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Rolling Stonessongs: I Go Wild
And waitresses with broken noses/ Checkout girls striking poses/ And politicians’ garish wives/ With alcoholic cunts like knives…
Written by: Jagger/Richards Recorded: Windmill Lane Studios, Dublin, Ireland, Nov. 3-Dec. 10 1993; Ronnie Wood’s Sandymount Studios, Kildare, Island, July 9-Aug. 6 and Sept. 1994; Right Track Studios, NYC, Apr. 1994 *Data taken from Martin Elliott’s book THE ROLLING STONES COMPLETE RECORDING SESSIONS 1962-2012
Mick Jagger: vocals, guitar Keith Richards: guitar, backing vocals Charlie Watts: drums Ron Wood: guitar Guest musicians: Darryl Jones (bass), Chuck Leavell (organ), Phil Jones (percussion), Bernard Fowler and Ivan Neville (background vocals)
Long before I Go Wild turned into one of Voodoo Lounge’s fiercest moments, Mick Jagger had already been wrestling with the type of women who carve unforgettable scars into a man’s psyche. The protagonist of the song knows all the warnings: doctors telling him to stay away from femmes fatales, cynical working girls, blue stockings with sharper minds than hearts, waitresses with broken noses, and politicians’ wives with gaudy smiles. And yet he ignores every cautionary word. He understands that the woman driving him insane possesses the kind of “poison kiss” that both ruins and resurrects him. Walking away would mean spiritual extinction; staying means surrendering to a beautiful disaster. That irresistible contradiction—love as a trap, desire as a form of self-harm—is the current that electrifies the song and sets the tone for its feverish rock-and-roll pulse.
Production Choices and Musical Fire
While many Stones rockers from the Some Girls era onward sprang from Keith Richards’ open-G riffing and Charlie Watts’ crisp snare-drum intros, I Go Wild breaks formation in surprising ways. Charlie still opens with his characteristic snap, but it’s Jagger—not Richards—who drives the first rhythm guitar part. Instead of unleashing one of his typical volcanic vocal takes, Jagger opts for a tighter, more controlled phrasing that deepens the song’s dramatic tension. Keith shadows him with an open-G rhythm part, while Ronnie Wood alternates between sharp B-bender lines and a sly, fingerstyle-slide interlude. Darryl Jones underpins the track with a bass line that remains somewhat static, leaving room for Chuck Leavell’s Hammond B-3 to brighten the arrangement. Although Bob Clearmountain produced the track, his mix didn’t meet the heights of other Stones recordings he had shaped—an unusual footnote for a band so often boosted by his sonic touch.
The Song’s Path: Releases, Videos, And Live Life
I Go Wild became the fourth and final single from Voodoo Lounge, landing in UK shops on July 3, 1995 and climbing to number 29 two weeks later. Before the Stones embarked on their massive 14-stadium South American tour, they shot the music video in Mexico City’s Ex-Templo de San Lázaro, a gritty backdrop well suited to the song’s fever-driven obsession. During the 1994–95 Voodoo Lounge Tour, the track earned a permanent place in the setlist, showing up with two powerful live incarnations: one released on the original maxi-single in 1994 and another later issued in 2016 on Totally Stripped. Despite being the only track on the album not produced by Don Was, its identity remained thoroughly embedded in the tour’s raw, muscular aesthetic.
Inspirations, Inside Jokes and The Voodoo Lounge Origin Story
The lyrics are among Jagger’s richest of the era—“one of the wordy ones,” as he later said—built from a guitar groove he created with Charlie Watts before anyone else even heard it. And tucked inside that lyrical frenzy sits a private nod only Stones insiders would immediately catch: the “waitresses with broken noses” line. As Jagger joked, this was Ronnie Wood’s specialty—“he knew every waitress in Dublin,” a comment delivered with a grin that nearly tells a story on its own.
The supporting cast around the song adds further texture. Chuck Leavell—veteran of the Allman Brothers Band and longtime Stones collaborator—handled piano, while percussionist Phil Jones, brought into the Stones’ orbit alongside Benmont Tench, added extra grit. Jones’ résumé reads like a who’s-who of rock, with credits ranging from Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers to Bob Dylan.
Even the album’s title has its own quirky path. Ron Wood once built a “granny flat” for his mother, only for Keith Richards to move in and label it “Doc’s Office and Voodoo Lounge” with a hand-drawn sign taped to the window. When the record company demanded a title and the pressure mounted, it was Jagger who finally pointed to the obvious inspiration sitting right in front of them. Richards later laughed about it—annoyed that he, usually the one with the cheap, off-the-cuff ideas, hadn’t noticed the perfect solution himself.
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