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About The Rolling Stones’ Got LIVE If You Want It! EP
Before polished stadium rock became their trademark The Rolling Stones were already turning chaos into art with the Got Live If You Want It! EP. Recorded during their 1965 British tour, these raw performances capture the band at full-volume, half-control, and somehow still totally magnetic. Even the title nods to Slim Harpo’s I Got Love If You Want It, proving the Stones were always deep in blues obsession, not subtlety. That mix of garage energy, blues homage, and messy live recording makes this EP a cult snapshot for collectors who prefer grit over perfection and still sounds thrilling today honestly.
*By Marcelo Sonaglioni
June 11, 1965: Release of the Got LIVE If You Want It!EP in the UK (Decca DFE 8620) SIDE A: 1. We Want The Stones/ 2. Everybody Needs Somebody To Love/ 3. Pain In My Heart/ 4. Route 6 SIDE B: 1. I’m Moving On/ 2. I’m Alright
The Origins and Influence Behind the Rolling Stones’ Live EP
A few live recordings from 1965 were included in the Got Live If You Want It! EP (eventually capitalized Got LIVE If You Want It! on the cover), the Stones’ six-song extended play and the band’s second EP after Five by Five, released the previous year. Slim Harpo, one of the band’s favorite blues musicians, who recorded the song I Got Love If You Want Itback in 1957 (B-side of I’m a King Bee, which the Stones recorded for their first album), served as the inspiration for the album’s somewhat odd title, thus its name. Engineer Glyn Johns spent three nights in March 1965 recording a few of the band’s live performances in Liverpool and Manchester in March of that year, when they were on their British tour.
Despite not being released in the US, three of its songs appeared on albums that London Records released there also in 1965: I’m Alright (on Out of Our Heads), and Route 66andI’m Moving On on December’s Children (And Everybody’s) With a variety of tracks mostly recorded in 1966, London Records used the same title for a live album that was released in December 1966.
Because of its reputation for having a raw sound, rather than for its musical merit, Got Live If You Want It! has become a great record. Although I’m Alright on theGot Live If You Want It! LP (released a year later) contains the same backing track but with different vocals (yep, it’s all a bit confusing!), it is disputed that engineer Glyn Johns hung microphones over the balcony for the recording that made it possible. Two other songs from the setlist exist (Little Red Roosterand The Last Time) but they have not yet been made available. Also recorded and published in 1966 on the US Got Live If You Want It! LP was Time Is On My Side. The EP was reissued as a 7-inch vinyl record as a part of Record Store Day Black Friday on November 29, 2013.
Got LIVE If You Want It! EP, a Rolling Stones Live EP, Song-By-Song
SIDE ONE We Want the Stones Not actually a song, but a 12-second introduction that features the chanting of the crowd. It still remains a mystery why the record company separated it as a single track, although it works well as an introduction.
Everybody Needs Somebody To Love/Pain In My Heart A very different one from Solomon Burke’s original, despite the fact that Everybody Needs... was a landmark song for the band and one they played frequently over the years, sometimes even with Burke, as is the case on the Live Licks album (2004) As for Pain In My Heart, a great take indeed, but then the recording’s authenticity amplifies the song’s significance and subsequent interpretation.
Route 66 Best available live version of the song (at least officially), especially for the time period, and an absolute classic. The Nat King Cole Trio originally recorded (Get Your Kicks on) Route 66 in 1946 with a very jazzy swing, while Chuck Berry recorded a more rocking version that fits better with the Stones’ cover.
SIDE TWO I’m Moving On Poorly recorded, sadly. Too bad the Stones never recorded the song in the studio because the guitar twang would perfectly complement their overall style.
I’m Alright A fantastic EP closer. Once again, the fact that the Stones never recorded a professional studio version of this excellent song is quite disappointing.
From allmusic (by Richie Unterberger): Off the bat, it should be clarified that this release is not the same as the far more famous 1966 American Rolling Stones LP Got Live if You Want It! This live, five-track EP was released in the U.K. in June 1965, and does not include any of the material that showed up on the U.S. Got Live if You Want It!LP. The EP was recorded earlier than the American LP of the same title, in March 1965 in Britain, and was never released in the States, though three of the cuts — Route 66, I’m Alrightand I’m Moving On — showed up on U.S. LPs later in 1965.
So why should collectors care? Well, the other two tracks — Pain in My Heart, and a brief snatch of Everybody Needs Somebody to Love — never did gain U.S. release. (Nor did the cut titled We Want the Stones, though this is just a crowd chanting “we want the Stones” four times, for which the Stones had the chutzpah to take a songwriting credit, using their Nanker-Phelge group pseudonym.)
The EP was crudely recorded, but the raw energy of the group’s early performances does shine through, particularly on the two best tracks, the cover of Hank Snow’s I’m Moving On and I’m Alright (which, though bearing a Nanker-Phelge credit, is clearly based on the Bo Diddley song of the same name). As for the two songs that didn’t see American release, Pain in My Heart is taken at a higher key than the studio version, and Everybody Needs Somebody to Love is inconsequential, as it segues into Pain in My Heart after 35 seconds. Those two rarities have circulated on numerous bootlegs, as have a few other live tracks (Down the Road Apiece, Time Is on My Side a full version of Everybody Needs Somebody to Love) that were recorded at the same time, but not released.
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