Mick Jagger explains how he and Keith Richards wrote The Rolling Stones’ ‘derivative’ earliest songs

Mick Jagger believes some of the earliest songs he and Keith Richards wrote are “derivative”.

The Rolling Stones‘ frontman revealed all about his thoughts on their early work together, particularly a song from their self-titled album, when speaking with BBC Radio and Vernon Kay. Jagger rejoined with Richards and guitarist Ronnie Wood for the upcoming album, Foreign Tongues. The album will be the band’s first release since 2023’s Hackney Diamonds, which marked their first album release after the death of drummer Charlie Watts. Reflecting on their writing together, Jagger shared that one song, Tell Me, is a sign of how much they matured as songwriters over the years.

He said: “We used to sit in the flat with guitars or maybe just Keith with the guitar and just ‘la, la, la’ until we got something. A lot of them are obviously very derivative. Tell Me is a classic pop 50s sequence that was used over and over by everybody and we did it in this little studio, the building’s still there in Denmark Street, the walls were covered in egg boxes which was the cheapest form of soundproofing at the time.

“Much cheaper than anything else to put up your own egg boxes. All live, no overdubs or anything and I remember Keith sang into his guitar mic because he was playing a 12-string acoustic so his harmonies were recorded on the same microphone as his 12-string and then swamped in echo. It’s not a bad sound really considering the circumstances.

“We were a blues band and then nobody expected us to come up with, we didn’t write the beginning, Keith and I never wrote rock tunes, we only wrote ballads like this. It took us a while to get into writing rock tunes.”

Jagger and Richards have written songs together since the early 1960s, with the veteran guitarist once noting a time where their relationship hit a breaking point. He recalled: “Dirty Work was the most troubled period of our entire voyage. You can tell that because I’ve got four songs on the record – which is a clear sign that Keith and Mick’s song-writing engine was not functioning properly. Things were getting increasingly worse between them, especially around the recording sessions for the album.

“It reached a head at that point – and it wasn’t until the Jagger/Richards set-up started operating properly again that I could rest assured that the ship was going to sail correctly once more. In the meantime, I was always ready to step in and help out if it was needed. I’ve got loads of songs round the back, as they say.”

Listen to The Rolling Stones special edition of Tracks Of My Years today on Radio 2 at 5am (or on BBC Sounds and iPlayer from 6am).