Charlee Sharpe
Dr. Shelly Monier
MUS 128-501
5 March 2021
Culture Paper- The Rolling Stones
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4irXQhgMqg – “Paint it, Black”
The Rolling Stones is one of the longest living bands to ever be formed, they still to this
day, are doing small performances and making songs. Even though there have been some
member changes or just adding people or substituting people through the years, the original
members are Brian Jones (guitar, harmonica, keyboard), Mick Jagger (lead vocals, harmonica),
Keith Richards (guitar, vocals), Bill Wyman (bass guitar), Ron Wood (Guitar), and Charlie
Watts (drums), and the only one who’s pasted away to date is Brain Jones. They also had a
member names Mick Taylor, but he had left the band because being with in the crazy band
lifestyle he had gotten addicted to Heroin while living with the Rolling stones and decided that
he had to get his life together to protect his family from the band’s chaotic lifestyle. They formed
the band in 1962 and originally only sang covers before writing their own music. The name of
their band came from the name of a Muddy Waters song “Rollin’ Stone.” They became popular a
year after they formed and performed at a Long running gig at the Crawdaddy Club in London,
which led to the Decca Records Contract through their new manager Andrew Oldham. The
Rolling Stones came from Britain in the “Britain invasion” a couple months after the Beatles
came to the US and appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964.
The Rolling Stones style was the complete opposite as the Beatles, there were seen as the
bad boys and would dress in the grudge look. Parents didn’t want their kids listening to their
music because they believed that it would lead their child down a “Bad” path which resulted with
advertisements with slogans such as “Would you let your sister go with a Rolling Stone.” The
Rolling Stones had a big impact on society, collage kids and rebellious kids sought out the lyrics
and punk outlook and mad it into their personality. With the Rolling Stones making a huge
impact on the youth culture, it allowed people to use the music to escape the confines of society
and helped the kids who felt out of place to connect and find things in common with other and
circulate ideas to produce new ideas. Some people believe that the Rolling Stones are unique
primarily because they understood what made Rock and Roll great and how the bands can’t take
anything for granted. With writing their own music there were able to control and compose the
right song with the best new solos and they have control over the tempo.
The Rolling Stones were able to start with a great background of simple blues forms and
convert it to a style of the pop culture and combined with the ideas of rock and roll. There first
top chart song was a Chuck Berry song called “Come On.” When the band would write songs all
together, they had a code name that represented them all, Nanker Phelge. After there first US
tour they started to record at the Chess Records in Chicago which later became their home base
for future recoding’s. one of my favorite songs by the Rolling Stones is the Song “Paint it,
Black,” not only do I love the song for the way the music flows with the Sitar, which was played
by Brain Jones and is considered as one of the best and unique uses of the Indian instrument in
rock music, I had the best memories of playing this song on Guitar Hero and jamming with my
family over the year. This song has an interesting message as well, when he says Paint it black
what he really means is that people take stuff out of context and change anything to be an ugly
meaning. To make a person appear mean, malicious, or evil and argues that “the film was edited
to paint him black, taking his statements out of context and mixing them with ominous music”
claiming that media painted people black and controls how people see others even if the people
is actually a great person.
