We had a listen to the Stones’ Beatles moment recently, a classic from back in 1963. Well today, I want to flip the tables and look at when the Beatles returned the favour. We Love You was recorded in London in 1967 at the height of the Summer of Love with Lennon and McCartney taking a break from changing music for ever with Sgt. Peppers to provide some backing vocals and well-timed handclaps.
The Beatles led the way with most of the great musical experiments of that time but it’s easy to forget just how weird the Stones’ own take on late era flower-power was. There was something much darker and more menacing in their version, as if they could see the dream turning sour long before most other bands.
We Love You is a great example of this. The background to the song is legendary. While the rest of the world was tuning in and dropping out, The Stones were coming off years of harassment by the English police that had recently ended in an infamous drugs bust at Keith’s stately pile in Sussex and subsequent convictions. We Love You was their defiant response.
The day of the recording itself was also pretty nutty – Allen Ginsberg holding court in the studio with Tibetan love beads and conducting a choir of Jagger, Richards, Lennon and McCartney. If you were looking for one mental image to sum up the latter part of the sixties, you could do a lot worse than that one.
But what a song! From the second the prison door clangs shut and that driving piano kicks in, you can see this is a dog with teeth. The piano and mellotron set a pounding early pace but the real highlight for me has always been the way the rhythm section tee up the chorus after the first breakdown. It’s a thing of beauty. Charlie and Bill ran a tight ship back in those days!
Originally a single-only release, We Love You first popped up in album form on Through the Past, Darkly (Big Hits Vol. 2) in 1969 and it’s been a staple on Greatest Hits packages ever since. It’s dark, sarcastic and weirdly modern sounding when you play it today.
The promotional video at the top is one for collectors as well: an arty Sixties take on The Trials of Oscar Wilde with Jagger flouncing around as Oscar Wilde and Keith playing a very unconvincing looking judge. Crazy times and the perfect song to soundtrack them.
Start Me Up 