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Rolling Stones songs: Torn and Frayed
A HYMN FOR THE BROKEN Torn and Frayed might not strut like the Stones’ big anthems, but it cuts deeper. This is the sound of busted amps and busted souls, country soul filtered through cigarette smoke and gospel shadows. Keith’s acoustic keeps it grounded, Al Perkins’ pedal steel makes it shimmer, and Jagger slips into the skin of a weary drifter with too many sins and too few clean shirts. It’s ragged, raw, and weirdly holy—a hymn for the broken and still beautiful.
And his coat is torn and frayed/ It’s seen much better days/ Just as long as the guitar plays/ Let it steal your heart away…
Written by: Jagger/Richard Recorded: Rolling Stones Mobile, Nellcote, France, Jun.-Nov. 1971; Sunset Sound Studios, Los Angeles, USA, Dec. 1971-March 1972; RCA Studios, Los Angeles, USA, March 1972 Guest musicians: Nicky Hopkins (piano), Al Perkins (slide guitar), Jim Price (organ) *Data taken from Martin Elliott’s book THE ROLLING STONES COMPLETE RECORDING SESSIONS 1962-2012
The Rolling Stones: Torn, Frayed, and Deeply American
Torn and Frayed stands as one of the most quietly powerful tracks on Exile on Main St., a song that channels the grit and glory of American roots music through the lens of weary rock royalty. At its core, it’s a gospel-tinged country lament driven by Keith Richards’ acoustic guitar and the shimmering pedal steel of Al Perkins—an inspired choice, perhaps nudged by Gram Parsons himself. It’s not traditional country, but something closer to a Southern soul prayer in three chords.
The character Jagger sketches here—part rock-and-roll drifter, part broken saint—carries a torn coat and a tangled past, drifting between seedy clubs, dressing rooms full of parasites, and smelly bordellos. Yet in all this decay, the song finds aching beauty. It echoes not only the dusty American highways Parsons adored, but also the images of Robert Frank, whose gritty photography shaped the album’s artwork and spirit.
Exile, Outsiders, and Americana’s Ghosts
The influence of Frank—an outsider capturing America with an unflinching eye—mirrored the Stones’ own outsider role in American music. As British interpreters of gospel, soul, and honky tonk, they didn’t imitate so much as absorb and reimagine. Torn and Frayed lands on side two of Exile, the country/folk stretch of the record. It’s a mournful, textured piece layered with Nicky Hopkins’ piano, organ from trumpet man Jim Price, and a clean Telecaster twang from Richards. The lyrics feel like echoes from Frank’s The Americans, or even Jack Kerouac’s prose—vivid, restless, and bathed in sepia light. The antihero is a Kerouacian hobo with a holy guitar, performing in sketchy halls for survival, not stardom. Meanwhile, the cough-and-codeine line may nod at Richards himself, foreshadowing the band’s tangled drug history. Unlike the electric live versions that followed, the studio cut preserves the fragile magic—a country-soul elegy only the Stones could deliver. Whatever, “just as long as the guitar plays, let it steal your heart away...”
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