James Beaty: OPINION: Ramblin' Round: How a 'throwaway song' inspired Jagger and Richards to write for the Stones

Jul. 16—I'm often amused when I think of how a songwriting duo for one of rock's greatest bands inspired a songwriting team from another group that would go on to become one of their chief rivals.

But even Mick Jagger and Keith Richards have told how they were inspired to write their own songs for the Rolling Stones after watching John Lennon and Paul McCartney finish writing a song in their presence.

They got together on that musical day after the Stones' young manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, invited Lennon and McCartney to watch the Stones rehearse.

At the time, around November, 1963, neither The Beatles nor the Stones had performed in the U.S. or scored a hit on the U.S. charts. However, The Beatles were already huge in Britain, while the Stones' first British single, a cover of Chuck Berry's song "Come On," fell just short of the top 20, reaching #21 on the British record charts.

Oldham, who had once worked with The Beatles' Manager Brian Epstein, may have had an ulterior motive in inviting Lennon and McCartney to the Stones' rehearsal.

At the time, the Stones were exclusively recording cover versions of songs by American blues and rock 'n' roll artists. While they were obviously doing a bang-up job in becoming one of the best blues cover bands in Britain, Oldham was already aware of the royalties bonanza The Beatles were tapping into by writing much of their own material.

However, the Stones still considered themselves simply a blues cover band and did not think of themselves as songwriters. Neither did many of the other bands in Britain at the time.

When rock 'n' roll music came along in the mid-1950s, it turned some of the songwriting conventions of what had been called Tin Pan Alley music around.

While the Great American Songbook often featured collaborative artists — usually consisting of a music composer and a lyricist — many of those early rock 'n' roll classics were composed by solo artists.

Not all of them, of course, with one of the first major exceptions coming with the rock 'n' roll songwriting duo of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. With Leiber writing the lyrics and Stoller composing the music, they wrote numerous early rock 'n' roll songs, including some of Elvis Presley's biggest hits.

Their songs recorded and made into hits by Elvis alone include "Hound Dog," "Treat Me Nice," "Jailhouse Rock," "Love Me," "Don't" and "(You're So Square) Baby I Don't Care."

Still, when I think of those early rock 'n' roll recordings that first shook up the charts beginning in the mid-1950s, I'm more likely to think of the numerous solo artists, many of whom came from the south and who wrote their own songs.

I think of Chuck Berry and his many rock 'n' roll masterpieces, including "Johnny B.Goode," "Maybellene," "Roll Over Beethoven," Memphis Tennessee" and the aptly-named "Rock and Roll Music" to mention a few.

On the rockabilly side, I think of Carl Perkins and his songs such as "Blue Suede Shoes," "Matchbox" and "Honey Don't"

And of course, there's one Richard Penniman, much better known by his stage name of Little Richard, who delivered and wrote enduring rockers such as ""Long Tall Sally," "Good Golly, Miss Molly" and "Rip It Up."

Another of those great early rock 'n' rollers hailed from Texas, Buddy Holly, who wrote his own hits and recorded them with his band, the Crickets, or as a solo artist. Holly wrote and recorded such enduring songs as "Peggy Sue," "That'll Be The Day," "Oh Boy!" and "Not Fade Away."

Following that initial burst of creativity in the mid-1950s, more songwriting teams began to rise in the late 1950s into the early 1960s, with most of them working in the area of New York City known as Tin Pan Alley.

When The Beatles first arrived on American shores to perform on "The Ed Sullivan Show" in 1964, U.S. music fans became aware of Lennon and McCartney as a new songwriting team — at least to them.

Their songwriting partnership directly led to that other great songwriting partnership, of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.

During that meeting between Lennon and McCartney and the Stones at the Stones' rehearsal arranged by the Stones' manager Oldham, Lennon and McCartney told Jagger and Richards they had a great song that the Stones should record — but the problem was, they hadn't quite finished it.

With Jagger and Richards looking on, Lennon and McCartney walked over to a corner, put their heads and guitars together and in short order completed the song, "I Wanna Be Your Man."'

A raving rocker for the times, they offered the song to Jagger and Richards for the Stones to record. Lennon and McCartney had started writing the song as a showcase for Beatles drummer Ringo Starr to record — but what the heck! They spontaneously decided to offer it to the Stones on the spot.

Even at the early phase of Beatlemania in Britain, a song written by Lennon and McCartney was pretty much guaranteed to be a hit, no matter who recorded it and the Stones accepted the offer — although their fellow Stone Brian Jones bluesed it up a bit courtesy of some Elmore James-styled slide guitar.

As for Jagger and Richards, they were obviously impressed at seeing Lennon and McCartney walk over to a corner and finish writing a song as they watched. It must have instilled some confidence in them, that if Lennon and McCartney could do it, so could they.

Richards wrote in his autobiography, "Life," that it took he and Jagger awhile to come up with results which reached their expectations. Although one of their early efforts, "Tell Me (You're Coming Back to Me)" reached #24 in the U.S., Richards felt that ballads weren't really representative of what the Stones were about at the time.

He didn't feel satisfied until he wrote the riff and he and Jagger finished writing "The Last Time," soon followed by another riff-based song "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" — a pair of hits on both sides of the pond that brought the Jaggers-Richard songwriting duo into rock music royalty.

In the U.S., The Beatles included their version of "I Wanna Be Your Man" on the Fab Four's first album for Capitol Records, "Meet The Beatles!" — with the track being the only one sang by drummer Ringo Starr on the album.

Lennon would later describe "I Wanna Be Your Man" as a throwaway song and as proof he didn't hold it in high regard he pointed to the fact that at the time, he and McCartney had given it to both Ringo and the Stones to record. Ouch!

McCartney must have thought a little higher of the song, though, because he's performed it occasionally during sound checks prior to his own concerts.

Then, during his 2022 performance at the Glastonbury Festival in England, McCartney performed "I Wanna Be Your Man" along with a special guest turn from Bruce Springsteen.

With all of the songs in The Beatles', Wings' and McCartney's solo repertoire from which to chose, the fact that McCartney chose "I Wanna Be Your Man" to perform before a live audience consisting of 210,000 music fans in 2022 indicated he must have liked the song somewhat better than Lennon.

"I Wanna Be Your Man" also apparently commands respect from Ringo, because he's often included it on the set list for his performances with his All Starr Band.

Not bad for something John Lennon once called just a throwaway song.