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Rolling Stones songs: Black Limousine
*Click for MORE ROLLING STONES SONGS 1962-PRESENT

We used to shine, shine, shine, shine/ Say what a pair, say what a team…

Also known as: Broken Head Blues
Written by: Jagger/Richards/Wood
Recorded: Musicland Studios, Munich, Germany, Nov. 13-24 1973; EMI Pathé Marconi Studios, Paris, France, Jan. 5-March 2 1978 and June 10-Oct. 19 1979
*Data taken from Martin Elliott’s book THE ROLLING STONES COMPLETE RECORDING SESSIONS 1962-2012

From Songfacts:
This is based on a song by the blues musician Jimmy Reed called “You Don’t Have To Go.” The song is about The Stones’ rock and roll lifestyle of women, alcohol, and limousines.

This was first recorded at the Some Girls sessions in 1978.

Ron Wood got a writing credit for this. It is one of the few Stones originals not credited only to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.

According to Wood, the guitar riff was influenced by a Texas slide blues guitarist named Hop Wilson, who recorded in the ’60s.

From the Rolling Stones – All the Songs, The Story Behind Every Track book:
Pretty girls, limousines, and alcohol flowing like water in fashionable nightspots: all this is part and parcel of being a rock star—and a Rolling Stone, in particular. It is this aspect of the Stones’ lives, overplayed by the media, that Mick Jagger evokes in this song, using the past tense, as if describing a crazy dream that has now vanished into thin air. “Black Limousine,” for which Ron Wood is credited alongside Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, is a number in the good old Chicago blues tradition.

Ronnie would later reveal that he had been inspired by a slide guitar riff he heard on a 45 rpm given to him by Eric Clapton. “And there was another guy called Big Moose, who I’ve never heard of before or since. I had this one 45 that Eric Clapton gave me which had him on.… I thought, ‘That’s really good, I’m going to apply that.’”