Rolling Stones – "Paint It, Black" (1966)

I could not foresee this thing happening to you

I’ve never opened a 2 or 3 lines post by quoting just a single line from a song.  But I think this is a very special line.  

I think “foresee” it what makes it so special.  That’s a very grown-up word – a word you just don’t come across in sixties song lyrics. 

Regardless of the line’s meaning or its connotation, it sounds really good when you say it.

It’s poetry!

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The lyrics to most sixties songs don’t really work as poems.  If you read them from the printed page without the accompanying music, they fall flat.

That’s even true of Bob Dylan’s songs.  Dylan was awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature, but he’s not really a poet – he’s a songwriter, and that is something very different from a poet.  (Songs need music to work – poems don’t.)

“Paint It Black” – it was originally released as “Paint It, Black” thanks to some doofus at the record company – is one of the very few sixties songs that has lyrics that work as poetry.  In fact, it may be the only sixties song that is true of – I can’t think of any others right now.

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Between the summer of 1965 and the summer of 1966, the Rolling Stones released “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” “Get Off Of My Cloud,” “19th Nervous Breakdown,” “Paint It Black,” and “Mother’s Little Helper.”

I had just turned 14 years old when “Paint It Black” hit #1.  I loved “Eight Days a Week” and “Ticket to Ride” and “Help!” and “Day Tripper” and the other Beatles hits from 1965 and 1966, but those songs – which were written about teenagers, for teenagers – pale in comparison to the aforementioned Stones songs, which were written about adults, for adults.  

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Virtually all sixties pop music was written for teenagers.  

Some – including first-generation Beatles hits like “I Want to Hold Your Hand’ and “She Loves You” – were written for really young teenagers.  (I’m talking 12-year-olds, not 18-year-olds.)

The great songs that were written by Brill Building duos like Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil (“We Gotta Get Out of This Place”), Gerry Goffin and Carole King (“Will You Love Me Tomorrow”), and Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich (“River Deep, Mountain High”) were written for more mature teenagers.

The difference between the saddest of the Brill Building songs and “Paint It Black” is like the difference between Romeo and Juliet and King Lear.  Both of those plays were tragedies, but one is a tragedy for teenagers while the other is a tragedy for adults.  

You probably cried when Romeo and Juliet died, but I bet you got over your sadness pretty quickly.

King Lear is an altogether different story, boys and girls – it is DARK.  And so is “Paint It Black.”

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Speaking of  Shakespeare . . .

Shakespeare famously used iambic pentameter in his plays, as did many other famous English poets.

As you may remember from English 101, an iambic “foot” is an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable:

da DUM  

A line of iambic pentameter consists of five iambic feet:

da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM

Here’s an example of strict iambic pentameter from one of Shakespeare’s sonnets:

When I do COUNT the CLOCK that TELLS the TIME

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The meter used for “Paint It, Black” is iambic hexameter – six iambic feet instead of five:

I SEE a RED door AND I WANT it PAINT-ed BLACK

Or, to use the line quoted at the beginning of this post:

I COULD not FORE-see THIS thing HAP-pen-ING to YOU

You have to go back to the 17th century to find much in the way of English poetry written in iambic hexameter.  God only knows where Mick Jagger got the idea of using that meter.

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The musical arrangement and performances on “Paint It Black.”are just as impressive and unique as the song’s lyrics.

I love Charlie Watts’ drumming on “Paint It Black.”  Charlie is usually a pretty cool character, but he lets his inner Keith Moon out on “Paint It Black” – he holds nothing back.

“Paint It Black” wasn’t the first sixties record to feature a sitar, but it was the first #1 hit single to feature a sitar.  And while a sitar is an Indian instrument, one critic correctly noted that the song has more of a Middle Eastern than Indian feel.  (It is somewhat reminiscent of the bar mitzvah favorite,  “Hava Nagila.”)

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Five years ago, I would have said that “Satisfaction” was the numero uno Rolling Stones single.

Today, I would say that “Satisfaction” is the quintessential Stones song – the Stones’ primary asset has always been their attitude, and “Satisfaction” has attitude out the wazoo.

But “Paint It Black” is a work of art.  I can’t think of any sixties that resembles it in the slightest – it’s sui generis.  (Also relentless.)

Click here to listen to a song that truly deserves to be in the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” HIT SINGLES HALL OF FAME.  

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon: