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Ain’t it funny how things happen/ Just as we think we’ve got it all straight…
Written by: Jagger/Richards Recorded: Studio Guillaume Tell, Paris, France, May 13-June 8 2002 Guest musicians: Darryl Jones (bass) *Data taken from Martin Elliott’s book THE ROLLING STONES COMPLETE RECORDING SESSIONS 1962-2012
Keith Richards wrote “Losing My Touch” at his house in Jamaica with the help of Mick Jagger. “It’s about a guy on the run who’s gotta say goodbye, and he doesn’t really know how to say it,” explains Keith in a 2002 interview. Some people have seen this story of a man on the run, who claims he has lost his touch and says that it seems things are in a lockdown, as a metaphor with which Keith evokes his sense of losing faith in what he was doing. The music is a sentimental ballad, an end-of-evening song for when the glasses are empty, the ashtrays full, and the exhausted pianist is playing his last few notes on the piano.
The task of bringing Forty Licks to a close therefore falls to Keith, with what sounds like an intimate confession. While he has no more than a discreet presence on the other three new tracks on the album, without even singing backing vocals, here he whispers his lyrics in a voice that reveals the patina of age, and with all the emotion and sincerity that characterize his style. Listeners might also wonder whether he was influenced by Come Away with Me, the Norah Jones album that has sold twenty million copies since its release in February 2002, a few months before the session at the studios. It shares the same hushed atmosphere, breathy voice, and pared-down instrumentation, not to mention the jazzy harmonies accentuated by the superb beat played with the brushes by Charlie, who is very much at home in this world.
Darryl Jones, Miles Davis’s former bassist, seems here to be playing acoustic bass, and is also very much in his element. Chuck Leavell’s piano part is sumptuous, but at the same time light and nuanced, combining blues and jazz with great finesse. Keith accompanies him with well-spaced phrases on the acoustic guitar, and also plays a short solo at 2:51. At Keith’s request, Ron Wood comes in with pedal steel at 2:03. According to Woody, Keith had a precise idea of what he wanted him to play: “‘Ronnie please play a pedal steel line. Imagine you’re playing pedal steel on it.’” The resulting sonority reinforces the connection with Norah Jones, who, some years later, would sing a duo with Keith Richards on “Illusion,” a number on his 2015 solo album Crosseyed Heart.
