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Rolling Stones unreleased: Can’t Find Love
Written by: Jagger/Richards Recorded: Pathé Marconi Studios, Boulogne-Billancourt, France, Dec. 1982 (Undercover sessions) Guest musicians: Jim Barber (guitar, bass), Chuck Leavell (keyboards)
Before it slipped into the category of unreleased curiosities, Can’t Find Love belonged to a moment when the Rolling Stones were actively questioning their own identity. By 1982, they had nothing left to prove as a rock band, which made uncertainty oddly liberating. At Pathé Marconi Studios in Paris, the group wasn’t chasing nostalgia or radio comfort. Instead, they were reacting to a world where punk had burned everything down, new wave had rewired pop, and funk rhythms were reshaping the groove. Can’t Find Love sits inside that restless atmosphere. It reflects a band testing how far their swagger could stretch without snapping. The song carries the tension of that search: familiar voices pushing into unfamiliar spaces, tradition rubbing against technology. Even unheard by the public, it captures the Stones in motion—uneasy, curious, and determined not to freeze themselves into a monument of their own past.
Paris and the pressure to change
The Pathé Marconi sessions were charged with a sense of urgency. The Stones arrived in Paris knowing the musical landscape had shifted beneath their feet, and standing still was not an option. Synthesizers and electronic textures found their way into the room, not as gimmicks but as tools to sharpen the band’s edge. Mick Jagger embraced this shift with visible enthusiasm, steering the group toward leaner rhythms and more contemporary vocal approaches. Keith Richards responded differently, layering his guitars in ways that preserved grit while allowing space for experimentation. Around them, collaborators like Chuck Leavell and Jim Barber helped expand the sonic palette, filling out arrangements that felt denser and more angular than classic Stones fare. The result was a creative environment where old instincts were constantly challenged by new ideas, and where songs like Can’t Find Love emerged as byproducts of that friction.
What remained unheard
Not every track born during the Undercover sessions (and there was a lot of that!) was destined for release, and Can’t Find Love is one of those pieces left behind. Yet its absence from the final album doesn’t make it insignificant. On the contrary, it highlights how intense and crowded those sessions were. Creative tension—especially between Jagger and Richards—hovered over decisions about direction, tone, and relevance. That friction fueled much of the material, even when it complicated the process. While Undercover itself stood apart as one of the band’s boldest and most divisive albums, the unreleased songs tell a parallel story of exploration without guarantees. Can’t Find Love represents a path not fully taken, a snapshot of the Stones experimenting in real time. It reinforces the idea that, even decades into their career, the band remained willing to risk confusion and conflict in pursuit of evolution.
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