Taking Names: Richards, Jagger reflect on re-release of ‘Some Girls’

Richards, Jagger reflect on re-release of ‘Some Girls’

Keith Richards equates the rush to release the Rolling Stones’ seminal album “Some Girls” as “the same as cutting off your baby’s head.”

“We couldn’t release a double album and we were on deadline,” the guitarist said of the 1978 recording. “Sometimes you’re really getting into tracks you want to finish, but they don’t make [it] because time was up.”

Now many of those songs have been included with the re-release of the album as a double disc on Monday, according to the Associated Press. A box set from the album also was released.

Mick Jagger said “Some Girls” was a pivotal album for the band.

“The records that came before this were not as good. This was better,” Mr. Jagger said, referencing the heavily produced “Goats Head Soup,” and “It’s Only Rock and Roll,” which preceded it.

At the time, punk rock and disco were threatening the old “dinosaur rockers,” as Mr. Richards said, so the band had to get back to its basic stripped-down sound.

“The punks started to kick us … the Sex Pistols, and the Clash, and other bands were coming out and we realized we were already in a second generation,” Mr. Richards said.

One of the album’s biggest hits, and also the most criticized at the time, was the dance track “Miss You.”

“It’s not like we wanted to make a career out of disco; it just happened to be that beat, and Mick came up with this beautiful idea. If you’re ever going to do disco, you got to do it now. It was like a one-off,” Mr. Richards said.

Mr. Jagger, who says he loves all forms of dance music from the 1930s to house music, didn’t know why it mattered.

“I never thought for one minute that people would criticize you for doing something with a dance beat,” Mr. Jagger said. “So the idea of it being ‘Bob Dylan going electric’ never occurred to me.”

The song went to No. 1 on the Billboard chart and spawned a variety of dance mixes.

Next year, the band will celebrate its 50th anniversary, and there’s a great deal of speculation as to whether the band will tour for the milestone.

“I’m hoping to do something about it. Right now, I don’t want to go too much into it. I’m pulling the boys together and [will] see what happens. It’s a work in progress. I’m not Nostradamus on this, but we all want to do something for the big 5-0,” Mr. Richards said.

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