Mick Jagger says The Rolling Stones recorded As Tears Go By because it was ‘already a hit’

As Tears Go By, a song featured on December’s Children (And Everybody’s), was recorded as The Rolling Stones believed it was “already a hit”.

Frontman Mick Jagger wrote the song with Keith Richards, with As Tears Go By released as a single and included on the compilation released in 1965. In a conversation with Rolling Stone Magazine founder Jann Wenner, Jagger agreed the song was the first “big, classic ballad” but it was thanks to his partner at the time, Marianne Faithfull, that the band knew it would be a success. Not only was the song a proven hit, but their manager at the time, Andrew Loog Oldham, was a “commercial” minded man who pushed The Rolling Stones to release material which was friendly to wider audiences. The song was released on December 18, 1965, and entered the Top 10 singles chart in the United States.

Jagger said: “It’s a very melancholy song for a 21-year-old to write: ‘The evening of the day, watching children play….’ It’s very dumb and naive, but it’s got a very sad sort of thing about it, almost like an older person might write.

“You know, it’s like a metaphor for being old: You’re watching children playing and realising you’re not a child. It’s a relatively mature song considering the rest of the output at the time. And we didn’t think of doing it [initially], because the Rolling Stones were a butch blues group. But Marianne Faithfull’s version was already a big, proven hit song.”

Jagger would go on to say the public’s response to Faithfull’s version of the song emboldened The Rolling Stones and ultimately led them to release it as their second single for December’s Children (And Everybody’s).

He added: “Well, it was already a hit, so, you know [laughs], and Andrew was a very simple, commercial kind of guy. A lot of this stuff is done for commercial reasons.” Jagger would also explain how he and Richards wrote the song, with the veteran guitarist working on a “melody” which Jagger would then add to.

The frontman explained: “I wrote the lyrics, and Keith wrote the melody. But in some rock, you know, there’s no melody until the singer starts to sing it. Sometimes there’s a definite melody, but quite often it’s your job as the singer to invent the melody. I start with one melody, and I make it another melody, over the same chord sequence.”

Just a year later and the band would release their “big landmark record,” with Jagger saying it was an album which cemented The Rolling Stones as one of the greatest bands around. Speaking with Wenner, Jagger praised Aftermath and explained how he felt the added “maturity” found on the album made all the difference.

He said: “That was a big landmark record for me. It’s the first time we wrote the whole record and finally laid to rest the ghost of having to do these very nice and interesting, no doubt, but still cover versions of old R&B songs, which we didn’t really feel we were doing justice, to be perfectly honest, particularly because we didn’t have the maturity. Plus, everyone was doing it.”