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Doxa
Well, the South African version can be called "Star Star" with a justification... The chorus really goes "Star... Star... Star... Star..."

Anyway, I recall in a Rolling Stones song book I once had back in the 80's, the chorus was written "Starbucker... Starbucker... Starbucker..." What does "starbucker" mean?

- Doxa

According to Urban Dictionary a Starbucker is "A person that sits inside of a Starbucks and is there only to look intelligent or stylish." ><

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Silver Dagger

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Doxa
Well, the South African version can be called "Star Star" with a justification... The chorus really goes "Star... Star... Star... Star..."

Anyway, I recall in a Rolling Stones song book I once had back in the 80's, the chorus was written "Starbucker... Starbucker... Starbucker..." What does "starbucker" mean?

- Doxa

According to Urban Dictionary a Starbucker is "A person that sits inside of a Starbucks and is there only to look intelligent or stylish." ><

I suppose you could say that this was a "Starbucker"!



Stones Dig Up Rarities For Starbucks CD


"As we say in England, it can get a bit trainspottery"

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Deltics

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Silver Dagger

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Doxa
Well, the South African version can be called "Star Star" with a justification... The chorus really goes "Star... Star... Star... Star..."

Anyway, I recall in a Rolling Stones song book I once had back in the 80's, the chorus was written "Starbucker... Starbucker... Starbucker..." What does "starbucker" mean?

- Doxa

According to Urban Dictionary a Starbucker is "A person that sits inside of a Starbucks and is there only to look intelligent or stylish." ><

I suppose you could say that this was a "Starbucker"!



Stones Dig Up Rarities For Starbucks CD

Haha. Post of the day Deltics.

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DandelionPowderman
Obviously, the Stones didn't think of it as a throwaway, since they played it in 72, 75, 76, 78, 81, 2002 and 2003.

I don't find Keith's playing on it uninspired, but I find the rhythm guitar a little too straight - much in the vein of other bands playing rock. One of the reasons why the Stones is my favourite band has to do with how they approach laying down the rhythm tracks.

There are many things I don't like about the studio version: The sound of the guitars, the overall lack of energy etc.

But in no way would I ever criticise the Stones for using the most robust template in rock history to create a song. IMO, it's the execution and the performance that isn't clicking, not the song per se. On LYL it's up there with the El Mocambo numbers, imo.

Once again, it's not degrading in any way musically, to make straight rhythm and blues/real rock'n'roll songs. A 12 bar boogie is not a joke before you make it a joke. And if there is a joke here, it's strongly connected to Mick's words, not the music

Good posting.
With Star Star often I am tempted to consider skipping, but by the end I am glad that I didn't. It ends on such a strong note. But IMO any weakness within this song comes from the fact that Keith was not involved in the writing. One can see that a Berry type rocker done w/o Keith can feel a bit rushed; and forced.
Keith's genius: the patience, and deceptive speed. IMO it is one reason other bands find it impossible to truly cover Stones classics; or write "stones-y" rockers. Keith came from relaxed grooves.
I agree with Dandy, that many of the Jagger penned Berry rockers were vehicles for the camp lyrics. Its on the SG album.

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Doxa
Well, the South African version can be called "Star Star" with a justification... The chorus really goes "Star... Star... Star... Star..."

Anyway, I recall in a Rolling Stones song book I once had back in the 80's, the chorus was written "Starbucker... Starbucker... Starbucker..." What does "starbucker" mean?

- Doxa

I still have that songbook Doxa.

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treaclefingers

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Doxa
Well, the South African version can be called "Star Star" with a justification... The chorus really goes "Star... Star... Star... Star..."

Anyway, I recall in a Rolling Stones song book I once had back in the 80's, the chorus was written "Starbucker... Starbucker... Starbucker..." What does "starbucker" mean?

- Doxa

I still have that songbook Doxa.

Me too. Mick and Keith on the cover - 78-ish?

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DandelionPowderman

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treaclefingers

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Doxa
Well, the South African version can be called "Star Star" with a justification... The chorus really goes "Star... Star... Star... Star..."

Anyway, I recall in a Rolling Stones song book I once had back in the 80's, the chorus was written "Starbucker... Starbucker... Starbucker..." What does "starbucker" mean?

- Doxa

I still have that songbook Doxa.

Me too. Mick and Keith on the cover - 78-ish?

Actually mine looked like this:



There is a second volume two too, covering 1972-78, if I recall right. I wonder where my copies are now...

- Doxa



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2014-10-01 15:18 by Doxa.

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Doxa

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DandelionPowderman

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treaclefingers

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Doxa
Well, the South African version can be called "Star Star" with a justification... The chorus really goes "Star... Star... Star... Star..."

Anyway, I recall in a Rolling Stones song book I once had back in the 80's, the chorus was written "Starbucker... Starbucker... Starbucker..." What does "starbucker" mean?

- Doxa

I still have that songbook Doxa.

Me too. Mick and Keith on the cover - 78-ish?

Actually mine looked like this:



There is a second volume two too, covering 1972-78, if I recall right. I wonder where my copies are now...

- Doxa

that was the exact cover I had!

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camper88
Doxa,

I see your point, but aside from "the way I held the microphone," Spider and the Fly could be about any relationship or nearly any night out whereas Star Star is a sustained narrative about the jet set life, complete with colourful references to the rich and famous. It's explicitly self-reflexive in a way that no other Stones song had been before it--even I'm Going Home, where the character in the song could be anyone who's "spent too much time away." The Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man is close--as far as its about the industry--but even TUAWCPM doesn't break the forth wall in the way that Star Star does.

Camper

Actually I think we're all forgetting Play With Fire as being one of, if not the first Stones' lyrics, in first person narrative, about the rock star life.

In it Jagger plays the star who has an affair with a poor little rich girl and warns her that if she steps out of line 'she'll go back living with her mother. Possibly an embroidered scenario in his turbulent relationship with Chrissie Shrimpton.

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treaclefingers

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Doxa

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DandelionPowderman

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treaclefingers

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Doxa
Well, the South African version can be called "Star Star" with a justification... The chorus really goes "Star... Star... Star... Star..."

Anyway, I recall in a Rolling Stones song book I once had back in the 80's, the chorus was written "Starbucker... Starbucker... Starbucker..." What does "starbucker" mean?

- Doxa

I still have that songbook Doxa.

Me too. Mick and Keith on the cover - 78-ish?

Actually mine looked like this:



There is a second volume two too, covering 1972-78, if I recall right. I wonder where my copies are now...

- Doxa

that was the exact cover I had!

Ha ha, I have that one as well

But this was the one I had in mind:





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2014-10-01 16:08 by DandelionPowderman.

.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2015-03-28 15:23 by camper88.

In the US in 73 it really wasn't censored as far as taking the line out about "Pussy clean"...the line is there but it was double-tracked so you get a weird effect making it harder to understand but its there...

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Doxa

................

I think the genious of the Stones, and Keith in particular, was their use of Berry as a starting point for their own original music. There is a lot of Berry in the DNA of their own compositions, such as "Midnight Rambler" and the songs Dandie listed above. Sometimes the original source of inspiration is hided so cleverly that we cannot even recognize it so easily, because the songs sound so original. But with "Star Star" they don't sound like any longer getting outside from Berry land to conquer new fields, but instead copying the master directly. Like not looking outside from Berry but from outside to Berry. And to my ears, don't sound inspired at all. My guess is that it is a bit too easy for them, taking that copying his songs was the first thing they ever did. It is too easy route for them that they can't take it any longer too seriously. A bit like if one is just graduated, he or she is brought back to grammar school... Compared to EXILE rockers, there is a sort of creative 'let's give up', retro feeling in "Star Star". But since Berry is so outfront, I take that to be a some kind of musical statement - they want to do a Berry pastishe, and not even trying anything else. So there is some point there, I hope. Is that lazy rock'n'roll I don't know...
- Doxa

According to my very, very slight reading, I once rather long ago saw it stated that the music and playing of the Rolling Stones, generally speaking, especially early on, could be described as a composite of two major influences. One then was Chuck Berry. However another was said to be Jimmy Reed. I even have sometimes thought that I would have preferred a fraction less of Chuck Berry, a fraction even more of Jimmy Reed. In that case, Chuck Berry more rock oriented, Jimmy Reed R&B. As to “Midnight Rambler” for instance, I would think that the said composite influence is what shows rather than only a Chuck Berry influence.

To the extent that it may be adequate to say that songs by the Rolling Stones, even when they are rock songs, are not solely rock music, but also carry the genre influences underlying rock with them, often with an open link to those genre influences present in the songs and their delivery, I am tempted to say that this portion is more represented by the Jimmy Reed influence (if it is correct to include a source from there) than the influence from Chuck Berry. (Not saying that the original genre music is absent in Chuck Berry, but present to a lesser degree.) Possibly, one might argue that there have followed parallel influences from other genre music styles than from Jimmy Reed later on, and it seems often to be an open link to various such genres, present in those Stones songs as well. Maybe the ability to take musical nourishment from such open links to genre musics is one special asset that the Stones have possessed. (Not a few Stones songs, in addition, are genre music songs themselves rather than rock songs.)

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camper88

Doxa,

I see your point, but aside from "the way I held the microphone," Spider and the Fly could be about any relationship or nearly any night out whereas Star Star is a sustained narrative about the jet set life, complete with colourful references to the rich and famous. It's explicitly self-reflexive in a way that no other Stones song had been before it--even I'm Going Home, where the character in the song could be anyone who's "spent too much time away." The Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man is close--as far as its about the industry--but even TUAWCPM doesn't break the forth wall in the way that Star Star does.

I find this significant because it's a far ways from the blues (a genre that hits you at the level of common experience and suffering) to get to self-reflexive or pastiche of foundational forms of rock 'n roll. The challenge is that once you get too self-relflexive stuff it's hard to go back to being perceived as "authentic." or true. It's as if Star Star is serves as a song to announce the shift from Classic to Revisionist in a genre context.

For convenience sake I'll argue that the Stones have four phases of development:

1. Experimental (ending around Beggars)
2. Classic (starting with JJF)
3. Revisionist (starting with GHS)
4. Baroque (starting with ER)

All dates are approximate lines in the sand--for example TY may be more of a revisionist work than a baroque one. Had they continued to work Start Me Up as a Reggae song it may have been more baroque. But I digress . . . Star Star sits as an example of heightened self-awareness, self-consciously reworking familiar forms, and a potentially mocking or parodic tone. As well, only after Star Star do we really get more of this kind of perspective and self-mocking or parody in songs like Some Girls, Respectable, Far Away Eyes, or IORR, etc.

Cheers,

Camper

It is an interesting division into phases that you introduce, camper88. However, I wonder if I have to disagree, even if I cannot supply an alternative scheme.

I miss an introductory phase with mostly R&B and soul. Possibly that could be termed Stones' traditional phase (or even classical phase, but I think I prefer the former). Your first listed phase, experimental, I may agree to, so far as it is thought as experimental pop; that was a period, where the division between rock and pop was not so accentuated, and when pop also could be progressive pop.

However, I am somewhat sceptical to your term classic phase. It will be too much identified with classic rock by many, in my perspective. There I have the view, already touched on above, that music from the Rolling Stones is not rock exclusively, but often spans the transition to the genre music forms that so often give richness to Rolling Stones music. I have no other term to supply than “innovative-defining” phase, and it is not so much a period term as a non-descriptive characteristic. And then, I do not think that the innovation ceases even if their defining ability in the rock world eventually comes to a close. Every now and again, that innovation instead continues, but later on without the Stones to be a defining band of rock music/ “rock music” in a very wide sense.

To your third phase, I have again no alternative term to present, but I tend to disagree even more. From time to time, there is innovation, more or less a success, but, as mentionned, not in the defining capacity any more, however, continued within the Stones kind of music. However, I have to admit that I have not quite understood, what you really mean with your term “revisionist”.

And the “baroque” term puzzles me even more, and also why there is such a division at the time of the release of EMOTIONAL RESCUE”.

Then as to "Star, Star": The song is OK, mostly because of the lyrics. And it supplies a rock song to an album that mostly has other content. An album, besides, that has fallen somewhat apart with the first two songs on the B-side of the vinyl album. The more suggestive "Can Your Hear the Music" does much more to me to bring the album together again than "Star, Star".

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camper88

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Silver Dagger
we're all forgetting Play With Fire as being one of, if not the first Stones' lyrics, in first person narrative, about the rock star life.

I don't challenge the idea that PWF has a biographical element to it, but I don't see the lyrics reflecting the rock star life, just a monied life on the part of a society girl. It's impossible or at least hard to say that there's an explicit link to a rock and roll singer/ musician in the lyrics themselves.

The "first person" in the song is obviously of a lower class than the girl he's singing about, and in general it doesn't seem to me to have anything to do with the rock star life.

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Silver Dagger
So who's it about then? Carly Simon was the name on everybody's lips at the time.

Mick is quoted as saying that this song was definitely about someone he knew. Anybody have a clue who it was? We now know You're So Vain was written about David Geffen but it this song's subject still a mystery? Carly Simon? peace

One of the best sex tunes

I always thought it was about a groupie or groupies in general.

Good example of a song that developed on the road. The versions from Brussels and Live In Texas are show highlights for me.

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mighty stork
I always thought it was about a groupie or groupies in general.

Could have been a groupie but according to Mick in 1975 it was about a specific person.

"People always give me this bit about us being a macho band and I always ask them to give me examples... Under My Thumb... Yes, but they always say @#$%&, and THAT just happened to be about someone I knew."

- Mick Jagger, 1975

quote from timeisonourside site

peace

The Stones by numbers...plus there is just something off, odd, about the production.

To me it just doesn't SOUND like the rest of the album. The LP sounds warm and deep, Star sounds thin and sort of, I don't know, wheezy.

The playing is fine, it's the Stones, the lyrics are a great representation of the band of that era, but the sound...nup, just a wee bit underdone somehow, like SOMETHING is missing.

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camper88
Doxa,

I see your point, but aside from "the way I held the microphone," Spider and the Fly could be about any relationship or nearly any night out whereas Star Star is a sustained narrative about the jet set life, complete with colourful references to the rich and famous. It's explicitly self-reflexive in a way that no other Stones song had been before it--even I'm Going Home, where the character in the song could be anyone who's "spent too much time away." The Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man is close--as far as its about the industry--but even TUAWCPM doesn't break the forth wall in the way that Star Star does.

I find this significant because it's a far ways from the blues (a genre that hits you at the level of common experience and suffering) to get to self-reflexive or pastiche of foundational forms of rock 'n roll. The challenge is that once you get too self-relflexive stuff it's hard to go back to being perceived as "authentic." or true. It's as if Star Star is serves as a song to announce the shift from Classic to Revisionist in a genre context.

For convenience sake I'll argue that the Stones have four phases of development:

1. Experimental (ending around Beggars)
2. Classic (starting with JJF)
3. Revisionist (starting with GHS)
4. Baroque (starting with ER)

All dates are approximate lines in the sand--for example TY may be more of a revisionist work than a baroque one. Had they continued to work Start Me Up as a Reggae song it may have been more baroque. But I digress . . . Star Star sits as an example of heightened self-awareness, self-consciously reworking familiar forms, and a potentially mocking or parodic tone. As well, only after Star Star do we really get more of this kind of perspective and self-mocking or parody in songs like Some Girls, Respectable, Far Away Eyes, or IORR, etc.

Cheers,

Camper

Don't agree with the 4 stages alluded to above but I am fascinated with the "self-reflexive' observation and its corresponding self-consciousness, descent into self-parody, etc.

I happened to have listened to Sticky Fingers, EOMS, GHS, and IORR in order in their entireties in the past week or so at the gym. For me, that moment (of 'descent') didn't occur at the end of GHS but rather at the beginning of IORR. I suddenly couldn't stand "If You Can't Rock Me" and it stood out like a sore thumb from nearly everything on the 3 records that preceded IORR.

I can't even put my finger on why, exactly, but all the awfulness of the 75 TOTA was already there in Jagger's vocals on the studio version of "If You Can't Rock Me."

Also, camper, I really dug this:

"The challenge is that once you get too self-relflexive stuff it's hard to go back to being perceived as "authentic." or true."

The Stones have been chasing that kind of cred now for decades ...

June 30th 1975 Philadelphia "Star Star'

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fleabitmonkey

June 30th 1975 Philadelphia "Star Star'

The return of “Tired Grandfather”. Called that because it didn't always meet performance requirements (inflation malfunction).

just think of the money they could have made if they'd called this song Star Trek instead. At every Trekkie convention this would have formed the soundtrack:

Yeah, Uhura got mad with you, for giving head to Captain Kirk...yeah, you were Star Trekker Star Trekker Star Trekker Star Trekker Starrrr...!

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treaclefingers
just think of the money they could have made if they'd called this song Star Trek instead. At every Trekkie convention this would have formed the soundtrack:

Yeah, Uhura got mad with you, for giving head to Captain Kirk...yeah, you were Star Trekker Star Trekker Star Trekker Star Trekker Starrrr...!

lmfao! Thanks for that one. I could actually see Bill doing this on one of his solo records. peace

Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker) is the best song from GHS.
Nobody talks about this song from GHS.

One of my all time favorites, surprisingly it seems to be a twist-rhythm, what is particularly evident since Deryll Jones is on bass.

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BOW2007
Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker) is the best song from GHS.
Nobody talks about this song from GHS.

Numerous times. It's not as good as Coming Down Again, imo.