Comments, input and alterations are very welcome!
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How Can I Stop
(Mick Jagger / Keith Richards)

Ocean Way Recording Studios, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, US,
March 13 - July 1997

Keith Richards - lead vocals, backing vocals, electric guitar
Charlie Watts - drums
Ron Wood - electric guitar
Don Was - Wurlitzer piano
Jeff Sarli - upright acoustic bass
Waddy Wachtel - electric guitar
Jim Keltner - percussion
Wayne Shorter - soprano saxophone
Blondie Chaplin - piano, backing vocals
Bernard Fowler - backing vocals

You offer me all your love and sympathy
Sweet affection baby, it's killing me
'Cause baby, baby, can't you see
How could I stop once I start baby, how could I stop once I start
Yeah, yeah, how could I stop once I start

You look at me, but I don't know what you see
A reflection, baby, of what I want to be
I see your face and I want to roll with it
But how could I stop, baby, how could I stop, stop it, stop it

If I could, I'd take you all the way, baby, baby listen what I say

There's even some things that I just would not pay
'Cause how could I stop if I start, babe, how could I stop if I start, start with you
If I start, baby, how could I stop if I start with you, baby, yeah

It's too easy to lay here at your feet, I couldn't take the heat
There's somewhere else, maybe you should go
Baby, maybe baby, just a further down the road
How could I stop if I start with you, baby
How could I stop once I start
You tell me baby, once I've started with you
How could I stop, once I start
Stop, stop, stop it, how could I stop

How could I stop, how could I stop, how could I stop

Produced by Don Was & The Glimmer Twins

First released on:
The Rolling Stones - “Bridges To Babylon” CD
(Virgin Records VJCP 25333) Japan, September 26, 1997

Nice track. I was lucky enough to be in the house at Madison Square Garden on January 14, 1998, the one time they performed this.

Yes, really good one. Mellow and flowing. Great back up-melody and -singing. Nice ending on a - recently rediscovered(!) - great album. I know a few will disagree but I think it could be edited down a bit. The Wayne Shorter outro is to me too close to Joni Mitchell, a great artist but I´ve never been a fan of her jazzy thing either.
Interresting story by Don Was in "Life" about how he tried to "pair" this one with Thief in the Night to disguise B2B as a three-track-Keith album.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011-03-07 11:33 by RobberBride.

Nice, but a bit boring IMO. Other Kewith/Stones ballads like Áll about You, The Worst or This Place Is Empty are better.

6minutes of perfection

it's an amazing piece of music - what breadth! what depth! beautiful stuff

there are miles of great insights into this number here: [www.timeisonourside.com]

i love the Rolling Stones

I quite like it, but I guess I'm one of the few people who would prefer Stones albums without Keith's ballads (he should make solo albums in this style instead), or at the very least I'd prefer albums to close with a Mick Jagger vocal, something they haven't done since 'Undercover' as far as I recall.

You look at me but I don't know what you see
A reflection, baby, of what I want to be


Forget Life. Here's the complete autobiography in one sentence.

Top five Stones track. Fabulous.

Mathijs

A true gem!

Is there a bootversion of that single liveperformance?
A great track, great playing, feel, mood overall à little masterpiece!

One of Keith's/ The Stones' best - I was blown away when I first heard it. From the loveley opening chorus of backing vocals to the odd little percussion bit at the end. Perfect.

On my Keith-Top-3-list!

2 1 2 0

It was the second album in a where Keith did something unexpected and brilliant, the previous being "Thru and Thru". This is one of the most gorgeous ballads by any rand, much less the Stones. And the SOUND - listen how crisp and upfront Charlie's rimshot is, and how warm the guitars sound. I think I will be playing this sometime before the day is over.

I love it to death!
and Wayne Shorter... amazing

a very very good song. This place is empty and Losing my touch pale in comparisson to it

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Rik
a very very good song. This place is empty and Losing my touch pale in comparisson to it

surely! along with Thief it may be the best Keith slow tune...

Truely a gem.............................along with coming down again and all about you, the best things that KR's has ever made

First I thought it was a song from Bigger Bang that implies how involved I'am with the later songs.

Actually I don't listen their later records anymore, must say that this one sounds great....maybe I should give them a spin again

__________________________

In September of '97, I was lucky enough to get an advance cassette of the album and I tried--without much success--to work and write at my desk while having a first listen on headphones.

I was excited by the album as a whole, but when I got to the end and heard "How Can I Stop," I just started laughing. The idea that he had broken so free of that "hard shell" to create something so distinctive and spiritual, and to do this in 1997...I was in a state of joy and utter disbelief. And, along with "Thief" (and the album as a whole) it still holds up.

I think it was over in the "Songs From The 90's That Don't Suck" thread where the use of the word "magnificent" was being debated.

"How Can I Stop" is magnificent: Soulful, deep, free, and fearless. A mature Rolling Stones, wise with years and at the peak of their creative powers. God, how I wish it had been the jumping-off point for a new golden era...

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Sleepy City
I quite like it, but I guess I'm one of the few people who would prefer Stones albums without Keith's ballads (he should make solo albums in this style instead).

I really can't understand how come the Rolling Stones album has three songs totally free of any Jagger's participation. One song with Keith on vocal is enough. And if he wants to sing more he has to make a solo album.

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proudmary

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Sleepy City
I quite like it, but I guess I'm one of the few people who would prefer Stones albums without Keith's ballads (he should make solo albums in this style instead).

I really can't understand how come the Rolling Stones album has three songs totally free of any Jagger's participation. One song with Keith on vocal is enough. And if he wants to sing more he has to make a solo album.

My point exactly.

I actually think I'd enjoy listening to songs like these more in the context of a solo album.

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proudmary

Quote
Sleepy City
I quite like it, but I guess I'm one of the few people who would prefer Stones albums without Keith's ballads (he should make solo albums in this style instead).

I really can't understand how come the Rolling Stones album has three songs totally free of any Jagger's participation. One song with Keith on vocal is enough. And if he wants to sing more he has to make a solo album.

Why? If they're good, I want 'em. If they suck I don't. Don't care if it's Mick or Keith singing.

Quote
proudmary

Quote
Sleepy City
I quite like it, but I guess I'm one of the few people who would prefer Stones albums without Keith's ballads (he should make solo albums in this style instead).

I really can't understand how come the Rolling Stones album has three songs totally free of any Jagger's participation. One song with Keith on vocal is enough. And if he wants to sing more he has to make a solo album.

Jagger had the same thought as you, Keith writes about the struggle with getting all 3 songs included at BtB, and the reason he sang 3 songs....in "Life"
I'm glad he got all 3 of them out



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011-03-07 17:32 by Erik_Snow.

Keith's songs on BTB are better than Might As Well Get Juiced, Always Suffering and Gunface by a mile - and better than Saint Of Me too.

How Can I Stop is amazing. It's the kind of jazz that many musicians wish they could create. To know that that is The Rolling Stones is astounding. At the time I figured it would be their last album and it seemed like a brilliant ending to their recording career.

rocks like a mofo

Yes this track gets better every time you listen to it. Keith at his best!!!


John Nicholls

Quote
Rev. Robert W.
In September of '97, I was lucky enough to get an advance cassette of the album and I tried--without much success--to work and write at my desk while having a first listen on headphones.

I was excited by the album as a whole, but when I got to the end and heard "How Can I Stop," I just started laughing. The idea that he had broken so free of that "hard shell" to create something so distinctive and spiritual, and to do this in 1997...I was in a state of joy and utter disbelief. And, along with "Thief" (and the album as a whole) it still holds up.

I think it was over in the "Songs From The 90's That Don't Suck" thread where the use of the word "magnificent" was being debated.

"How Can I Stop" is magnificent: Soulful, deep, free, and fearless. A mature Rolling Stones, wise with years and at the peak of their creative powers. God, how I wish it had been the jumping-off point for a new golden era...

+10

A great song, a great last song for a great album,
but the beginning of his crooning career. Mixed
emotiones here.

It's gentle, poignant, mature, elegant, wistful, and graceful.

It's also kinda boring. At least to my ears.

I've always felt that this track is not nearly the equal of its soul-mate, Thief in the Night. Thief just transports me into another world, with its shimmering production and utterly brilliant songwriting, whereas this one is just a bit ... inert.

Still, How Can I Stop has a very nice SOUND to it ... crisp and clear as a bell. Despite my criticisms, I firmly believe that this track would have been the supremely perfect grace-note to the Stones career. (Too bad that now the grace-note would be Infamy, unless they go into the studio again!)

Drew