How did Mick Jagger and Keith Richards collaberate in the songs that are attributed to Jagger/Richards?

Question

If I understand rightly, the way in which Lennon and McCartney collaberated on the Lennon/McCartney songs varied. In the beginning a lot of them were really written together. Later it tended to be more that one of them would write a song and the other might finish it or contribute a small portion. Still later their songs were pretty much written separately.

I would like to know how Jagger and Richards wrote the Stones' songs. Did they contribute equally? Did Jagger write mostly lyrics and Richards mostly music? Did the way they collaberated change over time as did Lennon and McCartney?

Answer 1

From what I've watched of Keith Richards interviews (and bearing in mind I can only understand 75% of what he says after the 18th vodka and orange), this is an accurate description of their working process from a guy who's well-placed to comment - the long-time Stones bass player:

"The story is that Mick and Keith are the producers. They work together on the basic tracks, but from then on they work separately and form their own opinions. So you end up with various mixes that Keith's done, as well as alternate mixes that Mick has done of the same material. At that point they haggle out which versions of each tune are best. I've never heard of them erasing each other's tapes - it's more a question of fighting it out over which version of any given song will appear on the album."

Bill Wyman (1981): The Glimmer Twins at work

And their drummer says:

"The magic of the band is when Mick and Keith are (writing) together. What would be wonderful is if they ever sat down together and started writing together from scratch."

- Charlie Watts, 2003

Here are various other insights from the mouths of the horses themselves:

"There's always the inspirational moment and then there's the crafting but a lot of it, I found quite easy to write. I didn't write all this with Keith in the room. I like to write a lot of stuff on my own and I don't like people being around when I'm doing the lyrics. Keith always says they're in the air. They're not really, you have to make them up."

- Mick Jagger, August 2005


"We got so used to sort of being apart when we're not on the road and we sort of write stuff separately while we're, I mean, I might be in Jamaica, he might be in Madagascar or something, you know what I mean? But at the same time, there is a sort of point where you pool everything you've got together and that's the point where I guess I look at Mick and I say, You know, here's this one. What've you got?"

- Keith Richards, 2005

However, much like Lennon-McCartney in the early days of the Beatles, there was certainly much closer collaboration between the two Stones writers in the 1960s than in the 1970s or later. Their music is so riff-led that it's hard to believe that the words preceded Richards' guitar hook on many of those records. It was probably a case of Keith saying: "write words to this riff", in the early days, on songs like "Satisfaction".

Answer 2

i can't say for sure, but i would have to say that mick probably stuck to the lyrics and richards wrote the music, and they obviously would have to work together at that point to make the two come together