I probably cannot be objective when it comes to the Rolling Stones' album Some Girls. It was the first Stones album I bought for myself. I was 16. The album that preceded it, 1976’s Black and Blue, didn’t do a lot for me.
“Hand of Fate” was OK, but the rest of it was either a tired rehash of earlier work (“Memory Motel”), casual-bordering-on-somnambulant (“Melody”), or just downright embarrassing (“Hot Stuff’).
I would come to appreciate “Fool to Cry” later, just as I would come to appreciate more of the other albums they released between 1972’s legendary Exile on Main Street and Some Girls, but back then, the great Stones albums were largely from my older brothers’ era.
Until Some Girls.
Just how good is the Rolling Stones’ Some Girls?
Is it the greatest rock and roll comeback album ever recorded? I suppose that depends as much on how far you think the boys had fallen off on Goat’s Head Soup (1973), It’s Only Rock ‘N’ Roll (1974), and Black and Blue as on how good Some Girls is. There is some revisionist history of late suggesting that none of those mid-‘70s albums were as bad as critics like Lester Bangs said they were.
The truth is, they weren’t. But I think Bangs was on to something when he identified a malaise in the post-Exile albums. Mick Taylor was leaving, and Ronnie Wood was arriving. The technical proficiency was diminishing, and the raw energy was not balancing it out.
Most bands would kill to have three albums as solid as the Stones produced between Exile and Some Girls, but for the Glimmer Twins, it was clearly a slide.
The rock and roll landscape was changing very fast by the late ‘70s. Now 20 years into the rock era, artists had stretched the genre in multiple directions, incorporating most other popular musical forms under the broad umbrella of “rock.” The Beatles were long gone.
By the end of the decade, two other seminal rock bands would lose their drummers. The Who soldiered on after Keith Moon’s death in 1978, but really were never the same. Led Zeppelin simply called it a day after John Bonham died in 1980. Pink Floyd was coming apart at the seams.
New technology introduced drum machines and synthesizers to the world of pop music. Those new sounds saturated the public via disco music in the second half of the decade, but pretty soon, they would be incorporated into rock and roll as well. There was a new style of rock gaining traction. Some creative type dubbed it New Wave.
The Rolling Stones survived the changes
The Rolling Stones gave a pretty clear indication of why they were the one classic rock band to survive all the changes with Some Girls. They showed how a band could adapt and react to the shifting sands around them, while never selling out their core sound. In that sense, Some Girls may not simply be among the greatest comeback albums – it is also among the greatest eclectic rock albums ever produced.
It began with the title track, which also served as the album’s first single. A month before the album dropped, “Miss You” hit the airwaves. It was a disco-rock hybrid. It featured sax and harmonica, but not in a jazzy or bluesy way. It was a throbbing dance tune, but it wasn’t the bright, bouncy beat we had come to expect from a disco hit. It had neither the saccharine sweetness of the Bee Gees nor the relentless volume of Donna Summer.
Because on closer inspection, “Miss You” was a rock song. It had all the toughness of classic Stones. It had dueling guitar flourishes that were a mere hint of what was to come. Yeah, it was a disco song that was also a rock song. Kind of the SNL1975 skit for New Shimmer set to a 4/4 beat.
From there, Mick, Keith, and the boys threw in some flat-out rockers. If songs like “When the Whip Comes Down” and “Lies” aren’t quite the equal of “Bitch” or “Lie to Me” from the classic run at the turn of the decade, they aren’t far removed. They anchor the album in the heavy R&B that broke the band in the ‘60s, but the beauty of Some Girls comes in how far they go beyond that sound.
Mick Jagger displays his versatility
Exile on Main St. may have expanded the palette more, but it was, after all, a double album. On Some Girls, we get one of Mick’s best excursions into American country music with the nod and wink of “Far Away Eyes.”
“And the preacher said, ‘You know you always have the Lord by your side' – I was so pleased to be informed of this that I ran twenty red lights in his honor.” With Wood chiming in on pedal steel, this manages to be both a great country song and a great send-up of a country song.
Mick then goes flat-out punk on “Respectable,” a boisterous examination of the trappings of fame. Keith gets one of his best lead vocals on “Before They Make Me Run,” before Mick counters with an equally strong vocal on the ballad “Beast of Burden,” the second single, released just after the album dropped.
From the gentleness of “Beast of Burden,” the Stones conclude with “Shattered.” For sheer entertainment purposes, the funky Bill Wyman-powered screamer is about the most fun they ever had in four minutes.
In the middle of Some Girls comes the title track, which may sum up the greatness and the controversy of the album in a single moment. The song is a mid-tempo ballad that features extraordinary guitar interplay between Richards and Woods.
Black and Blue had been Woods’ first appearance as a full member of the band, but Some Girls was when he really arrived. The twin guitars are apparent throughout, but never better than on the title track.
Charges of misogyny might be warranted
As for the charges of misogyny – the dismissal of women as mere props or playthings – it’s hard to listen to the song “Some Girls” and not acknowledge the problem. The lyrics are both dismissive and stereotypical.
Critics at the time noted this was not confined to the title track but is present in “Lies” (“Lies, you dirty Jezebel – Why, why, why, why don’t you go to hell”), while cropping up in moments and in attitudes scattered throughout the album.
Richards famously said that they titled the album “Some Girls” because they couldn’t remember the girls’ names. But focusing on those moments ignores the self-laceration that imbues the entire album. Mick and Keith aren’t merely expressing some dissatisfaction with “some girls.”
On “Before They Make Me Run,” “Shattered,” and especially “Respectable,” they are looking inward and not sparing the brutal assessment. I realize it requires some poetic license, but when I hear “You’re the rag trade girl, you’re the queen of porn – You’re the easiest lay on the White House lawn” in “Respectable,” I hear Mick singing about himself as much as some anonymous woman.
Focusing on the anger also denies the genuine love songs. “Miss You” may not qualify as romantic, but it admits to romantic obsession. “Beast of Burden” is a plaintive cry for connection.
If I’m arguing that Some Girls treats women poorly, I’m not focusing on the obvious suspects. To me, those are just good rock songs expressing a level of frustration in the same way Taylor Swift might tear some guy a new one in a particular song. Swift is not writing about all boys – just, well, some boys.
No, my only complaint with Some Girls is that the most overtly sentimental song is also the worst one on the album. “Just My Imagination” succeeds in adding to the remarkable breadth of Some Girls, journeying to Motown for a cover of the great Temptations number.
This wasn’t the first time Mick had borrowed from American soul music. He had been doing it from the birth of the band. The only thing about It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll that flat-out beats Some Girls is its Temptations cover. Mick is just a lot more convincing singing “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg” than he is doing “Just My Imagination.”
On Some Girls, Mick and Keith wrote songs about love and fame that were messy. There was ugliness and bitterness. It was directed outward and inward in equal measures. Now, that could make for a ponderous, whining collection of songs. But it doesn’t.
It doesn’t because, Lester Bangs notwithstanding, Some Girls has the world’s greatest rock band returning to what it does best. Despite a guest musician or two on a track or two, it’s almost entirely the five band members.
Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman powering through a variety of musical genres without ever losing the rock edge. Richards and Woods filling each song to the brim with guitar riffs. Jagger – Temptations’ cover aside – delivering some of his most assured vocals of the decade.
They set themselves up in the studio in close proximity to emulate the live club sound and it comes across. In the quieter moments – in the louder explosions – playing punk or disco or country or old-school rock, this was the best the Rolling Stones had sounded in quite some time. They weren’t giving in to the ‘70s, like so many of their contemporaries. They weren’t selling out or going home.
They weren’t going anywhere. As of 2025, almost fifty years later, they still aren’t.