365 Days of Song Recommendations: August 24 [Charlie Watts edition]
Paint It Black — The Rolling Stones
Today we celebrate the life of another legend — a fookin’ legend, perhaps. The unsung backbone of The Rolling Stones, drummer Charlie Watts, passed away at the age of 80 and damn near rocked his way into the afterlife. Watts had announced he wouldn’t tour with the Stones in 2021 due to an undisclosed health issue.
Critics elevated Watts among the great rock and roll drummers of all time, but he wasn’t flash and glam like some of the other notable greats. Watts was rock-solid precision. Someone had to be the adult in the room. As Keith Richards and Mick Jagger embraced the spotlight that comes with becoming a rock icon, Watts drummed on, handling any cadence the band could throw at him — disco beats, traditional rock, and his beloved jazz rhythms. And as the adult in the room he survived the drug abuse, creative differences, and ballistic egos that came through the Stones’ dressing room for damn near sixty years.
Watts emerged from the jazz scene and never lost that metronomic precision that allowed his bandmates the luxury of bombast and improvisation, even heading his own jazz project on the side.
Despite the accolades, it’s a rare Stones track that foregrounds Watts above everyone else. 1965’s “Get Off My Cloud” shoehorns Watts into an extraordinarily difficult 4/4-beat-fill-4/4-beat-fill pattern for the entire three minutes. If you’re listening idly, you might not notice how the man’s playing out of his fucking mind behind Richards’ guitar effects and Jagger’s histrionics.
Most of his best drum tracks were rooted in the traditional rock basics, just with a clever twist. I’ve dabbled on drums over the years and I’m sure I thought I was more capable that I really was… but even the average Stones rhythm has a sneaky potential to turn your mind inside out and upside down. (I’m supposed to do what with the kick during this fill? Body parts aren’t meant to move in opposition to each other like that.)
In celebrating Watts, I needed to find the track that made Watts the star, that pushed the drum track to the front and gave him his due. You don’t have to look too deep in the Stone discography to find that track.
Even competing against some of those 1960s guilty pleasures like sitars and a Hammond, Watts elevates “Paint It Black” from 1966’s Aftermath from a solid track to an arena anthem, a decade-defining song from a band that pushed rock and roll into the future. He’s manic, banging with an uncharacteristic frenzy, pushing himself out from the shadows and making himself the center of attention.
There’s fury in there, a raging against the twilight that all great artists must have to be great, the greatness that fuels the fire and keeps the fires burning even after they’re gone.
As a celebration of a man that rarely took center stage, “Paint It Black” feels right. It feels iconic and essential. Jagger can recede away from the spotlight, if only for today.
“Paint it Black” is the 236th song on the #365Songs playlist.
