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Rolling Stones unreleased: Lies (alternate take, 1978)
Written by: Jagger/Richards Recorded: Pathé Marconi Studios, Boulogne-Billancourt, France, Oct.10-Nov. 25 and Dec. 9-16 1977; Jan. 5-March 2, 1978(Some Girls sessions)
Early Lies
Lies may be one of those Rolling Stones songs that sounds deceptively straightforward—until you start digging into what happened before the finished version emerged. During the sprawling sessions that would eventually produce Some Girls, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards kept working, reshaping, and refining material at Pathé Marconi Studios in France. Among the recordings left behind is this alternate take of Lies, offering a glimpse of the song before the version listeners eventually knew had settled into place. For Stones fans, that is the real attraction: not another polished historical footnote, but a chance to hear the band in the messy, creative middle ground where songs were still being worked out. Because apparently even Lies needed more than one version to tell its story.
A song still taking shape
Written by Jagger/Richards, Lies emerged from an exceptionally productive period for The Rolling Stones. The recording sessions at Pathé Marconi Studios in Boulogne-Billancourt stretched across several months, beginning October 10, 1977, continuing through November 25, then resuming in December before carrying into 1978. Work continued from January 5 through March 2, giving the band plenty of time to experiment with songs that would eventually form part of the Some Girlsera.
The alternate take is interesting precisely because it isn’t the definitive version. Instead of treating the finished recording as if it appeared fully formed, this version lets listeners consider the process behind it. A familiar song suddenly becomes something less fixed—and considerably more intriguing.
Inside the Some Girls sessions
The Pathé Marconi sessions were an important chapter in the Stones’ creative resurgence. Rather than simply arriving at the studio, recording a song and moving on, the band spent considerable time developing material and trying different approaches.
That makes an alternate take like this especially valuable. Small changes in performance, arrangement, timing or feel can reveal how the musicians were approaching the song before everything was locked into place. For collectors and dedicated Stones listeners, those differences are often the whole point. After all, hearing a familiar track slightly out of focus can be far more revealing than hearing the finished version for the hundredth time.
Why the alternate take matters
The released version of Lies remains the obvious starting point, but this unreleased recording adds another layer to its history. It belongs to the same creative period documented on the official song page, yet it occupies that fascinating space between studio experiment and finished record.
That is what makes unreleased Rolling Stones material so addictive. These recordings aren’t necessarily better than the official versions—and claiming otherwise would be stretching things a bit—but they can expose the decisions, adjustments and atmosphere behind them. For Lies, this alternate take offers exactly that: a brief trip back into Pathé Marconi while The Rolling Stones were still figuring out what the song could become.
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