ABSTRACT
Beggars Banquet is the Rolling Stones’ last album of a cycle and the first of a subsequent one. The change is musically very clear, and it is due to several reasons: biographically, we know about the fading importance of Brian Jones, “whose individuality and musicianship often took [the Rolling Stones] off the bluesy course with often marvelous results” – as stated by Mick Jagger during the band’s induction at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Musically, it meant a lot.
This chapter aims to be a musicological focus – following mainly Philip Tagg’s and Allan Moore’s latest theories – on two aspects, particularly on “Street Fighting Man:”
1) On this track we can hear for the first time the “Keith Richards’ chord changes,” which de-fined many of the Stones’ later hits (despite he started using open guitar tunings in 1969; harmonic aspects will be discussed in detail) and represents what today is considered as Richards’ peculiar guitar style.
2) Aural staging – the mise-en-scène of sounds. It marks the “hybrid” identity of this recording between the “old” and the “new” Stones: while psychedelic elements from their previous rec-ords are still noticeable (sitar and tamboura), an acoustic guitar sounds rough and distorted, with a reintroduced bluesy vibe, and a toy drum kit sounds “enormous,” proving once again that recording is a media for music production, not reproduction, that we are listening to illu-sions.
This chapter aims to demonstrate that despite the Stones are remembered as one of the greatest live bands ever, their work in the studio is at least as defining as their concerts.
