Midnight Rambler
| "Midnight Rambler" | |
|---|---|
| Song by The Rolling Stones | |
| from the album Let It Bleed | |
| Released | 5 December 1969 |
| Recorded | Spring 1969 |
| Studio | Olympic Sound & Trident Studios, London |
| Genre | Blues rock |
| Length | 6:53 |
| Label | Decca Records/ABKCO |
| Songwriter(s) | Jagger/Richards |
| Producer(s) | Jimmy Miller |
"Midnight Rambler" is a song by the English rock band the Rolling Stones, released on their 1969 album Let It Bleed. The song is a loose biography of Albert DeSalvo, who confessed to being the Boston Strangler.
Keith Richards has called the number "a blues opera" and the quintessential Jagger-Richards song, stating in the 2012 documentary Crossfire Hurricane that "nobody else could have written that song."
On the composing of the song, Mick Jagger said in a 1995 interview with Rolling Stone,
That's a song Keith and I really wrote together. We were on a holiday in Italy. In this very beautiful hill town, Positano, for a few nights. Why we should write such a dark song in this beautiful, sunny place, I really don't know. We wrote everything there -- the tempo changes, everything. And I'm playing the harmonica in these little cafes, and there's Keith with the guitar.
When asked about the song in a 1971 interview with Rolling Stone, Richards said:
Usually when you write, you just kick Mick off on something and let him fly on it, just let it roll out and listen to it and start to pick up on certain words that are coming through, and it's built up on that. A lot of people still complain they can't hear the voice properly. If the words come through it's fine, if they don't, that's all right too, because anyway that can mean a thousand different things to anybody.
The song's lyrics include the verse:
Did you hear about the midnight rambler
Well, honey, it's no rock 'n' roll show
Well, I'm a-talkin' about the midnight gambler
Yeah, the one you never seen before
The studio version of the track (which runs six minutes and fifty-three seconds) was recorded during the spring of 1969 at London's Olympic Sound Studios and Trident Studios. Jagger performs vocals and harmonica, while Richards plays all the guitars on the track, using standard tuning for the main guitars and open E tuning for the slide. Bill Wyman plays bass and Charlie Watts drums, while multi-instrumentalist Brian Jones is credited with playing the congas. The song bears similarity to "The Boudoir Stomp" and "Edward's Thrump Up", recorded in April 1969 by the band minus Keith Richards and Brian Jones, featuring Ry Cooder on guitar and Nicky Hopkins on piano. The sessions were released on the 1972 LP, Jamming With Edward.
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