.

Song Stories

“Wild Horses”

The Rolling Stones | 1971

This slow-dance country ballad off Sticky Fingers is about co-songwriter Keith Richards really not wanting to leave his two-month-old son behind to go on tour: hence the chorus "Wild horses couldn't drag me away." Richards said he came up with the equine phrase, and Mick Jagger elaborated upon it. "Let me put it this way: I'd say, 'Mick, it goes like this: Wild horses couldn't drag me away.' Then it would be a division of labor, Mick filling in the verses," Richards told Rolling Stone.

prev
Song Stories Main Next

blog comments powered by Disqus

Song Stories

“Karma Chameleon”

Culture Club | 1983

Boy George has said this song was about standing by what you believe in. However, at the time, he was involved in a secret affair with Culture Club drummer Jon Moss. "Now people can understand the songs better," he said. "They were written about my relationship with Jon, and they were also written about being a gay man in a homophobic world." The lines "If I listen to your lies, would you say/I'm a man without conviction/I'm a man who doesn't know how to sell a contradiction," described his life at the time, he said. "I was selling this big lie."

More Song Stories entries »