The Rolling Stones built an entire musical career on making pearl-clutchers blush, but some tracks have ended up being too scandalous even for these long-time rockers, including the controversial song Mick Jagger said he would “never write” today. Despite its popularity, the band removed the song from their setlist following public outcry and the frontman’s change of heart.
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After all, if it’s too crass for Mick Jagger, that’s certainly saying something.
Mick Jagger Called The Controversial Song A “Mess”
The Rolling Stones used “Brown Sugar” as the opening track to their 1971 release ‘Sticky Fingers,’ which also included notable (and far tamer, lyrically speaking) hits like “Wild Horses” and “Dead Flowers.” The song was an instant hit, skyrocketing to the top of the U.S. and Canada charts and riding comfortably at No. 2 in the U.K. Jagger wrote the song while filming Ned Kelly in Australia—what he would later call “really odd circumstances.”
As indelible as the groove to “Brown Sugar” may be, the song came under fire due to its questionable lyrical content. The song fetishizes Black women in the slave trade, with each verse presenting a new character who is taking advantage of the enslaved women: the slave owners, the house boys, and even the narrator. The fact that “brown sugar” was a common nickname for heroin only added to the song’s suggestive nature.
And apparently, it became too salacious even for the Stones frontman. In the same 1995 Rolling Stone interview where he called the song’s origins “odd,” Jagger said the subject matter was “the whole mess thrown in. God knows what I’m on about on that song. It’s such a mishmash. All the nasty subjects in one go.” He continued, “I didn’t think about it at the time; I never would write that song now. I would probably censor myself. “Oh God, I can’t. I’ve got to stop. I can’t just write raw like that.”
Not Everyone In The Rolling Stones Felt The Same Way
Mick Jagger argued that the best part of “Brown Sugar” was the groove. “The groove is slightly similar to Freddy Cannon, this rather obscure ‘50s rock performer. “Tallahassee Lassie” or something. Do you remember this? ‘She’s down in F-L-A.’ Anyway, the groove of that…is ‘going to a go-go’ or whatever, but that’s the groove,” he explained to Rolling Stone.
Still, not even an infectious groove was enough to save “Brown Sugar” from falling out of Jagger’s favor. In a 2022 appearance on Swedish radio station P4, Jagger agreed that the song was too controversial to continue playing. “When you start out, I mean popular music is always in need of shaking up. We were quite good at that,” Jagger said (via Independent). “The early days were the days of shock and awe. Things can’t stay like that forever.”
Jagger’s bandmate, guitarist Keith Richards, didn’t seem to agree. After the band decided to remove “Brown Sugar” from their setlist, Richards discussed the decision with the LA Times. “I’m trying to figure out with the sisters quite where the beef is,” Richards said. “Didn’t they understand this was a song about the horrors of slavery? But they’re trying to bury it. At the moment, I don’t want to get into conflicts with all of this s***.”
Regardless of Richards’ hope that the band would “be able to resurrect the babe in her glory,” the band has stuck by their decision to keep “Brown Sugar” off their live performances, choosing instead to leave it behind as a cringey, definitely politically incorrect tune from yesteryear.
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