1966 The Rolling Stones: Paint It, Black

"The sun to me is dark, and silent as the moon", so wrote John Milton in "Samson Agonistes", a line that Nick Cave co-opted into his 'Song Of Joy" to describe his emotions at the murder of his wife and three daughters. What's any of this got to do with 'Paint It, Black'? Well if you'd asked me the same some ten years ago then I'd have said '"nothing". As far as I was concerned, the song completed the pissed of trilogy (after '(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction' and 'Get Off Of My Cloud') of Jagger retreating into his own brand of nihilism of black clad misery for the sake of misery. But I was wrong.

A more recent familiarity with the lyrics (thank you Mr Internet) reveals that Jagger is upset, but the misery he's defining is the grief of personal loss at the death of a loved one, where their absence draws a desire to paint the whole world the mourning colour of his mood. In fact, it's not too far a stretch to actually place him at the funeral, or at least en-route to it ("I see a line of cars and they are painted black. With flowers and my love both never to come back"), a situation where Jagger refuses to look at anything that reminds him of what he's lost ("I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes. I have to turn my head until my darkness goes").

For most of 'Paint It, Black', Jagger is resigned to his grief, but by the close he's raging against the light that died; "I wanna see it painted, painted black, oh black as night, black as coal. I wanna see the sun blotted out from the sky. Painted, painted, painted black oh baby" - see the Milton/Cave reference now? Jagger is almost babbling at the realisation that the world's not listening, that no matter what torments the day is bringing him, to those passer's by it's just another Thursday; life and death go on ("Like a newborn baby, it just happens every day") no matter how unfair it seems ("I could not foresee this thing happening to you") but there's nothing to be done but just get on with it.

In terms of their craft of songwriting, 'Paint It, Black' is a giant step for the band, a sharp précis of bereavement. I've gone on a fair bit about the lyrics because I think they're worth the time, but musically too the song sees the Stones stretch their wings to break free of their R&B straitjacket, with Brian Jones' main riff picked out on a sitar adding a hint of the quasi mystical religions 'that know about this sort of thing' throughout while the rest of the band follow Jagger's lead with a migraine thump of tension that only rocks out whenever he loses the plot within the context of the song. As far as the 'swinging sixties' go, 'Paint It, Black' stands out like a shadow on the x-ray of a young man's lungs, a savage, dark night before the summer of love and a curiously prescient prediction of the band's own short term fate.