Comments, input and alterations are very welcome!
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My Girl
(Smokey Robinson / Ronnie White)

RCA Studios, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, US, May 12, 1965 and
IBC Studios, London, UK, August 31 - September 2, 1966

Mick Jagger - lead vocals, backing vocals, percussion
Keith Richards - electric guitar, backing vocals
Charlie Watts - drums
Bill Wyman - bass
The Mike Leander Orchestra - strings

I got sunshine, on a cloudy day
When it's cold outside, I got the month of May
I guess, you'll say, what can make me feel this way?
My girl, my girl, my girl, talkin' 'bout my girl

I got so much honey, the bees envy me
I've got a sweeter song, baby, than the birds in the trees
I guess, you'll say, what can make me feel this way?
My girl, my girl, my girl, talkin' 'bout my girl

I don't need no money, or count my pay
I've got all the riches, baby, one man can take
I guess, you'll say, what can make me feel this way?
My girl, my girl, my girl, talkin' 'bout my girl

I got sunshine, on a cloudy day
I even got the month of May
My girl, my girl, I'm talkin' 'bout my girl

Produced by Andrew Loog Oldham

First released on:
The Rolling Stones - “Flowers” LP
(London PS 509) US, June 1967



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013-03-11 11:40 by René.

LOVE this song...just not by the Rolling Stones.

Big favorite! Shows how good Jagger sings real soul or...???

2 1 2 0

Quote
Come On
Big favorite! Shows how good Jagger sings real soul or...???

It shows how Jagger tries to sing real soul

I'm charmed! What a great song

That handful of skinny English cats have always been so good at holding up gems of great worth for us -
it's amazing how excellent they were right from the get-go at recognizing songs that would never get old

I love the Rolling Stones

I think songs of this style, they did better when they were a bit more mature. For instance Ain't Too Proud To Beg, or Just My Imagination.....it was they made it their own, instead of copying the original too closely.

I tend to lump this one with Under The Boardwalk.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013-03-04 09:35 by treaclefingers.

Sorry - thumbs down for this one. Another lame cover. This really sounds like filler material that was recorded in a hurry to get some more sides down. The Stones did the rougher, tougher r'n'b songs so much better.

Ain't no big thing but it's a nice version.

I like Bill's bass on this track, one of the few times you hear him playing front and center on a track and leading off with the intro as well. Yet they seem to have just forgotten that they covered it, as there exists no live version. From that point in their career, it probably would have been more interesting to hear them cover a Temptations song like Since I Lost My Baby.

Great tune, pity the Stones made a cover of it....... a bit to goody-goody music for the Stones IMO

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one of my all time favorite songs.

A forgettable cover of a classic song. The Temps did it so much better.

Drew

Not a favourite. Love the song, but not The Stones version. However, it was originally an outtake, later fixed up for release in the US, so to the Stones defense, they originally wasn't planning it for release.

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Blueranger
Not a favourite. Love the song, but not The Stones version. However, it was originally an outtake, later fixed up for release in the US, so to the Stones defense, they originally wasn't planning it for release.

I forgive them..............

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I will forgive them as well. Yeah, pretty shoddily done. They sound young and in love with the great music from the US. Fanboys, so to be forgiven. And led a whole bunch of young people in Europe appreciate Detroit. Not half bad.

Completely awful.

Sad Andrew push them to try soul music. It just
doesn't work...Just play this song. haha.
They should stick to rock...
But then again it did work when they made Just My Imagination...
But that tract has a rock edge to it.

Are those really Mick and Keith on BU vocals?

C

Quote
hot stuff
Sad Andrew push them to try soul music. It just
doesn't work...Just play this song. haha.
They should stick to rock...
But then again it did work when they made Just My Imagination...
But that tract has a rock edge to it.

Then how do you consider their versions of "That's How Strong My Love Is" and "Cry to Me"?
Are they not soul music? Maybe, rather gospel flavoured soul or R&B flavoured soul, I might concede. However, that is one style of soul music. At the time OUT OF OUR HEADS (in this case, the US catalogue album that was available to me) was released, (and which I at the time received as a present), those two songs were immediately at first more appealing to me than their signature song "Satisfaction".

Then, what about "Can I Get a Witness", does it not qualify as a soul song?

'Soul music' is not reserved to a too narrow understood genre music, and there are styles of soul. I'd rather let other more competent posters present the distinctions between Tamla Motown and Stax.

I agree that "Ain't Too Proud to Beg" did not work adequately, far from it. However, I have got a live version that do make it. And "Harlem Shuffle" as a studio song absolutely did, if possibly somewhat forced.

And as to what they should stick to, once again in their early days: Is not the greatness of their version of "Around And Around" as a rock song, due to the fact (if my point of view holds true, that is) that they did this song in a R&B fashion rather than as an outright rock song?

Why should they not try different kinds of music even if they did not handle "My Girl" at that particular time in their early career? Maybe, they would be able to master it now. I would welcome a live version of it from 2013.

As others have expressed it, too: The Stones have not been one kind of band only, but many kinds of bands in one.

I think that Jagger and company didn't have a real feel or love for the music
at that time...

IMO---you can hear them play it by the numbers..No real heart into it.

I like all their soul- like numbers...But not nearly as much as all the other stuff the
Stones recorded....Its All Over now or Cry to me???

I like Cry to me...But Jagger just sounds more like he is screaming
it..No real heart into the song..

I believe that Andrew loved Soul more then the Stones..

I'm not saying that they can't do it...I just don't think they wanted
or even cared to play it AT THE TIME!

Otis did a cool cover of it. Otis could do no wrong, though.

classic shag song.

It feels more like an ALO track, I doubt Brian played on this. ><

I knew this existed, but I'd never listened to it - I'm not much of a soul fan, and I knew how most people here hate it (maybe it's the strings - there's something about strings on a Stones track that makes the average iorrean's hackles rise). But when it's this week's Track Talk, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do...

And it's actually a very nice vocal. I'll take the experts' word for it not being "real soul", but it sounds to me as if Mick loves the original and is doing his damnedest to do it justice, and I like the results. Otherwise it's a pretty bland cover apart from Bill's bass.

A Loog Oldham/ABKCO idea to cash in on the U.S. market. Probably an outtake, with added string section. Totally forgettable.

Mathijs

Quote
hot stuff

I think that Jagger and company didn't have a real feel or love for the music
at that time...

IMO---you can hear them play it by the numbers..No real heart into it.

I like all their soul- like numbers...But not nearly as much as all the other stuff the
Stones recorded....Its All Over now or Cry to me???

I like Cry to me...But Jagger just sounds more like he is screaming
it..No real heart into the song..

In my view Jagger's vocal in "That's How Strong My Love Is" and "Cry to Me" is proof of his masterful delivery of soul songs during the first period of the band's existence. These two songs are late fruits somewhat after the first peak of their career, but themselves gems, even if they are tracks of an album OUT OF OUR HEADS that to me is a transitional album. Out of the former R & B band develops a combined rock and pop group. As to the last mentionned pop, it is both commercial and experimental.

If you say there is no heart in "Cry to Me", I cannot argue against it; because either you feel it, or you don't. But I am amazed, and if you never had heard anything else by the Stones and had said that to me, I would have advised you to forget all about the Stones and find yourself another band.

Then, if you hold that the band had no love for music at the time, that means 1965, and I take it that you mean the preceding years, too, I won't try give it an answer. I will only testify that in my world they had something in the first period that later gets lost. Some kind of ecstacy provoking ability. Something else develops, something great as well, that is another matter.

As to the track "My Girl", no strings on the version I have got by the way, I repeat that I agree that they did not manage to get it right.

Haha...I didn't say I don't like it. I just think Andrew liked Soul music more
Then the Stones did. ( their soul covers don't sound like the
Stones.) Sounds to me that the Stones just went through
The motions to get Andrew off their back.

Mathijs said it better then I can.....

I love soul music. But this was a really poor choice for the Stones, and is not soul music as some on the thread have implied. About when they should have fired ALO. Right up there with Under The Boardwalk as two cover songs that should have been left alone.

Their back-to-back covers of Mercy Mercy and Hitchhike on OOOH are excellent versions, staying fairly close to the originals, but still making them their own. I think these, along with THSMLI, are their best soul efforts. I feel that My Girl was a weak attempt- although I believe they've covered the Temptations, with mixed results more than anyone except Chuck Berry. I'd like to hear the cover of Try Me they cut at Chess in 64.