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Hard to hold on to a love divine/ I’m kneeling in a corner praying to your shrine…
Written by: Jagger/Richards Recorded: Ocean Way Recording Studios, Hollywood, USA, March 13-July 1997 Guest musicians: Jim Keltner (percussion), Don Was (bass), Benmont Tench (keyboards), Kenny Aronoff (bucket), Blondie Chaplin (piano and background vocals), Bernard Fowler (background vocals) *Data taken from Martin Elliott’s book THE ROLLING STONES COMPLETE RECORDING SESSIONS 1962-2012
This is another meditation from the Stones on the breakup of a couple. You’re so cold/You’re so cruel/I’m your man/Not your fool: the words speak for themselves. The originality of the song resides above all in its atmosphere: “It was like a Babyface ballad put on top of ‘Wild Horses’” explains the producer Don Was.
In a 1997 interview, the Stones singer describes the genesis of this song that he had initially begun working on with Babyface (Kenneth Edmonds): “‘It was really my fault—I threw the wrong song at him,” Jagger says of Babyface. “We went in and wrote the loops and the programs. We got Charlie to play on it. And in the end, I didn’t like the way it was looped. I said, ‘Kenny, leave it. I’m gonna do it another way.’” “Already Over Me” was cut live in the studio. The band would perform the song onstage during the 1997–1998 tour.
In the end, as we have seen, the band adopted a more traditional approach to the album version of “Already Over Me.” Right from the intro, Mick Jagger plunges us into a mellow, although somewhat somber, atmosphere, his strummed guitar accompanied by Blondie Chaplin’s piano and Benmont Tench’s keyboard pads. Charlie Watts taps his cymbals before attacking the rhythm more forcefully at 0:40, underpinned by Don Was’s bass. The producer would later report that it took him a while to understand the unusual way in which Charlie operated, the way he infused a number with an inimitable groove by taking his cue from and constructing his drumming around the singer. Keith plays a rhythm accompaniment as well as two very good solos, at 1:59 and 3:41.
Meanwhile, Ron Wood innovates by playing a superb Dobro part with bottle-neck, before switching to a rhythm part with pronounced vibrato on a baritone guitar, most probably a Fender Jaguar or a Danelectro, a guitar that was very popular with the surf music bands of the early sixties. Benmont Tench also plays the Hammond C-3 organ, which can be heard from 1:10. Kenny Aronoff is credited as playing the bucket, the vessel in question being diverted from its primary function and used as a percussion instrument, although it should be pointed out that it is impossible to hear. The mixing is by Bob Clearmountain and is his only contribution to the album.
