Rolling Stones songs: Hold On to Your Hat
*Click for MORE ROLLING STONES SONGS 1962-PRESENT

Get out the madhouse/ Burn it to the ground/ Got to, got to get out…

Also known as: Hold On To Yourself
Written by: Jagger/Richards
Recorded: Air Studios, Montserrat, March 29-April 1989; Olympic Sound Studios, London, England, May 15-June 29 1989
*Data taken from Martin Elliott’s book THE ROLLING STONES COMPLETE RECORDING SESSIONS 1962-2012

From Songfacts:
Stones guitarist Ron Wood played bass on this song. Stones bass player Bill Wyman had to deal with the press after announcing his engagement to 18-year-old Mandy Smith, and was not available. Wyman, who started seeing Smith when she was 13, divorced her soon after their marriage.

Mick Jagger played some guitar on this, partly out of necessity because Wyman was out.

Jagger had most of this written when he met Keith Richards in Barbados to work on Steel Wheels in 1989.

From the The Rolling Stones – All the Songs book:
Despite the passing years, the Stones continued to have faith in Chuck
Berry–style rock ’n’ roll. “Hold on to Your Hat” exudes an energy not
dissimilar to that of “Rip This Joint,” recorded seventeen years earlier,
during the torrid Exile on Main St. sessions. The lyrics also sound like a
return to the good old days, taking up the recurrent theme of the jaded lover
and the breakup of a relationship. The narrator has had enough of the
woman he shares his bed with, and tells her so in no uncertain terms,
effectively ordering her to get out of his life and adding: I’ve had it up to
here with your yackety-yack. By the way, “Yakety Yak” was the title of one
of the Coasters’ biggest hits (number 1 on the pop and R&B charts in
1958).