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Rolling Stones songs: Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow?
*Click for MORE ROLLING STONES SONGS 1962-PRESENT

Tell me a story about how you adore me/ Live in the shadow, see through the shadow…

Written by: Jagger/Richard
Recorded: RCA Studios, Hollywood, USA, Aug. 7-31; IBC Studios, London, England, Sept. 2 1966; RCA Studios, Hollywood, USA, Sept. 7-9 1966
Guest musicians: Guest musicians (brasses)
*Data taken from Martin Elliott’s book THE ROLLING STONES COMPLETE RECORDING SESSIONS 1962-2012

From Songfacts:
This song is shadowy indeed. “Mother” could be code for “girlfriend,” or something else entirely. Keith Richards asks that we don’t read too much into it. “You must listen to it and place your own interpretation on the lyric,” he said. “There is no attempt to present a controversial ‘Mother’ theme.”

The American single has a picture of The Stones in women’s clothes on the sleeve. According to legend, after the photo session, they kept their costumes on and went to a bar in New York.

Footage of the band dressed as women for the single photo shoot was compiled into a promotional film for the song that was distributed to various broadcast outlets. This was an early example of a music video, although they were still using film back then. The Beatles made them for some of their songs as well.

This was the first Stones song that used a horn section, which was arranged by Mike Leander. He also did the horns on The Stones “As Tears Go By” and wrote the score for the Beatles’ “She’s Leaving Home.”

There is guitar feedback at the beginning and end. The Beatles had used feedback before, but it was still a new technique.

Keith Richards said: “I liked the track, I hated the mix. Mainly because there was a fantastic mix of the thing, which was just right. But because they were in a rush and they needed to edit it down for the Ed Sullivan Show, the mix was rushed and the essential qualities of it, for me, disappeared. Just because of the lack of time. It needed another couple weeks. The rhythm section is almost lost completely.” >>
This was the first Stones song released in the US and England at the same time.
The B-side of the single was Who’s “Driving Your Plane?” Both sides of the single are questions.

When The Stones performed this on The Ed Sullivan Show, September 11, 1966 (their fourth appearance), guitarist Brian Jones wore a cast on his hand. It was rumored that he got the injury when he punched a wall.

Glyn Johns, who engineered the “As Tears Go By” session in 1965, engineered this song as well. This led to more work with The Stones, recording the live album Got Live If You Want It! in the fall of 1966 and then engineering the London Between The Buttons sessions in November of that year. He was used as chief engineer for the producer-less Their Satanic Majesties Request in 1967, after which he suggested to the Rolling Stones that they use Jimmy Miller as their next producer.

From the Rolling Stones – All the Songs, The Story Behind Every Track book:
Have you seen your mother, baby, standing in the shadow? Mick Jagger has said that the words just came to him like that and that no particular significance should be attached to them. This may well be so. Nevertheless, one cannot help wondering whether the singer of the Rolling Stones, whose pout was assuming a more sardonic air from one day to the next, was getting his kicks from playing with double meanings and pursuing a private mission to rid the masses of their inhibitions. Shadow is no doubt intended in the sense of “a double life.” A double life that the brother and the lover may also be leading. Is there a moralizing sense to the last line of the song? (Ref. have you seen your mother)

To live in the brave old world or to experience the slide to the depths of decline is the classic dilemma facing the adolescent in the song! “Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow?” (coupled with “Who’s Driving Your Plane”) was apparently written by Keith at the piano. This was the first single by the Rolling Stones to be released on both sides of the Atlantic simultaneously, that is to say on September 23, 1966.

“Another fantastic disc from the Stones, with such a complexity of startling sounds that it’ll leave you breathless” was the verdict of the NME; “It’s only justice that sound engineer Dave Hassinger should get a credit,” opined the Record Mirror. Despite the general enthusiasm in the music press, this song only made it to number 5 in the United Kingdom (on October 19, 1966) and number 9 in the United States (on October 29, 1966)