.
The ending lyrics are arguably some of the Stones' most explicit of their repertoire. In the second verse, Mick Jagger sings "We all need someone we can cream on, and if you want to, you can cream on me," and in the final verse "You can be my rider, you can come all over me" several times. Also included with explicit references to sex and drugs is the first chorus exclaiming "She said my breasts, they will always be open, you can rest your weary head right on me, and there will always be a space in my parking lot, when you need a little coke and sympathy," and "you can bleed on me," possibly referring to intravenous drug use. In contrast, Brown Sugar serves mainly as a double entendre, which may reference both drugs and sex but does not explicitly detail either.
Reputed rock enthusiast Jimmy Quinn considers this to be one of the Rolling Stones' best songs.
Caetano Veloso did a cover of this song, featured in his 2004 album A foreign sound
