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Rolling Stones songs: Sweet Black Angel
Well, she ain’t no singer/ And she ain’t no star/ But she sure talk good/ And she moves so fast…
Written by: Jagger/Richard Working titles: Black Angel ; Bent Green Needles Recorded: Rolling Stones Mobile, Stargroves and Olympic Studios, London, England, March-May 1970; Rolling Stones Mobile, Nellcote, France, July-Oct./Nov. 1971; Sunset Sound Studios, Los Angeles, USA, Dec. 1971-March 1972; RCA Studios, Los Angeles, USA, March 1972 *Data taken from Martin Elliott’s book THE ROLLING STONES COMPLETE RECORDING SESSIONS 1962-2012
Mick Jagger: vocals, harmonica Keith Richards: acoustic guitar, backing vocals Mick Taylor: acoustic guitar Charlie Watts: woodblock Guest musicians: Amyl Nitrate (Richard ‘Didymus’ Washington, marimbas), Jimmy Miller (güiro)
On Exile on Main St. excess usually steals the spotlight—but Sweet Black Angel whispers its way into something deeper. Nestled among the album’s grit and grandeur, the song feels almost out of place: acoustic, rhythmic, and quietly urgent. That contrast is exactly what makes it linger.
Inspired by the real-life case of Angela Davis, the Rolling Stones momentarily step outside their usual orbit of rebellion-for-rebellion’s-sake. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards weren’t chasing controversy or slogans; they were responding to a story unfolding in real time, turning empathy into melody while the outcome was still uncertain.
What makes Sweet Black Angel endure isn’t just its politics, but its restraint. The message hides inside Caribbean-inflected rhythms, folk textures, and sly vocal phrasing, inviting listeners in rather than confronting them head-on. It’s one of the Stones’ rare moments of conscience—subtle, human, and easy to miss unless you’re really listening.
More about Sweet Black Angel by The Rolling Stones
*By Marcelo Sonaglioni
A rare moment of conscience on Exile on Main St.
On Exile on Main St., an album better known for decadence, drift, and glorious excess, Sweet Black Angel stands apart as something quieter and more deliberate. It is not just a folk ballad tucked between louder statements, but a moment when the Rolling Stones briefly step into the political current of their time. Built on a West Indian rhythm and wrapped in acoustic textures, the song feels almost deceptively gentle. Yet beneath that relaxed surface lies an urgent plea, written while its subject was still imprisoned. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were not documenting a resolved story but reacting in real time, transforming a headline-heavy legal case into a human portrait. In doing so, they created one of the band’s most understated and unusual statements—an intimate protest song hiding in plain sight on a sprawling double album.
The song and its place in the Stones’ world
Before Sweet Black Angel (sometimes known as Black Angel) appeared on Exile On Main St., it was issued as the B-side to Tumbling Dice, a pairing that almost guaranteed it would be overlooked. Musically, the song leans away from the electric swagger most associated with the band and instead embraces a folk ballad form shaped by Caribbean and blues influences. Its West Indian rhythm gives it a circular, hypnotic feel that allows the lyrics to unfold gradually rather than land as blunt slogans.
This subtlety matters. The Rolling Stones have never been a political band in any sustained or programmatic sense, and Mick Jagger has never presented himself as a political songwriter. Even Street Fighting Man, their most famous brush with protest, ends by undercutting activism in favor of rock ’n’ roll fatalism. Against that backdrop, Sweet Black Angel feels less like a manifesto and more like an exception—an instinctive response to a specific injustice that caught Jagger’s attention and demanded a song.
Angela Davis and the case behind the lyrics
The “sweet black angel” at the center of the song is Angela Davis, an African American activist associated with the Black Panthers and the Communist Party USA. After being fired from her post as a philosophy professor at UCLA, Davis became publicly involved in the defense of three black prisoners—George Jackson, Fleeta Drumgoole, and John Clutchette—known as the Soledad Brothers, who were accused of killing a prison guard in California.
On August 7, 1970, during the trial at the Marin County courthouse, an attempted hostage-taking ended in catastrophe, leaving four people dead, including Judge Harold Haley. The gun used in the incident had been purchased by Angela Davis days earlier. She was sought by the FBI, went on the run, and was arrested on October 13, 1970. Her trial began on January 5, 1971, and she pleaded not guilty. Almost immediately, her case sparked worldwide sympathy and led to the creation of international support committees. When she was acquitted and released in 1972, she became both a symbol of resistance and a flashpoint in debates about race, justice, and political repression in the United States.
Jagger and Richards wrote Sweet Black Angel before that acquittal. That timing explains the tone of the lyrics: not celebration, but advocacy. Jagger aligns himself openly with Davis, describing her not as a celebrity but as “a gal in danger, a gal in chains” and culminating in the plea to “free the sweet black slave”. The song is less about ideology than about solidarity.
Sound, texture and performance
Originally titled Bent Green Needles, Sweet Black Angel began taking shape during the Sticky Fingerssessions in 1970 and was finalized a year later. Keith Richards anchors the track on his Gibson Hummingbird acoustic, combining picking and strumming with a looseness that feels conversational rather than polished. Jimmy Miller adds güiro soaked in reverb, which supplies much of the song’s distinctive rhythmic color. A woodblock—likely struck by Charlie Watts, though possibly overdubbed by Miller—locks the groove in place.
Another acoustic guitar supports Richards, though whether it is played by him or Mick Taylor remains unclear; Taylor is not credited in Bill Wyman’s book Rolling with the Stones. In the outro a marimba played by Richard ‘Didymus’ Washington enters the mix. Washington was a percussionist associated with Dr. John and also contributed backing vocals to Let It Loose. The marimba’s presence inevitably recalls Brian Jones, who introduced the instrument to the Stones’ sound on Under My Thumb in 1966.
As for Mick Jagger’s performance, he ties everything together. He delivers the protest with flair, slipping into a stylized vocal persona that parodies racial stereotypes rather than endorsing them. His harmonica—used sparingly—is the song’s clearest blues element and underlines its emotional core.
Politics, parody, and legacy
The Stones performed Sweet Black Angel live only once, during the first of two concerts in Fort Worth, Texas on June 24, 1972, and they dedicated it to Angela Davis. Around the same period, John Lennon also addressed her case on Angela, from Some Time in New York City(1972), showing how deeply her story resonated with musicians of the era.
Despite potentially inflammatory phrases, the song caused little controversy at the time, largely because its use of parody was evident. Jagger reportedly sang in a deliberately exaggerated style—likened to Buckwheat from The Little Rascals—to underline his critique rather than obscure it. For listeners unaware of the case, the politics can easily fade into the background, absorbed by the gentle acoustics and rolling rhythm. But once the context is known, Sweet Black Angel reveals itself as one of the most deft and unusual songs the Rolling Stones ever recorded: a quiet stand taken by a band that almost never took stands at all.
Sound engineer Andy Johns: “That was done all of them in a room in a circle at the same time, because there was this one room away from the main hall that had no furniture in it, with a wooden floor, quite high ceilings and plaster walls. We wanted to get the sound of the room”
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