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Rolling Stones songs: Loving Cup (alternate take)

*Click for MORE ROLLING STONES SONGS 1962-PRESENT

Well I can run and jump and fish, but I won’t fight/ You if you want to push and pull with me all night…

Written by: Jagger/Richard
Recorded: Rolling Stones Mobile, Villa Nellcote, Villefranche-sur-mer, France, June/November 1971; Sunset Sound Studios, L.A., USA, Dec. 1971-March 1972; RCA Studios, L.A., USA, March 1972
Guest musicians: Nicky Hopkins (piano)
*Data taken from Martin Elliott’s book THE ROLLING STONES COMPLETE RECORDING SESSIONS 1962-2012

From Songfacts:
A “Loving Cup” is a kind of trophy. It’s one of those big ones that’s shaped like a heart with handles on the sides, and it usually given out for big wins at sporting events. This ballad uses the cup to represent a loving relationship.Exile on Main St. has grown to be appreciated with time, and this is an example of a song that become more popular later on. In a 2003 interview, Mick Jagger explained: “On the Forty Licks tour, when we were preparing the set list for a show in Yokohama, Chuck Leavell suggested we play ‘Loving Cup,’ the ballad from Exile on Main St. I didn’t want to play the tune and I said, Chuck, this is going to die a death in Yokohama. I can’t even remember the bloody song, and no one likes it…

…I’ve done it loads of times in America, it doesn’t go down that well, it’s a very difficult song to sing, and I’m fed up with it! Chuck went, Stick in the mud! so I gave in and put it in the set-list. Lo and behold, we went out, started the song and they all began applauding… Which just proves how, over time, some of these songs acquire a certain existence, or value, that they never had when they first came out. People will say, What a wonderful song that was, when it was virtually ignored at the time it was released”The Stones performed this song with Jack White in Martin Scorsese’s 2008 film Shine a Light.


From the Rolling Stones – All the Songs, The Story Behind Every Track book:
“Loving Cup” is another example of Mick Jagger’s taste for sexual innuendo. The man on the mountain is a plowman in the valley with a face full of mud. This humble individual, clearly not the Stones singer, fumbles, knows his car don’t start, and plays a bad guitar; the metaphor seems abundantly clear. In the same vein, the loving cup, out of which a toast is drunk by the bride and groom in the Celtic tradition, can be seen as an implicit reference to the female private parts. Jagger’s florid language continues throughout the song. Thus, to push and pull and to spill the beans are further metaphors for the sexual act and for achieving orgasm.