It's only rock n' roll, but I (still) like it

Upon walking into the Beaman Tap (truly a hidden gem of a restaurant if there ever was one) to pick up my to-go order on Friday night, I ran into my old friends Hank Miller and Stan Neff, who I feel as if I’ve known a lifetime despite my status as a relative newcomer in the area. Without skipping a beat, we got straight to our favorite topic: not politics, baseball or how farmers are holding up in a lousy economy, but our shared love for the Rolling Stones.
           
I asked them if they’d seen the news that Mick Jagger turned 75 last week, and, as I expected, they’d already been discussing it. I can still remember when I first met Hank, and he told me that he and Stan—both hardworking, straight-laced Grundy County farmers I would’ve never suspected—were Stones superfans who’d been to so many concerts they practically enjoyed honorary roadie status. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world, and it made me wish I’d grown up in a different era.
           
In honor of the birthday boy (who, in typical rock star fashion, has eight children ranging in age from 47 to one and a half) and in the interest of avoiding politics for a few weeks, I’ve compiled the definitive list of my 15 favorite songs by the greatest rock n’ roll band on earth. A few of my opinions may be controversial (I’ve never considered “Start Me Up” one of their best, and “Paint It Black” is just okay), but I’m sure Hank and Stan will let me know where I’m wrong. Here we go.
           
Honorable mentions: “Dead Flowers,” “Brown Sugar,” “Blinded by Rainbows,” “Under My Thumb,” “Ruby Tuesday.”
           
15. Miss You (1978)- The Stones have always possessed an uncanny ability to seamlessly integrate musical genres outside of their usual blues based rock n’ roll, and I’ll be darned if “Miss You” isn’t one of the best disco tracks I’ve ever heard. Try not to dance to it. I dare you.  
           
14. Monkey Man (1969)- A lumbering Bill Wyman bass line with piano flourishes kicks into a vintage Keith Richards riff, and Mick spouts off some vaguely metaphorical lyrics about—what exactly?—I’m not sure. But hey, if we knew what every song ever written was actually supposed to mean, we’d probably like them a lot less.
           
13. Midnight Rambler (1969)- One of the band’s most delightfully weird recordings, this extended jam about the Boston Strangler is a song that only the Stones could get away with writing. It’s got harmonica, it’s got one of those earworm Keith guitar lines, and it’s got tempo changes that make it feel like a short film set to a raunchy back alley blues. 
           
12. Sweet Virginia (1972)- The band has never gotten enough credit for how faithfully and wonderfully they play country music. “Sweet Virginia,” a swampy acoustic number that sounds like it’s being sung on a front porch in the Deep South over a pitcher of spiked sweet tea, presents the Stones at their boozy, sultry best. The barroom piano is a perfect finishing touch.
           
11. Angie (1973)- A tearjerker of a breakup song featuring a trademark acoustic introduction, “Angie” is one of the first Stones songs I ever learned on the guitar. “You can’t say we’re satisfied” and “you can’t say we never tried” are lines that stick with you.
           
10. Moonlight Mile (1971)- A melancholy, mournful deep cut that only gets better with age. The song continuously builds from an eastern-sounding riff to some possible allegories for drugs (a head full of snow?) to a euphoric climax complete with strings and Mick’s distinctive howl. On an album full of classics, it’s easy to overlook this one.
           
9. (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction (1965)- The three notes that introduced the Stones to the world. I probably don’t have this one as high as most fans feel I should, but in my mind, the band still hadn’t fully reached its potential yet. Nevertheless, it’s impossible to overstate the importance of “Satisfaction” in transforming Mick from a budding young star into an international icon in a matter of days.
           
8. You Can’t Always Get What You Want (1969)- A fitting elegy of sorts for the 1960s and the counterculture, Jagger uses this song to bemoan drug use and political idealism in London, but it winds down with a sense of restrained optimism. We’ll all get what we need one of these days.
           
7. Sympathy for the Devil (1968)- From the opening samba drums and the iconic first line—“Please allow me to introduce myself, I’m a man of wealth and taste”—the listener gets a feeling he or she is about to witness something special. Another prime example of the band’s penchant for blending ostensibly disparate influences and melding them into a universal genre for the masses, “Sympathy” took Dylanesque lyrics about the Russian Revolution, the murders of John and Bobby Kennedy and the Nazi Blitzkrieg and somehow built a riotous, cathartic and blasphemous boogie out of them.
           
6. Honky Tonk Women (1969)- The Stones song I used to play the most with my band, and the only one I know of that prominently features cowbell. “Honky Tonk Women” is a quintessential bar band country rock anthem and one of Keith’s most famous uses of open G tuning, recounting a pair of encounters with some fun-loving girls and utilizing excellent background vocalists who successfully wed Memphis soul with Nashville twang.
           
5. Tumbling Dice (1972)- A feel good romp over a classic Stones backbeat, “Tumbling Dice” is everything great about the band rolled into one song. It’s hard to describe a particular moment that jumps out at you, but the whole thing flows together perfectly.
           
4. Beast of Burden (1978)- The highlight of the band’s best selling album, “Some Girls,” “Beast of Burden” showcases an effortless cool that most groups could only dream of. Jagger delivers one of his all-time great verses: “You can put me out, on the street. Put me out, with no shoes on my feet. Put me out, put me out, put me out of misery.”
           
3. Can’t You Hear Me Knocking (1971)- While this one didn’t claim the top spot in my highly unscientific ranking, to me, “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking” has always been the penultimate display of what the Rolling Stones are capable of. With the most in your face guitar riff of any song they’ve ever recorded, a slow burning chorus and a Latin-inspired breakdown reminiscent of “Layla” in its length and spontaneity, it encompasses everything we’ve come to love about the greatest rock n’ roll band of all time.
           
2. Wild Horses (1971)- Keith Richards was spending a lot of time with Gram Parsons when this timeless classic came to be, and it isn’t hard to notice the influence. A beautiful, elegiac mourning of a lost love with the greatest Stones lyric ever put to paper: “Let’s do some living, after we’ve died.” I’m not sure which album the critics regard to be their best, but it still blows my mind how many great songs were sandwiched in to “Sticky Fingers.” None of the “American Idol” or “The Voice” covers will ever do Mick’s original justice.
           
1. Gimme Shelter (1969)- From the eerily foreboding opening chords to the climactic interlude and the single greatest guest spot of all time (Merry Clayton), “Gimme Shelter” is the definitive soundtrack to impending apocalypse, that song you hear in every Martin Scorsese movie and a testament to the transcendent power of rock n’ roll music. Being a great guitarist isn’t always about shredding, pyrotechnics and gimmicks, and Richards does his best to convey an unabashedly grim future over a hazy, minimalistic three-chord progression. Fifty years later, it hasn’t lost a bit of its relevance.