Revisiting the 15 Most Controversial Rolling Stones Songs
Celebrate the 50th anniversary of "Sticky Fingers" by looking back at "Brown Sugar" and their other contentious songs
BY BONNIE STIERNBERG @AAHREALBONSTERS
If, for some reason, you weren’t able to pick up on the, uh … imagery behind its title, Sticky Fingers hits you over the head with it with its Andy Warhol-designed cover featuring a close-up of a man’s bulge and a working zipper that could be pulled down to reveal an image of cotton briefs. The Rolling Stones’ 1971 classic — which celebrates its 50th anniversary today — lets you know what the vibe is before you even pull it out of the sleeve, so in many ways it makes sense that it’s also the record that houses the band’s most controversial track, “Brown Sugar.”
What’s fascinating about “Brown Sugar” is that despite its clumsy lyrics and blatant fetishization of Black women, it remains one of the band’s most beloved tracks, a staple in their live shows. Fans who know better dance to it in spite of themselves. Maybe they laugh nervously at its lyrics, but they don’t turn it off. Like a lot of the Stones’ catalog, it’s a relic from another time, full of racism, sexism and other questionable lyrics that have aged poorly. But like the Stones themselves, it has endured.
Half a century later, Sticky Fingers stands as a microcosm of the Stones’ complicated legacy. On the one hand, it’s got some extremely regrettable moments like “Brown Sugar” and “You Gotta Move,” a blues number on which Mick Jagger puts on an embarrassing accent that has been described as “aural blackface.” But it also came smack dab in the middle of the group’s unparalleled run from 1968 to 1972 which saw them release Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main St. in quick succession, and while its low points are extremely low, it’s also full of undeniable classics like “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking,” “Wild Horses,” “Dead Flowers” and “Moonlight Mile.”
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“Sticky Fingers” just rocks. My favorite Stones record. Oh, and we used to open with “Brown Sugar” back in the day. ;-)