![\"Keith](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Keith-Richards-2015-Musician-The-Rolling-Stones-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jpg\")
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Credit: Far Out \/ Alamy<\/p>\n
Keith Richards<\/a> didn\u2019t get into the music industry trying to be one of the greatest guitarists in the world. <\/p>\n There are many times when he felt like he could have spent his days emulating his heroes from the blues world, but at a certain point, people are going to want to hear what else is in your arsenal than the typical licks that everyone picks up the first time they hear Muddy Waters<\/a>. There had to be another outlet, but Richards felt that some of his songs went beyond anything that he could have done.<\/p>\n Because when you\u2019re working with a band like The Stones, some of the best moments come from when everyone is riffing in the studio. The main section of \u2018Can\u2019t You Hear Me Knockin\u2019 is great as it moves towards the end, but the fact that they could come up with that kind of stuff on the spot and still be fantastic is what every musician is striving for. Not every jam is going to end with a masterpiece, but Richards felt that it sometimes just needs to be the right time in the studio to get everything sounding right.<\/p>\n And that didn\u2019t even apply to the blues jams, either. Sure, half of Exile on Main St is indebted to some of the best tunes that they heard when they were kids, but aside from the traditional blues songs, there were also a lot more interesting tunes to be found once they started dipping into country music. Richards had already fallen in love with Gram Parsons\u2019s music, so the next best thing was to try his hand at his own classics.<\/p>\n \u2018Wild Horses\u2019 was already a masterpiece before the band even reached their magnum opus, but even well into the 1970s, Black and Blue saw them continuing to push themselves whenever they performed. \u2018Rip This Joint\u2019 was what a lot of the fans wanted to hear<\/a>, but Richards also remembered that a song like \u2018Melody\u2019 could hit just as hard even if they weren\u2019t going a million miles an hour whenever they performed.<\/p>\n It was all about trying to create a mood with the song, and even when strumming away on their guitars, The Stones created the kind of ballad that could stand alongside the best country tunes that they made. \u2018Far Away Eyes\u2019 wasn\u2019t too far behind this kind of tune, but Richards felt that \u2018Melody\u2019 deserved a certain spot in their catalogue as a song that no one needed to mess with when they left the studio.<\/p>\n The tune was fantastic on its own, and even right after they recorded it, Richards felt that there was no reason for them to try and reproduce it live, saying<\/a>, \u201c\u2018Melody\u2019 was a bit tongue in cheek for me really. It\u2019s hard to play live and take it any further. All we could do is make a reasonable copy of the record onstage which I\u2019m not particularly interested in doing.\u201d But even if all of The Stones\u2019 country songs have a sly wink and nod to country, they were still genuinely great at what they did.<\/p>\n Even if Mick Jagger wasn\u2019t the right person to add the kind of twang to his voice that everyone heard, no one would have cared if he tried to make a sequel to \u2018Satisfaction\u2019. If anything, country was their second strongsuit, and even if the band themselves weren\u2019t completely sold on it, it\u2019s a lot better than hearing Jagger try and fail to sound seductive when trying to make tunes like \u2018Miss You\u2019 later down the line.<\/p>\n But whereas most people won\u2019t perform some songs live because they\u2019re too hard, \u2018Melody\u2019 is more of a case where the vibe can\u2019t really be captured again. Some of the best Rolling Stones songs tend to feel like a moment in time, and even if they are happy to give fans that moment over and over again when they perform live, there\u2019s no point in messing with perfection the first time around. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/wp-content\/themes\/far-out-magazine\/img\/google-discover.svg\")
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