Between The Buttons Released: January 20, 1967

Between The Buttons in depth

Between The Buttons certainly has some of the greatest Rolling Stones songs ever recorded on it. Even the sternest critic or earlier/later stage Stones purist can’t deny the pounding pop perfection of Let’s Spend The Night Together, or the exquisite balladry of Ruby Tuesday. Regardless of the genre, these are brilliantly-crafted and beautifully-recorded songs, mature and flawless fruit from the Jagger/Richards/Rolling Stones sound orchard.

It’s true that if you got into the Stones because of their early flair for The Blues, Between The Buttons might offend on the grounds of triviality. And similarly, if the more mature, heavier, Beggars Banquet-and-beyond sound of The Greatest Rock ‘n’ Roll Band in the world is what you love The Stones for, some of this may sound like bubblegum chart pastiche, lightweight tosh to be considered only as inconsequential juvenilia.

Listening to Something Happened To Me Yesterday, it’s possible to agree – theoretically – with these points of view. It’s a chirpy, upbeat, trad jazz/brass band-laden humalong tune, with a touch of the ‘oompah pahs’ about it, Mick doing a cod medium-posh RE accent and the band doing the same stylistically with their instruments. You remember that only a few months previously this lot whacked the whole mid-Sixties music-listening world upside the eardroves with Satisfaction and Get Off My Cloud, and you have to ask yourself: are they taking the piss?

They probably are, or were, a bit. But there’s more to it than that. It’s all about context. The record was made in August and November 1966, and came out early in 1967. During the previous year, Pet Sounds, Revolver, Freak Out! and Blonde On Blonde, four of the most innovative and influential records in history, had all been released. There was a dialogue thing going on between bands then, a friendly sense of competition in the musical air. Paul McCartney referred to Sgt. Pepper during its making as ‘Our Freak Out!’, and Brian Wilson wrote and recorded Pet Sounds as a deliberate counterblast to Revolver.

While The Rolling Stones were way too cool consider ‘replying’ to their rivals’ musical statements directly, fashion was being made by these albums, and the fans’ expectations, and purchasing decisions, had to be considered. A response was called for. A response in kind - but one also in keeping with the tone, tenor and general attitude of the bad boy band on the block, and one in tune with the times.

So something Happened To Me Yesterday is all about the biggest mid-late 60’s shibboleth of all, LSD; and while there’s more than a touch of the era’s whimsy in the la la la singalong, tuba and big bass drum arrangement, the song’s actually all about getting as high as a loon on mind-bending psychedelic drugs. (Kids, don’t try that at home, or at work: to witness the devastating results of doing so while in charge of a recording studio, please see – and hear, if you dare - Their Satanic Majesties Request).

Back on planet earth, Yesterday’s Papers is a straightforward reflection on the eternal dilemma of whether or not to have sex with absolutely everyone you can, especially when you know you can have sex with pretty much anyone you want. Clear-eyed and unashamed in this opinion (this is not the misogynist piece it’s sometimes been labelled), the simplicity of the song line (it was, according to Mick Jagger, “the first song I ever wrote completely on my own for a Rolling Stones record”) is cunningly rendered “all tinkling and weird” by Charlie Watts messing up the rhythm with “about two dozen drums”, Brian Jones working the marimbas and Jack Nitzche applying the aforementioned tinkling upon ye olde harpsichord.

Connection, meanwhile, sounds as if The Monkees have spiked The Rolling Stones’ tea and sneaked in a retake of I’m A Believer (with which it’s almost exactly contemporary) having forgotten the tune and the words. That's not a criticism. I’m A Believer’s a great song; and if Connection doesn’t have quite the same massive chorus, it is most definitely a similarly classy, catchy, cheeky slice of upbeat three minute English pop magic.

Cool, Calm and Collected is another piece of insouciant but semi-generic poppy modishness, only this time you wonder if it’s The Kinks who have nipped in and hijacked the session. There’s more than a whiff of Dedicated Follower Of Fashion about it; although Brian’s kazoo and electric dulcimer, and Nitzsche’s ragtime/honky tonk piano turn, give it its own originality; as does the unsettling acceleration towards an unexplained, decidedly uncool, uncalm and violently disseminated sonic apocalypse in the final 30 seconds.

All Sold Out tells another side of the story according to The Stones, with a deliberate and atypically audible lyric vocal bouncing along on top of some wonderful musical flourishes. Keith’s lead guitar lines are a joy throughout, but especially from 1.40 onwards and then again at the end. The ‘wooh wooh’ background vocals add a suppressed sense of abandon, and Ian Stewart’s punchy two-bar boogie-woogie piano cameo to set up the fade out is a miniature gem. You wish this would go on for longer - two minutes and 18 seconds just isn’t enough.

Miss Amanda Jones is another more recognizably authentic Stones sound too: 50% rhythm, 50% blues, 100% Jagger, Richards, Wyman, Watts and Stewart. But no Mr. Brian Jones on the song that bears his name. How sadly ironic is that?

My Obsession rumbles into the room like Get Off My Cloud, before rapidly revealing itself as a potent shouter that can’t quite go the whole hog and lacks the big hook. Charlie’s clipped drums and Bill’s excellent, throbbing fuzzy bass are the highlight here, and there’s some decidedly acidic rock piano from Stu; but the song keeps starting and stopping, returning repeatedly to the rhythm-only intro. Mick’s cocky vocal stylings belie the confusion of the lyric (“You need teaching, you're a girl… Didn't see you were so young, I could almost be your son”) adding to the slightly awkward tension of the track.

Complicated’s another track that kicks in on a killer Charlie Watts drum riff and a jaunty Wyman bass line, before introducing an unsettling series of key changes and uneasy harmony vocals as Mick once again gives the subject of Sex the airing it so badly needs – when you’re a rock and roller in your mid-twenties, swinging your thing and singing like a tom cat for a living, there can never be too many songs about doing it, and wanting to do it, and the girls you want to do it with.

Who’s Been Sleeping Here? is a more leisurely, altogether deeper piece, questioning and plaintive, haunted with Brian’s harmonica, and insistent with unanswered questions. There’s more than a nod to Dylan in this, not only in the lyrics - “the butler, the baker, the laughing cavalier… the soldier, the sailor, the three musketeers… the noseless old newsboy, the old British brigadier…” - but also, especially, in Keith’s jangling guitars. Derivative to a fault, for sure; but it's a song so skilfully designed and executed that you'd have to be deaf not to hear the originality ringing through the imitation.

Back Street Girl, all acoustics, recorders and accordions, finds The Stones having a tilt at the troubadour folk genre (although the lyrical content describes a less-than-chivalrous character); while She Smiled Sweetly is quite simply one of Mick Jagger’s finest ever vocal performances – proof once again that that cat really can sing his ass off. It’s a sweet, sweet tune, performed sans adornment in the simplest of arrangements, with a wonderful church organ accompaniment – a beautiful secular hymn to peace of mind.

The fact that it sounds almost disposable next to Ruby Tuesday, in the same way that My Obsession does in the long shadow of Let’s Spend The Night Together, only indicates how stormingly good the two ‘famous ones' actually are. And if Between The Buttons is partially overshadowed by some other Rolling Stones albums, or the contemporary offerings from Dylan, The Beatles and The Beach Boys; that too is only a matter of degree, because this really is a great album in its own right.