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Rolling Stones songs: Some Girls
Give me all you money/ Give me all your gold…
Working title: Some More Girls Written by: Jagger/Richard Recorded: EMI Pathé Marconi Studios, Paris, France, Oct. 10-Dec. 1977, Jan. 5-March 2 1978 *Data taken from Martin Elliott’s book THE ROLLING STONES COMPLETE RECORDING SESSIONS 1962-2012
Mick Jagger: vocals, rhythm guitar Keith Richards: rhythm and lead guitar, bass, backing vocals Ron Wood: rhythm and lead guitar, backing vocals Bill Wyman: synthesizer Charlie Watts: drums Guest musicians: Sugar Blue (harmonica)
Few Rolling Stones songs have sparked as much debate—or captured a moment so sharply—as Some Girls. Released in 1978 as the title track of the band’s late-career comeback album, it arrived loud, fast, and deliberately provocative. From its first lines, the song announces a persona built on excess, irony, and confrontation, reflecting a time when rock stars thrived on testing cultural limits rather than respecting them.
Written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, the track draws directly from the band’s world of fame, groupies, and restless touring life. Jagger delivers the lyrics as a shifting performance, blending satire and swagger while racing over a relentless groove that leaves little room for reflection—or escape.
Controversial then and still unsettling now, Some Girls endures because it refuses comfort. It stands as a snapshot of late-1970s rock bravado, where humor, offense, and spectacle collided, leaving behind a song that continues to provoke, challenge, and demand attention.
More about Some Girls by The Rolling Stones
*By Marcelo Sonaglioni
A dangerous kind of fun
Some Girls isn’t a song that tiptoes around feelings—it kicks the door open and struts in without apology. As the title track of the Rolling Stones’ 1978 album Some Girls, it carried extra weight, marking the third time the band had named an album after one of its own songs. From the first lines, Mick Jagger adopts a swaggering, cartoonish persona that feels part hustler, part rock star, part social commentator. What makes the track so unsettling—and so fascinating—is the way it blurs humor, satire, and provocation into a single voice. It’s not just about sex, fame, or excess; it’s about performance, about playing a character that thrives on discomfort and shock. In the late ’70s, when rock stars were already larger than life, Some Girls pushed that image to a new extreme, turning bravado into spectacle.
Voices and personas
Rather than presenting a single viewpoint, the song shifts masks constantly. Jagger moves between the role of a sly narrator and the exaggerated caricature of a globe-trotting rock icon, firing off lines that deliberately play with stereotypes. Written by Jagger and Keith Richards and inspired largely by the women orbiting their lives—mostly groupies—the song wears its casual irreverence on its sleeve. Richards later joked that the title came from a practical problem: there were simply too many women to remember individual names, so the line “some girls” covered everyone. That flippancy feeds directly into the song’s tone. Each lyric lands less like confession and more like provocation, daring listeners to decide whether they’re hearing satire, mockery, or unfiltered ego. The constant role-switching keeps the track unstable, never allowing a single, comfortable interpretation to settle in.
Shockwaves and reaction
That instability exploded into full controversy when one particular line (“Black girls just want to get f**ked all night”) ignited outrage. Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson mobilized his Operation PUSH group to call for a boycott, folding the song into his broader campaign against what he labeled “sex rock.” The backlash escalated beyond music criticism into meetings with record executives. Most refused to engage, but Ahmet Ertegun, head of Atlantic Records, did meet with Jackson—only to stress that he had no creative control over the Stones and that no edits were planned.
Ertegun publicly defended the band’s intent, explaining that Jagger described the lyric as parody and emphasizing the singer’s deep respect for Black culture and musicians. The Stones themselves issued a carefully worded statement, insisting the song mocked stereotypes rather than endorsed them, and offering an apology if offense had been taken. Despite this, Jagger—who had ad-libbed the line—was unwilling to change it at the time.
Mick Jagger (1978): “I think the races are all well covered – everyone’s represented… (laughs) Most of the girls I’ve played the song to like Some Girls. They think it’s funny; black girlfriends of mine just laughed. And I think it’s very complimentary about Chinese girls, I think they come off better than English girls. I really like girls an awful lot, and I don’t think I’d say anything really nasty about any of them… (laughs) The song’s supposed to be funny.”
Mick Jagger (1985): “I haven’t seen Jesse Jackson since (laughs). That’s an example of an ad lib getting you into a lot of trouble. No italians complained. There’s a line about French girls. I don’t know if anyone was really upset apart from him.”
Chaos in the studio
Behind the cultural firestorm was a track that had already been reined in significantly before release. Early versions ran far longer, stuffed with extra verses and ideas that leaned even further into excess. Editing carved it down into a sharp, confrontational piece, giving it the speed and punch that defined the finished recording. The music mirrors the lyric’s volatility: nothing lingers, nothing softens the impact. Momentum takes priority over nuance, and the band sounds locked into a restless, almost combative groove. That sense of compression—of too many ideas forced into a tight frame—adds to the song’s urgency. It feels less like a polished statement and more like an eruption, a burst of attitude barely contained by structure. The result is chaotic by design, amplifying the confrontational spirit already baked into the words.
Legacy of a provocation
Over time the controversy around Some Girls took on a life of its own, spilling into popular culture. One of the most telling responses came from the Saturday Night Live TV show, where cast member Garrett Morris addressed the issue during the segment Weekend Update. Framing his remarks as a mock editorial, he defused the tension with sharp humor, twisting the lyric into a punchline that highlighted its absurdity rather than its offense.
That moment captured how the song ultimately settled into the cultural imagination—not just as a provocation, but as a lightning rod for debate, satire, and reinterpretation. Decades on Some Girlsremains uncomfortable, loud, and unresolved. It stands as a document of 1970s rock excess, when parody, ego, and insensitivity often overlapped. Love it or loathe it, the song refuses to fade quietly, continuing to provoke conversations about intention, impact, and the limits of rock ’n’ roll bravado.
Keith Richards (1978): “We write our songs from personal experiences… (laughs) OK, so over the last 15 years we’ve happened to meet extra-horny black chicks – well, I’m sorry but I don’t think I’m wrong and neither does Mick – I’m quite sure of that.”
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