Song of the Day 7/25: The Rolling Stones, “Street Fighting Man”

If I had any skillz I’d set this to video of Portland dudes deploying leaf blowers against the federal fascists who tear-gas them. Protests sure have changed since the ’60s.

“Street Fighting Man” was the lead single from “Beggar’s Banquet” in 1968, but it only reached No. 41 when some radio stations refused to play its “subversive” lyrics. The sound quality is lo-fi even by the standards of the day, thanks to being recorded on a cassette device purposely overloaded to achieve distortion. Jagger said he wrote the lyrics in response to the protests going on in Paris and the U.S., as reflection on the contrasting quiet of London.

I preferred Rod Stewart’s version even in 1969. Rod liked it so much he made it the leadoff song on his first LP (“The Rod Stewart Album” in the US, “An Old Raincoat Won’t Ever Let You Down” in the UK).