SongFacts is a music-oriented website that has articles about songs, detailing the meaning behind the lyrics, how and when they were recorded and any other info that they can find. The site was started by WHCN DJ Carl Wiser in Hartford, Connecticut in August 1999. Wiser originally created the list as a database to prepare for his radio programs but then he posted it online. First, it was mainly used by DJs; but in 2002 it was chosen as a “Yahoo! Pick”. The site was rated 4/5 by the Mumbai Mirror in India. In the August 2004 issue of Men’s Journal, Songfacts was listed as one of the “100 Best Websites for Guys”. USA Weekend has praised it as “a virtual Behind the Music”.(More from Wikipedia)
I found another great Keith Richards quote on SongFacts concerning “The Last Time” – the 45 that was released right before “Satisfaction” – as taken from the 2003 book According to the Rolling Stones: “We didn’t find it difficult to write pop songs, but it was VERY difficult – and I think Mick [Jagger] will agree – to write one for the Stones. It seemed to us it took months and months and in the end we came up with ‘The Last Time’, which was basically re-adapting a traditional Gospel song that had been sung by the Staple Singers, but luckily the song itself goes back into the mists of time. I think I was trying to learn it on the guitar just to get the chords, sitting there playing along with the record, no gigs, nothing else to do. At least we put our own stamp on it, as the Staple Singers had done, and as many other people have before and since: they’re still singing it in churches today. It gave us something to build on to create the first song that we felt we could decently present to the band to play. . . . ‘The Last Time’ was kind of a bridge into thinking about writing for the Stones. It gave us a level of confidence; a pathway of how to do it. And once we had done that, we were in the game. There was no mercy, because then we had to come up with the next one. We had entered a race without even knowing it.”
(May 2015)
