Mick Jagger on the ‘Weird’ Classic That Became The Rolling Stones’ Most Streamed Song

The Rolling Stones return on 10 July with Foreign Tongues, recorded in London with producer Andrew Watt. The album draws in Paul McCartney on bass for the ballad “Covered In You,” Steve Winwood on Hammond organ, and The Cure’s Robert Smith on guitar, synth, and backing vocals across two tracks. Keith Richards insists the session’s compass remained fixed. “We all know what the Stones are supposed to sound like,” he tells MOJO.

Mick Jagger, however, spent part of the same interview looking back at a much older cut that now outpaces everything else in the catalogue. “Paint It Black,” the Brian Jones‑era single from 1966, sits as the band’s most streamed song, a fact Jagger finds faintly absurd. “What a weird song. Weird chord sequences, weird everything. I have no recall of what was going on in my head,” he says. He credits Jones’ contribution while noting the guitarist might have been better suited to life outside the glare. “Brian had all kinds of problems,” Jagger reflects. “Some people should be very careful about going into show business.”

Ronnie Wood frames his own role as peacekeeper during the band’s leanest period: “I am the glue of this band.” Richards, meanwhile, traces the new track “Ringing Hollow” back to a love of American blues. “You go through all the rock ’n’ rollers and realise that these cats all learned from Muddy Waters,” he says. The same curiosity that made “Paint It Black” so strange has not disappeared; it has just learned to wear its years quietly.