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Rolling Stones songs: Might As Well Get Juiced
And the wolves are howling right at your door/ And the vultures want to tear off some more…
Written by: Jagger/Richards Recorded: Ocean Way Recording Studios, Hollywood, USA, March 13-July 1997
More about Might As Well Get Juiced by The Rolling Stones
*By Marcelo Sonaglioni
Sounds Like a Tom Waits Song!
If Tom Waits had ever wandered into a Rolling Stones studio during the Bridges to Babylonsessions, he might have felt right at home with Might As Well Get Juiced. Wolves howl, vultures circle, and distorted voices seem to crawl out from the speakers like ghosts of an industrial blues nightmare. It’s a song where chaos is sculpted into rhythm — Charlie Watts’ relentless beat looping like an old machine refusing to die, while Mick Jagger’s growl drips with both menace and mischief.
Beneath it all, Doug Wimbish’s bass thrums like the pulse of a city after midnight, and Mick’s harmonica cuts through the gloom with eerie precision. It’s a blues for the digital age, a wild collision between human grit and electronic pulse, where the Stones rewire their roots into something as unsettling as it is addictive.
The Birth of a Strange Groove
Might As Well Get Juiced began with Mick Jagger fooling around among synthesizers, twisting knobs, and layering sounds until something primal took shape. What emerged wasn’t quite rock, wasn’t quite blues, and wasn’t quite electronic — but something thrillingly between worlds. The intro, driven by a shimmering arpeggiator, echoes the VCS-3 textures of The Who’s Won’t Get Fooled Again, but this time filtered through a darker, dirtier sensibility. Rather than diving fully into electronic experimentation, the Stones used technology as an amplifier for tension. The track feels claustrophobic and cinematic, a sonic alleyway where Watts’ hypnotic rhythm loops endlessly, trapping Jagger’s distorted voice in its grip. It’s the Stones exploring discomfort — and loving every second of it.
The Dust Brothers’ Alchemy
When Jagger played the first demo of Might As Well Get Juiced for The Dust Brothers — the duo behind the Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique — Mike Simpson’s reaction said it all: “Wow, it sounds like we already worked on this.” The match was uncanny. The Dust Brothers were known for pushing the boundaries of rhythm and sampling, while the Stones had spent decades redefining what blues could be. Together, they produced what Jagger would later call a “fake blues for the ’90s” — a track that fused old soul and new circuitry. Charlie’s drumming, looped into a gritty, trance-like pulse, anchors the madness. Ronnie Wood adds slide guitar phrases that sting like sparks in the dark, while Keith Richards and Waddy Wachtel lay down a thick, muscular rhythm. Then there’s that harmonica solo — fierce, unfiltered, and completely alive amid the electronic swirl.
A Blues from the Machine Age
At first listen Might As Well Get Juiced feels like an experiment gone off the rails — too heavy, too synthetic, too far from the Stones’ roots. But listen closer, and it’s pure Rolling Stones rebellion, dressed up in industrial rags. The bass, played by Doug Wimbish (of the Sugarhill Gang and Grandmaster Flash fame, and later Living Colour) doesn’t just drive the track — it defines it, its deep sequencer-like groove creating an illusion of machinery powered by human exhaustion. Every element — the looping drums, the distortion on Mick’s vocals, the bass that drops out and resurfaces — seems designed to make listeners uneasy. Yet that unease becomes the hook. It’s the blues reimagined as a mechanical ritual, something the Stones had never done before, and haven’t really done since.
The Madness That Works
There’s a strange beauty in the chaos of Might As Well Get Juiced. The imagery — wolves at the door, vultures circling, a world where children betray their parents — feels almost apocalyptic. But it’s less about literal meaning and more about atmosphere, a descent into sound where words become another instrument in the mix. Jagger’s delivery borders on the theatrical, his phrasing jagged and unpredictable, like he’s testing the edges of his own voice. It’s this fearless willingness to sound ugly that gives the track its raw magnetism. And while the Dust Brothers’ influence is unmistakable, the song never stops being unmistakably the Rolling Stones — a band that thrives on friction, tension, and the thrill of transformation.
In the end Might As Well Get Juiced stands as one of the most audacious tracks of the Bridges to Babylonera — proof that even after decades on the road, the Stones could still shock, still reinvent, and still make the blues sound dangerous again. It’s gritty, it’s strange, and it sounds like something Tom Waits might have conjured after a long night in a haunted studio — and that’s exactly why it works.
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