Start Me Up

Even during the 80s, the Rolling Stones stood true to their distinctive style, although hard rock influences can be heard on their material dating from this period. However, that’s not a surprising thing – just like their 90s material was adapted to the overall sound of the 90s music and like their recent stuff sounds modern enough, yet isn’t missing the Rolling Stones spirit, the 80s Rolling Stones songs sounded… well, like produced in the 80s. Their song “Start Me Up” is a great example for their 80s era influenced song writing.

“Start Me Up” by the Rolling Stones was released in 1981 as a lead single from the album “Tattoo You” – Rolling Stone’s 16^th British and 18^th American studio album. “Tattoo You” was primarily composed of guitar songs that the Rolling Stones had as ideas during previous recording sessions. Some of the songs were even one decade old. Of course most of them were reworked exclusively for the album. “Start Me Up” for example started as a reggae-driven rock track, which was planned to be featured on the band’s 1976 album “Black and Blue”. The recording sessions for the song took place in 1975, but after a dozen of unsuccessful takes, work on the song was abandoned and “Start Me Up” didn’t get released.

Two more attempts were made for the revival of the song – in 1977 and 1979 respectively for the albums “Some Girls” and “Emotional Rescue”. Again, both attempts failed, although the song started getting a more apparent rock sound and completely loosing its reggae influences. Finally, in 1981, producer Chris Kimsey suggested that the Rolling Stones should attempt to re-record “Start Me Up” one more time. This time the attempt was successful and the version that we all know was born.

The most obvious 80s influences in this song can be heard in the drum tracks and a bit in the vocal tracks – that reverb in the snare drum and the whole band singing during the chorus were both things that were heavily used throughout the 80s era. “Start Me Up” is also famous for its signature guitar riff, performed by guitarist Keith Richards. Shortly after its release “Start Me Up” peaked at #7 on the UK singles chart and at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Ever since, “Start Me Up” is usually used as an opener for the Rolling Stones’ live shows and thus has been featured on numerous Rolling Stones live albums.

Both “Start Me Up” and the album “Tattoo You” were some of the last Rolling Stones’ works to reach top positions in the international charts, well maybe with an exception for “Anybody Seen My Baby?” that reached #3 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart in 1997. Anyway, if you want to learn another cool guitar riff to add to your guitar arsenal, consider learning how to play “Start Me Up” by the Rolling Stones on your guitar.

Click here for more details…

Each Song Includes Step By Step Videos For Lead & Rhythm Guitar

Learn to play this complete song and Jam with our live band. You can choose to learn and play either the Rhythm Guitar or Lead Guitar and Jam with us. Each song has separate step by step tuition videos to take you through every single part of the song.

Plus all our songs have accompanying downloads for full Song Structure, Chord Diagrams and Tab for lead solos. And all the teaching and Jam session videos can either be viewed online, or downloaded to your PC.

Related posts:

1. Like A Rolling Stone
2. She Moves In Her Own Way
3. Losing My Religion
4. Purple Haze
5. Don’t Believe A Word

Tags: Andy Partridge, BandJammer, Guitar Songs, Learn Guitar, Rolling Stones, Start Me Up