The Rolling Stones have forgotten more about rock and roll, in all its hedonistic, drug-fueled splendour, than most other bands could ever dream of. Presented to the world as the rebellious, rough-edged alternative to the fresh-faced Beatles, Mick Jagger and the gang seemed to do everything in their power to live up to that moniker, even if it often came at the detriment of their musical output.
It was during the early 1970s that The Rolling Stones reached the peak of their drug-fueled depravity, carving out Sticky Fingers from the heroin haze of Keith Richards’ mansion in France. That rather chaotic lifestyle had begun years prior, though, and became particularly unavoidable during the days of Beggars Banquet, once The Stones had emerged from the other end of their short-lived experiments with psychedelia.
Marking the moment that The Stones graduated from the youthful rebellion of their earlier material to something far more compelling, the 1968 record still stands among the band’s greatest works, but it might have never come together in the first place, given the endless chaos and lack of organisation during the recording process.
Admittedly, few rock bands – particularly those as young, drunk, and beautiful as The Rolling Stones – pay much attention to admin or, as it turns out, keeping track of things. Brian Jones, for instance, was so unpredictable during Beggars Banquet that he hardly bothered to show up to the sessions, and when he did, he was rarely in a fit state to play. Even if the rest of the band did show up, they weren’t much better, in terms of sobriety or organisation.
In hindsight, it is a miracle that the album turned out to be as good as it did, especially because the group nearly lost track of one of its stand-out tracks, ‘Parachute Woman’, almost as soon as they had recorded it. Helen Lawrenson, of Esquire, sat in on some of the album’s sessions, and she recalled an incident when nobody in the band, nor the production staff, could remember what they had done with the tapes of ‘Parachute Woman’.
While the studio staff turned over every corner of the building looking for those tapes, Mick Jagger seemed expectedly laid back about the whole situation. “It’s a drag,” he admitted. “Like a kid looking for a marble: here’s that one I lost two years ago, but where’s that blue one?” It wasn’t long before the situation turned farcical. “They’ve lost ‘Parachute Woman’,” the singer declared, “And now we’ve lost the bloke who went to look for it.”
In a final plea, Jagger asked, “Can anyone remember what were we doing the night we made ‘Parachute Woman’?” The answer to which was a resounding no. It would be a miracle if anyone in The Stones or their posse could remember waking up that morning, never mind the specific time period in which they recorded a rock masterpiece.
Eventually, of course, ‘Parachute Woman’ was retrieved and made it onto the final track listing of Beggars Banquet. Even still, the very fact that it was allowed to get lost in the first place should tell you a lot about The Rolling Stones’ attitude back in 1968; Jagger and co were far too busy establishing the archetypal rock and roll lifestyle to worry about trivialities like the whereabouts of their master tapes.
We may never know how many other Stones tracks were lost down the backs of sofas at Olympic Studios.
