The Styrous® Viewfinder: Some Girls

Some Girls is the 14th British and 16th American studio album by the Rolling Stones, released almost 40 years ago on June 9, 1978, on Rolling Stones Records. This is the original pressing with the die cut album cover which has celebrity faces on the front; the faces were removed on later issues. By sliding the inner sleeve back and forth the faces are interchangeable.

The Rolling Stones ~ Some Girls

vinyl LP, die-cut front cover
Design/Cover Concept – Peter Corriston
photo of album cover by Styrous®

I remember the first time I heard, Miss you. I thought to myself, "Damn it! The Stones have sold out and gone disco!" However, I subsequently found myself dancing my ass off to the song night after night in some bar somewhere. It is a mighty good dance song and it became one of my favorite tunes at some point.

Mick Jagger and Ronnie Wood insist Miss you wasn't conceived as a disco song, while Richards said, "...Miss You was a damn good disco record; it was calculated to be one." In any case, what was going on in discotheques did make it to the recording. Charlie Watts said, "A lot of those songs like Miss You on 'Some Girls'... were heavily influenced by going to the discos. You can hear it in a lot of those four-to-the-floor and the Philadelphia-style drumming." For the bass part, Bill Wyman started from Preston's bass guitar on the song demo. Chris Kimsey, who engineered the recording of the song, said Wyman went "...to quite a few clubs before he got that bass line sorted out", which Kimsey said "made that song." Jagger sang a good part of the chorus using falsetto "ooh"s often in unison with harmonica, guitar and electric piano.

Unlike most of Some Girls, Miss you features several studio musicians. In addition to Sugar Blue who, according to Wood, was found by Jagger busking on the streets of Paris, Ian McLagan plays understated Wurlitzer electric piano, and Mel Collins provides the saxophone solo for the instrumental break. Miss you was the last #1 pop hit by the Stones.

The Rolling Stones ~ Some Girls

vinyl LP back cover

Design/Cover Concept – Peter Corriston
photo of album cover by Styrous®

My next favorite songs are Far Away Eyes and Beast of Burden. No two songs could be more different yet have the same feeling. Each is a great slow dance song in its own way.

Far Away Eyes is a classic country-western song in the best old time tradition with that great twangy guitar sound by Ron Wood, male chorus towards the end and wonderfully typical country western blues lyrics with a twist (link below).

Beast of Burden is my next favoite. It hails from the traditional rock sound, just the way the Stones always did it; and nobody did it better. In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked the song #435 on their list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" and #433 on the 500 Greatest Rock and Roll Songs of All Time.

When the Whip Comes Down is remarkable in the Jagger-Richards repertoire. It’s the story of a gay man who comes to New York seeking his fortune and becomes a trash collector; the lyrics are explicit (link below).

Another song whose lyrics deal with New York is Shattered, an edgy love note to the City’s gritty late ’70s soul. Jagger reportedly wrote the lyrics, sung in sprechgesang, in the back of a Manhattan cab. Richards’ stuttering rhythm guitar riff, with a hint of phase shifter, has the impact of a snarling dog. The bass track is played by Ronnie Wood. It was released as a single in the United States with cover art by illustrator Hubert Kretzschmar and climbed to number 31 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1979.

The Rolling Stones ~ Some Girls

vinyl LP, die-cut front cover
Design/Cover Concept – Peter Corriston
photo of album cover by Styrous®

By 1976, the Rolling Stones' popularity was in decline as the charts were dominated by disco music. Jagger is generally regarded as the principal creative force behind Some Girls. He claimed in a 1995 interview to have written a great number of the album's songs (though when the amount was pointed out to him he denied that the record was mostly his own), including its signature song, Miss You. In addition to punk, Jagger claims to have been influenced by dance music, most notably disco, during the recording of Some Girls, and cites New York City as a major inspiration for the album, an explanation for his lyrical preoccupation with the city throughout.

"The inspiration for the record was really based in New York and the ways of the town. I think that gave it an extra spur and hardness. And then, of course, there was the punk thing that had started in 1976. Punk and disco were going on at the same time, so it was quite an interesting period. New York and London, too. Paris—there was punk there. Lots of dance music. Paris and New York had all this Latin dance music, which was really quite wonderful. Much more interesting than the stuff that came afterward." ~ Mick Jagger

Marilyn Monroe

The Rolling Stones ~ Some Girls

vinyl LP, cover detail
Design/Cover Concept – Peter Corriston
detail photo of album cover by Styrous®

The album cover for Some Girls was conceived and designed by Peter Corriston, who would design the next three album covers, with Illustrations by Hubert Kretzschmar. An elaborate die-cut design, with the colours on the sleeves varying in different markets, it featured the Rolling Stones' faces alongside those of select female celebrities inserted into a copy of an old Valmor Products Corporation advertisement.

Valmor Products Corporation ad

The Rolling Stones ~ Some Girls

vinyl LP back cover

Design/Cover Concept – Peter Corriston
photo of album cover by Styrous®

The cover design was challenged legally when Lucille Ball, Farrah Fawcett, Liza Minnelli (representing her mother Judy Garland), Raquel Welch, and the estate of Marilyn Monroe threatened to sue for the use of their likenesses without permission. Similarly, Valmor did take legal action and were given a monetary award for the use of their design.

The album was quickly re-issued with a redesigned cover that removed all the celebrities, whether they had complained or not. The celebrity images were replaced with black and punk style garish colours with the phrase "Pardon our appearance - cover under re-construction." Jagger later apologised to Minnelli when he encountered her during a party at the famous discothèque Studio 54. The only celebrity whose face was not removed was ex-Beatle George Harrison. As with the original design, the colour schemes on the redesigned sleeves varied in different markets.

The Rolling Stones ~ Some Girls

vinyl LP record sleeve

Design/Cover Concept – Peter Corriston
photo of record sleeve by Styrous®

There is an interview, Facts About the Stones’ Most Notorious Record Cover, by John Hood on the Huffinton Post with sleeve co-creator Hubert Kretzschmar (link below).

The Rolling Stones ~ Some Girls

vinyl LP record sleeve

Design/Cover Concept – Peter Corriston
photo of record sleeve by Styrous®

Some Girls: Live in Texas '78 is a live concert film by The Rolling Stones released in 2011 (link below). This live performance was recorded and filmed in 16 mm during one show at the Will Rogers Auditorium in Fort Worth, Texas on 18 July 1978, during their US Tour 1978 in support of their album Some Girls. The concert film was released on DVD/Blu-ray Disc, Combo (DVD & CD set) and (Blu-ray Disc & CD set) on 15 November 2011. The CD was exclusive to the combo sets, and was not released individually.

Some Girls: Live in Texas '78 live concert film

The Rolling Stones ~ Some Girls

vinyl LP record, side 1

photo by Styrous®

Some Girls reached #1 in the US and #2 in the UK, becoming their biggest-selling studio album with over 11 million copies sold worldwide. Beast of Burden, was released as second single in the US and it reached #8 on the Billboard Hot 100. Respectable (in the UK) and Shattered (in the US) would follow as the next singles, both becoming Top 40 hits as well.

Some Girls reached number one on the Billboard 200 album chart, and became the band's top selling album in the United States, certified by the RIAA as having six million copies sold as of 2000. It was a major critical success, becoming the only Rolling Stones album to be nominated for a Grammy in the Album of the Year category.

In 2003 Some Girls was ranked number 269 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

The Rolling Stones ~ Some Girls

vinyl LP record, side 2

photo by Styrous®

The Rolling Stones ~ Some Girls

vinyl LP record label, side 2

photo by Styrous®

Tracklist:

Side 1:

A1 - Miss You, Blues Harp [Harp] – Sugar Blue, Electric Piano – Ian McLagan, Saxophone – Mel Collins - 4:50

A2 - When The Whip Comes Down - 4:18

A3 - Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me), Organ – Ian McLagan, written by Strong*, Whitfield - 4:25

A4 - Some Girls, Acoustic Guitar – Ron Wood, Bass – Keith Richards, Blues Harp [Harp] – Sugar Blue, Synthesizer – Bill Wyman - 4:40

A5 - Lies - 3:12

Side 2:

B1 - Far Away Eyes, Piano – Keith Richards - 4:24

B2 - Respectable - 3:05

B3 - Before They Make Me Run, Bass – Keith Richards, Recorded By, Mixed By – Dave Jordan, Slide Guitar – Ron Wood - 3:26

B4 - Beast Of Burden, Acoustic Guitar – Ron Wood - 4:24

B5 - Shattered, Bass, Lead Guitar, Bass Drum – Ron Wood, Tom Tom – Charlie Watts - 3:43

Companies, etc.

Distributed By – Atlantic Recording Corporation
Phonographic Copyright (p) – Promotone B.V.
Copyright (c) – Promotone B.V.
Pressed By – Presswell
Published By – Colgems-EMI Music Inc.
Published By – Jobete Music Co., Inc.
Recorded At – EMI Studios, Paris
Mastered At – Sterling Sound

Credits:

Acoustic Guitar – Keith Richards (tracks: A4, B3, B4)
Backing Vocals – Keith Richards (tracks: A1 to A3, B1, B3 to B5), Mick Jagger (tracks: A1 to B1, B3 to B5), Ron Wood (tracks: A1 to A3, B1, B3, B5)
Bass – Bill Wyman (tracks: A1 to A3, A5 to B2, B5)
Design Concept [Cover Concept], Design – Peter Corriston
Drums – Charlie Watts
Electric Guitar – Keith Richards, Mick Jagger (tracks: A1 to A5, B2), Ron Wood (tracks: A1 to A5, B2 to B4)
Electric Piano – Tim Hinkley (tracks: A1, A2, A4 [uncredited])
Engineer [Assistant] – Barry Sage, Ben King (2), Dave Jordan, Philippe (8)
Engineer, Mixed By – Chris Kimsey
Lead Vocals – Mick Jagger (tracks: A1 to B2, B4, B5)
Mastered By – Ted Jensen
Pedal Steel Guitar – Ron Wood (tracks: A2, B1, B3, B5)
Producer – The Glimmer Twins
Written-By – Keith Richards (tracks: A1, A2, A4 to B5), Mick Jagger (tracks: A1, A2, A4 to B5)

Notes:

Tim Hinkley was flown into Paris to record on this album. The producer Chris Kimsey wiped out Ian's work and replaced it with Tim's performances. Tim is not mentioned on the album's credits, however, there are various interviews which document this as well as his Wikipedia page.

Dark Blue-Pink-Green-Yellow Version. B/W (Liza Minnelli) side of inner sleeve has COC 39108 in right upper corner.

Alternative 1st cover from Plant "PR" with Some Girls celebrity faces

Shortly after release, this version was withdrawn and the celebrity faces included on the inner sleeve were removed.

There is a second, altered version with celebrity faces removed.

Barcode and Other Identifiers

Matrix / Runout (Side 1 Label): ST-RS-784079-PR
Matrix / Runout (Side 2 Label): ST-RS-784080-PR
Matrix / Runout (Side 1 Etched): ST RS 784079 D (PR)P TJ
Matrix / Runout (Side 2 Etched): ST RS 784080 G (PR)P TJ
Matrix / Runout (Side 1 Stamped): STERLING
Matrix / Runout (Side 2 Stamped): STERLING
Rights Society: ASCAP

The Rolling Stones ~ Some Girls
Label: Rolling Stones Records ‎– COC 39108
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, 1st Version (Die Cut with Celebrity Faces)
Country: US
Released: June 9, 1978
Genre: Rock
Style: Blues Rock, Rock & Roll, Classic Rock, Disco

Viewfinder link:

Mick Jagger
         Net links:

Some Girls lyrics
Some Girls ~ Rolling Stones website
The Rolling Stones 'Some Girls – Live in Texas '78' review
Huffington post ~ Hubert Kretzschmar interview
The Guardian ~ The Rolling Stones: that 50-year itch…
The New Yorker ~ Some More Girls: Twelve New Rolling Stones Songs
Elusive Disc Some Girls review
Gibson review ~ Some Girls: Sex & Drugs & Rock and Roll

Some Girls Songs onYouTube:

Miss You
Beast of Burden
Far Away Eyes
When the Whip Comes Down
Respectable
Shattered

Styrous® ~ Friday, June 9, 2017

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