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Rolling Stonessongs:Suck on the Jugular
All get together and feel alright/ All get together and fuck all night…
Workig title: Holetown Prison Written by: Jagger/Richards Recorded: Blue Wave Studios, Barbados, Apr.20-May 9 1993; Ron Wood’s home, Dublin, Ireland, Aug. 6 and Sept. 1993; Windmill Lane Studios, Dublin, Ireland, Nov. 3-Dec. 10 1993; Don Was’ Studio and A&M Studios, Los Angeles, USA, Jan. 15-Apr. 1994 *Data taken from Martin Elliott’s book THE ROLLING STONES COMPLETE RECORDING SESSIONS 1962-2012
Mick Jagger: vocals, rhythm guitar, harmonica Keith Richards: rhythm guitar, lead guitar, bass, backing vocals Charlie Watts: drums Ron Wood: rhythm guitar, backing vocals Guest musicians: Darryl Jones (bass), David McMurray (saxophone), Mark Isham (trumpet), Chuck Leavell (piano), David McMurray (saxophone), Mark Isham (trumpet), Ivan Neville (organ and backing vocals), Lenny Castro and Luis Jardim (percussion), Bernard Fowler (backing vocals)
The Rolling Stones have always thrived on friction—between heat and cool, tradition and impulse, control and release. Suck on the Jugular emerges from one of those charged moments, when environment, instinct, and rhythm collide. After the wide-open sprawl of earlier recordings, the band pivots sharply toward movement, compression, and sweat, crafting a track designed not for contemplation but for bodies in motion.
What makes the song compelling is not novelty, but confidence. The Stones do not borrow funk as tourists; they inhabit it briefly, fully, and on their own terms. Every element serves propulsion rather than polish, favoring groove over melody and attitude over ornament.
Even in restraint, there is daring. The song stands as a reminder that reinvention does not require abandoning identity—only redirecting it, sometimes straight toward the dance floor.
More about Suck on the Jugular by The Rolling Stones
*By Marcelo Sonaglioni
Rhythm Before Words
After long stretches shaped by open spaces and guitar-driven narratives, the Stones suddenly narrow their focus. Suck on the Jugular marks a deliberate shift inward, toward rhythm as the primary engine. Conceived during the early 1993 sessions at Blue Wave Studios in Barbados, the track was imagined from its first pulse as something physical and immediate. Lyrics would come later; the groove came first. The band wasn’t chasing radio trends or nostalgia, but a feeling—heat, repetition, insistence.
In that sense, the song reconnects with an older Stones instinct, last fully realized on a track like Hot Stuff, nearly two decades earlier. Though it has never appeared on a live setlist, its structure suggests it was built to detonate in a crowded room, where momentum matters more than melody and sweat becomes part of the arrangement.
Production
The production makes its intentions unmistakable from the opening bars. Charlie Watts locks into a groove that refuses to loosen its grip, anchoring everything that follows. Darryl Jones’s bass does more than support the rhythm—it defines it, thick and elastic, pushing the track forward with a confidence that transforms the band’s usual dynamic. Jones later acknowledged that his line nods toward Jaco Pastorius, particularly the fluid sensibility of River People, but the result never feels academic. Instead, it deepens the physicality of the song, reinforcing its function as pure movement. This is the album’s clearest flirtation with funk, and it is handled with restraint: no excess, no clutter, just a tight framework designed to keep the pulse alive from start to finish.
Mick Jagger’s Command
At the center of the track is Mick Jagger, treating the band less as accompaniment than as an extension of his phrasing. Rather than chasing a conventional tune, he lets the groove carry the weight, delivering lyrics that ride the rhythm instead of resolving into melody. The harmonic turn midway through inevitably recalls classic funk landmarks, but Jagger avoids imitation by asserting his own voice and cadence. Backing vocals appear sparingly, responding rather than decorating, adding to the call-and-response energy without softening the edge. Jagger also contributes on rhythm guitar, leaning heavily on the wah-wah to punctuate the groove. His harmonica break is the song’s unexpected twist—sharp, brassy, and oddly horn-like in its phrasing, reinforcing the track’s dance-floor authority rather than blues nostalgia.
Mick Jagger (1994): “Suck on the Jugular is strange harmonica-playing. It’s more like a trumpet piece.”
Mick Jagger’s Command
At the center of the track is Mick Jagger, treating the band less as accompaniment than as an extension of his phrasing. Rather than chasing a conventional tune, he lets the groove carry the weight, delivering lyrics that ride the rhythm instead of resolving into melody. The harmonic turn midway through inevitably recalls classic funk landmarks, but Jagger avoids imitation by asserting his own voice and cadence. Backing vocals appear sparingly, responding rather than decorating, adding to the call-and-response energy without softening the edge. Jagger also contributes on rhythm guitar, leaning heavily on the wah-wah to punctuate the groove. His harmonica break is the song’s unexpected twist—sharp, brassy, and oddly horn-like in its phrasing, reinforcing the track’s dance-floor authority rather than blues nostalgia.
From Holetown Prison to Pure Instinct
Before it settled into its final identity, the song carried a far more literal working title: Holetown Prison, a direct reference to the nearby correctional facility not far from Blue Wave Studios in Barbados. At that stage, the name anchored the track firmly to its physical surroundings, tying the music to a specific place and moment in the band’s recording life. But as often happened with the Rolling Stones, that kind of specificity eventually felt too narrow for what the song was becoming.
The decision to abandon the geographic label in favor of something more suggestive reveals a familiar Stones instinct: to strip away the obvious and lean into atmosphere instead. Rather than telling the listener where the song came from, the final title points to how it feels—tense, claustrophobic, charged with an unspoken edge. It’s a subtle but telling shift, moving from external reference to internal sensation, and it underscores a recurring truth in the band’s work: places may spark the music, but it’s mood and instinct that ultimately define it.
Keith Richards (1994): “Mr. Watts again. I mean, it’s all drums. The arrangement is all to do with the drums. Charlie laid down the beat and I said, Well, if you can keep that up for several minutes, we’ve got a track. Hey, no problem. And he always makes it look like it isn’t.”
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