Rolling Stones songs: Little By Little
*Click for MORE ROLLING STONES SONGS 1962-PRESENT

And little by little I’m losin’ my love for you/ Yeah, little by little I’ve found out you was untrue…

Written by: Jagger/Richard
Recorded: Regent Sounds and IBC Studios, London, England, Feb. 4 1964
Guest musicians: Gene Pitney (piano), Phil Spector (maracas)
*Data taken from Martin Elliott’s book THE ROLLING STONES COMPLETE RECORDING SESSIONS 1962-2012

From Songfacts:
This was an early Stones effort at the blues. It was released as the B-side of “Not Fade Away.”

Phil Spector produced this and played the maracas.

This is credited to Phil Spector and Nanker Phelge, which is a goofy name for a Jagger/Richards composition. “Nanker” was a wacky face they would make to amuse each other, “Phelge” was a roommate of Keith Richards whom he considered “The most disgusting person ever.”

Gene Pitney played the piano. Said Pitney: “When I stopped in from Paris one time and Phil Spector was in London and Andrew Oldham called me from the hotel and told me he was having a terrible time because he was trying to do what was the follow up to I Wanna Be Your Man and all the boys hated each other that day and he had them in a little dinky studio in Denmark Street and he couldn’t get them to do anything….

…I had 5 fifths of cognac that I was bringing home, so I took one fifth over to the studio and I told them it was a custom in my family that when anybody had a birthday, that everybody had a water glass of cognac until the bottle was empty. So, we ended up with a hell of a session and I played piano and Phil Spector played an empty cognac bottle with a half dollar, clicking it, and we played on the flip side which was Little By Little.”

From the The Rolling Stones – All the Songs book:
While British rhythm’n’blues of the early sixties was essentially a
reworking of Chicago blues, differing from the original in nuance only, the
pillars of this black American music scene were not always given the credit
they deserved. In the case of “Little by Little,” for example, the Rolling
Stones used the title of a blues number recorded in 1959 by Junior Wells
and Earl Hooker and the laid-back rhythm characteristic of Jimmy Reed—
in this instance “Shame, Shame, Shame” (dating from 1963)—without
crediting any bluesman. The lyrics, on the other hand, are original. The
song tells of a love that is dying little by little because the narrator of the
song has discovered that his lover has been untrue.