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Oh, been a sick man, I wanna cry/ Lord, I’m a drunk man, but now I’m dry…
Written by: Jagger/Richard Recorded: Dynamic Sounds Studios, Kingston Jamaica, Nov. 25-Dec. 21 1972; Olympic Sound, Studios, London, England, June 1973 Guest musicians: Bobby Keys (tenor saxophone) *Data taken from Martin Elliott’s book THE ROLLING STONES COMPLETE RECORDING SESSIONS 1962-2012
Some facts about ‘Hide Your Love’ by The Rolling Stones (from Songfacts)
Mick Jagger was playing piano between sessions when engineer Andy Johns encouraged him to record what he was working on, and that became the basic track. The Stones recorded the song in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, at De Doelen, a concert hall rather than a studio proper.
Jagger’s voice bleeds through from when he was singing on the piano track. You can hear it with headphones.
The album this song is from, Goat’s Head Soup, is considered by some fans to be the very last album of the Stones’ “golden age.” While most critics liked it, the immortal Lester Bangs spoke of the sadness that hung about the Stones, coming from when you “measure not just one album, but the whole sense they’re putting across now against what they once meant.” It was also the first album the Stones had recorded with only all-new original material in six years.
The album was certified 3x platinum in the US and peaked at #1 on both the US Billboard and UK album charts in 1973
This is a typical Rolling Stones blues that builds on the typical Rolling Stones riff of “Silver Train.” Mick Jagger composed it on the piano, in all likelihood sometime before the recording of Goats Head Soup. In The Rolling Stones Complete Recording Sessions 1962–2012, Martin Elliott suggests that he wrote it in the summer of 1970. What does seem certain is that Andy Johns particularly liked this invigorating piano blues, and encouraged Mick Jagger to finish it and then record it, most probably during the session at Island Studios on May 28, 1973. The story possesses the caustic humor that is so characteristic of both the blues and the Stones. A woman is reluctant to show her boyfriend her love (and even goes so far as to hide it) because he has an unfortunate tendency to drink and is incapable of controlling his recurrent melancholy.
