Honky Tonk Woman
| "Honky Tonk Women" | ||||
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| Single by the Rolling Stones | ||||
| B-side | "You Can't Always Get What You Want" | |||
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| Format | 7" | |||
| Recorded | June 1969 at Olympic Studios, London | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 3:03 | |||
| Label | ||||
| Writer(s) | Jagger/Richards | |||
| Producer(s) | Jimmy Miller | |||
| the Rolling Stones singles chronology | ||||
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| "Country Honk" | ||||
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| Song by The Rolling Stones from the album Let It Bleed | ||||
| Released | 5 December 1969 | |||
| Recorded | June and October 1969 | |||
| Genre | Country rock | |||
| Length | 3:10 | |||
| Label | Decca Records/ABKCO | |||
| Writer(s) | Jagger/Richards | |||
| Producer(s) | Jimmy Miller | |||
| Let It Bleed track listing | ||||
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| 9 tracks |
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"Honky Tonk Women" is a 1969 hit song by The Rolling Stones. Released as a single only release (although a country version was included on Let It Bleed), on 4 July 1969 in the United Kingdom and a week later in the United States, it topped the charts in both nations.
The song was written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards while on holiday in Brazil from late December 1968 to early January 1969, inspired by Brazilian "caipiras" (inhabitants of rural, remote areas of parts of Brazil) at the ranch where Jagger and Richards were staying in Matão, São Paulo. Two versions of the song were recorded by the band: the familiar hit which appeared on the 45 single and their collection of late 1960s singles, Through the Past, Darkly (Big Hits Vol. 2); and a honky-tonk version entitled "Country Honk" with slightly different lyrics, which appeared on Let It Bleed (1969).
Thematically, a "honky tonk woman" refers to a dancing girl in a western bar who may work as a prostitute; the setting for the narrative in the first verse of the blues version is Memphis, Tennessee, while "Country Honk" sets the first verse in Jackson, Mississippi.
I met a gin soaked bar-room queen in Memphis
I'm sittin' in a bar, tippin' a jar in Jackson
The band initially recorded the track called "Country Honk", in London in early March 1969. Brian Jones was present during these sessions and may have played on the first handful of takes and demos. It was his last recording session with the band. The song was transformed into the familiar electric, riff-based hit single "Honky Tonk Women" sometime in the spring of 1969, prior to Mick Taylor's joining the group. In an interview in the magazine Crawdaddy!, Richards credits Taylor for influencing the track: "... the song was originally written as a real Hank Williams/Jimmie Rodgers/1930s country song. And it got turned around to this other thing by Mick Taylor, who got into a completely different feel, throwing it off the wall another way." However, in 1979 Taylor recalled it this way: "I definitely added something to Honky Tonk Women, but it was more or less complete by the time I arrived and did my overdubs."
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