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Silver Dagger
A great song. One of the first examples of Mick and Keith getting their claws out to pen a sneering put down - many would follow on the next album Aftermath.

It's got a wonderful swinging rhythm with Charlie really pounding his drums to give the song great momentum - almost like a truck rolling along an LA freeway.

Fabulous riff from Keith but highlight for me is that harmonica from Brian - it's definitive and a lick he was a master at playing in the early days.

The song was written about a real promo jerk working for London records I believe who was assigned to work with them when they visited the States.

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Silver Dagger
The song was written about a real promo guy working for London records

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with sssoul

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Silver Dagger
The song was written about a real promo guy working for London records

Why call George Sherlock a jerk?! He was most likely no jerkier than any other under-assistant promo man.

I love this track in every way.

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CaptainCorella
Also worth noting that the versions originally released on singles in the UK and the USA were different.

The USA version fades a little later and there's an extra line sung/spoken by Mick.

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Silver Dagger

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with sssoul
Why call George Sherlock a jerk?! He was most likely no jerkier than any other under-assistant promo man.
I love this track in every way.

Bejesus girl. Why call him a jerk? What is this - charity month? Why the hell not, eh?

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Doxa
Like mentioned here, not probably the most memorable tune from the era, but still an interesting little curiosity from the times the band was strongly heading into originality. It is a Nanker Phelge composition, meaning that it is either a blues pastishe or a jam, and in this case the first-mentioned. Like Jagger or Richards has mentioned, they had difficulties in writing material suitable for the r&b style of the Stones, and if count those early pop ballads out, the results were something like "West Coast Promotion Man", the only originality having in them was writing new lyrics. Even though they succeeded marvelously in that task (of writing original sounding r&b numbers) with four huge singles - "The Last Time", "Satisfaction", "Get Off of My Cloud", and "19th Nervous Breakdown" - I would claim that it took them all the way until BEGGARS BANQUET that they really learned to write original, mature blues-based material, with a voice of their own. The experience gained in the experiments during the 'pop period' of 1966/67 wqs a necessary learning process for that, me thinks.

The band sounds fine, like the best British r6b band should, in "West Coast Man" but in the long run the most interesting feature is the lyrics, which Jagger delivers aptly. Not very different from "The Spider And The Fly", the old blues story-telling tradition is transformed to fit to the world and lives of a young rock and roll band, making clever observations. Also an early and rather rare but strong instance of Jagger singing from a stance that surely is not his, but someone else's. Are there actually so clear instances of that in any other Stones songs? Usually there at least is a bit of Jaggerian perspective there, but here is not. No any kind of references into sex or difficult relationships here either...

- Doxa

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with sssoul

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Silver Dagger

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with sssoul
Why call George Sherlock a jerk?! He was most likely no jerkier than any other under-assistant promo man.
I love this track in every way.

Bejesus girl. Why call him a jerk? What is this - charity month? Why the hell not, eh?

Bemoses, boy - didn't your mama teach you not to kick a promo man when he's down?!
He's wearing a ssseersssucker sssuit, for mercy's sake - give him a break!