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Drink in your summer, and gather your corn/ The dreams of the night time will vanish by dawn…
Written by: Jagger/Richard Recorded: Musicland Studios, Munich, Germany, Jan. 14-28 1974; Rolling Stones Mobile, Stargroves, Newbury, England, Apr. 1974; Island Recording Studios, London, England, May 20-25 1974 *Data taken from Martin Elliott’s book The Rolling Stones Complete Recording Sessions 1962-2012
Mick Jagger: vocals Keith Richards: rhythm guitar, backing vocals Mick Taylor: lead guitar, 12-string acoustic guitar, guitar synthesizer Bill Wyman: bass Charlie Watts: drums Guest musicians: Nicky Hopkins (piano), Ray Cooper (percussion)
Some Rolling Stones songs hit you instantly. Others slowly pull you in—and Time Waits for No One is definitely the latter. Tucked insideIt’s Only Rock ’n Roll (1974), it feels less like a track and more like a late-night reflection you didn’t expect from the band.
This isn’t the swaggering, bluesy Stones most people know. Instead, Mick Jagger delivers surprisingly poetic, almost philosophical lyrics about time slipping away, missed chances, and the quiet weight of growing older. It’s introspective, hypnotic, and just a little haunting.
And then there’s Mick Taylor. His fluid, emotional guitar solo doesn’t just elevate the song—it defines it. Add in subtle Latin grooves, jazzy touches, and a dreamy atmosphere, and you’ve got one of the most unique—and underrated—moments in the Stones’ entire catalog.
More about Time Waits For No One by The Rolling Stones
*By Marcelo Sonaglioni
Time waits for no one
Time Waits for No One, from the It’s Only Rock ’n Roll album, opens like a quiet confession that slowly turns into something heavier: a meditation on time slipping away, dreams dissolving at dawn, and the uneasy weight of looking back. Credited to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, the song feels less like a typical Rolling Stones track and more like a reflective pause in their catalog. Jagger’s narrator sounds older, almost detached, delivering lines that blur wisdom and regret—“Hours are like diamonds, don’t let them waste”—while subtly questioning his own past bravado about rock ’n’ roll and aging. The mood is hypnotic, nearly suspended in time, as if the band itself is caught between who they were and what they might become.
A different kind of Stones song
Rather than leaning on their usual blues-driven swagger, the Rolling Stones drift into unfamiliar territory here. The groove is slow, fluid, and deeply atmospheric, echoing earlier experiments like Moonlight MileandCan You Hear The Music, while hinting at the laid-back feel later heard in Waiting on a Friend. There’s a distinctive Latin undercurrent running through the track, giving it a sensual but restrained pulse.
This shift doesn’t feel accidental. It’s the result of subtle changes in how each musician approaches their role. Charlie Watts leans into jazz-inspired drumming, using cymbals with unusual finesse, while Bill Wyman blends bass with an early touch of synthesizer. Keith Richards builds a hypnotic riff that loops through the song like a quiet obsession, enhanced by the textured tones of the Synthi Hi-Fli. Even Jagger’s vocal delivery steps outside his usual style, sounding less conversational and more like a reflective storyteller, somewhere between a soul singer and a philosophical observer.
Keith Richards (1974): “Can You Hear the Music? and Time Waits for No One were my particular riff but got taken up by others in the band. Those songs got turned into something I didn’t even imagine. Whereas something like Angie turned out pretty much as I expected.”
Mick Taylor’s defining moment
If the song belongs to anyone beyond Jagger and Richards, it’s Mick Taylor. His extended guitar solo doesn’t just decorate the track—it defines it. Recorded in a single take, it flows with a lyrical quality rarely heard in the Stones’ catalog, moving away from strict blues phrasing into something more fluid, almost conversational in its own way.
Taylor himself would later call it his finest work with the band, and it’s hard to argue. There’s a clear Latin-jazz influence in his playing, reminiscent of Carlos Santana, particularly in tone and phrasing. In fact, the comparison invites speculation about influence in both directions, especially when listening to Santana’s later work like Europa (Earth’s Cry Heaven’s Smile).
What makes the solo even more striking is how it came together. Using a Fender Stratocaster and experimenting with the Synthi Hi-Fli’s octave shift, Taylor stumbled into a sound that felt entirely new for the Stones. The chord progression—unusual for the band—pushed him into unexplored territory, and the result is both delicate and powerful. It’s less about technical display and more about mood, echoing across the track like a memory that refuses to fade.
Keith Richards (1974): “We used a guitar synthesizer called a hi-fly. It’s a white flat box that looks like a bathroom scale when you put it on the floor, and you can get a lot of different sounds out of it.”
Tension behind the music
Ironically, the very song that showcases Taylor at his peak also highlights the tensions that would lead to his departure. Convinced that his contributions would earn him proper credit, he instead learned—through journalist Nick Kent—that his name was absent. His reaction, subdued but telling, reflected a deeper frustration.
Taylor believed he had shaped much of the band’s ballad material, including tracks like this one. To him, the omission wasn’t just an oversight—it felt like being deliberately sidelined. Keith Richards would later express regret over Taylor’s exit, acknowledging his extraordinary talent while criticizing his attempts to step beyond the role of guitarist.
In hindsight Time Waits for No One almost plays like a turning point. Taylor’s influence had already begun nudging the Stones toward new sonic landscapes—blues revival on one hand, Latin-tinged jazz-rock on the other. Whether that direction would have ultimately suited the band is an open question, but the tension between innovation and identity is clearly embedded in the track itself.
A beautiful outlier
Despite its reputation as a hidden gem Time Waits for No One has never been performed live—a surprising omission for such a beloved track. One possible reason lingers: how do you recreate something so closely tied to a specific musician’s voice, especially one as distinctive as Mick Taylor’s?
The song also had a curious afterlife. It appeared on the vinyl-only compilation Time Waits for No One: Anthology 1971–1977and later on Sucking in the Seventies, though in a shortened form that trimmed down Taylor’s solo—arguably its emotional core.
Still, the track endures not because it fits neatly into the Stones’ legacy, but because it doesn’t. It’s smoother, more introspective, and less immediate than their usual work. And yet, that’s precisely its strength. Everything—from Ray Cooper’s ticking percussion to Nicky Hopkins’ lyrical piano lines—contributes to a sense of suspended motion, as if time itself is stretching and folding within the music. In the end Time Waits for No One lives up to its title. It captures a band momentarily stepping outside their own mythology, creating something reflective, elegant, and quietly daring—before time, inevitably, moved on.
Mick Jagger (1978): “I liked that song a lot.”
Mick Taylor (2012): “My favorite Stones song in terms of my own guitar playing is Time Waits for No One. I love that solo. I think it’s probably the best thing I did with the Stones. It’s not one of their hits; it was an album track. But it’s quite lyrical and it’s a bit different from a lot of other Stones songs. I’d done something that I’d never done. Because of the structure of the song. It pushed my guitar playing in a slightly different direction. It’s more – I don’t like to use the term Carlos Santana-esque because it sounds too pretentious, but I kind of played in a different mode. I was playing over a C maj 7 to an F maj 7, which aren’t chords the Stones used that much. You know, they had their rock and roll songs and they had their ballads as well, and they were very different. And mostly the ballads were usually written by me.”
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