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Now Jiving Sister Fanny got the brain of a dinosaur/ Uh huh, huh huh/ She took my motley Billy and she broke up my electric guitar…
Written by: Jagger/Richard Recorded: Olympic Sound Studios, London, England, June 5-July 3 1969 Guest musicians: Nicky Hopkins (piano) *Data taken from Martin Elliott’s book THE ROLLING STONES COMPLETE RECORDING SESSIONS 1962-2012
Some facts about ‘Jiving Sister Fanny’ by The Rolling Stones (from Songfacts)
Stones guitarist Mick Taylor, who had recently joined the band (replacing Brian Jones), played the solo on this track. Nicky Hopkins features on electric piano.
Taylor made significant contributions to the song, but per convention, the credited writers are Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. The only Stones song on which Taylor received a credit is “Ventilator Blues” from Exile on Main St.
The Stones recorded this in 1969 at Olympic Sound Studios, London, but did not release it until 1975 on Metamorphosis, which contains unreleased studio tracks from 1964-1969. The album was released without authorization from the band.
Lyrics to this song were never finished, as Mick Jagger just made them up as he sang, including lots of incomprehensible vocalizations and filler phrases (“uh huh,” “all right”). From what we can discern, Jiving Sister Fanny has a man in Philadelphia and the brain of a dinosaur, but that’s pretty much all we know.
Mick Jagger and Keith Richards—you either love them or love to hate them! In this tale of Fanny with “the brain of a dinosaur,” who apparently lives to dance, the Machiavellian duo seem to have rediscovered their taste for provocation. In short, this is a macho diatribe… The song was chosen as the B-side of the single “Out of Time,” released in August/September 1975.
