The Rolling Stones’ Label Wanted Another Boundary-Pushing Song Like “Brown Sugar” (Here’s What They Offered Instead)

Artists and the record labels that fund them going head-to-head on creative decisions is a tale as old as time—or, at least, as old as popular music. The concept of bands disagreeing with what the “suits” have to say about their music is so common that it’s cliché. This was certainly true of The Rolling Stones’ eleventh studio album, Goats Head Soup.

The Stones recorded this rock and blues album in the winter of 1972 and early 1973. By this point, The Stones were on top of the world as one of the biggest rock bands of all time—their original competitors, The Beatles, having split up three years earlier. Still, the road was not necessarily bump-free, as the musicians learned while arguing with Atlantic Records over what song might be their lead single.

According to Rolling Stones Records president Marshall Chess, the band’s record label was after another “Brown Sugar” from the 1971 album Sticky Fingers. “There were some really heated arguments,” Chess recalled in According To The Rolling Stones.

Instead Of “Brown Sugar”, The Rolling Stones Offered Up an Actually Sweet Song, “Angie”

“Brown Sugar” might not have reached its peak level of controversy in 1971. (Though that’s not to say the scandal went unnoticed by people of color who had to hear Mick Jagger’s hypersexualized and all-around insensitive lyricism in the Sticky Fingers track.) The Stones have since removed the song from their live performances. And if The Stones were willing to bow to societal pressure after being the poster boys of flipping off the establishment for years, then that sends out a powerful message.

Fortunately for The Stones, they didn’t have to worry about handling a second version of “Brown Sugar” because they opted out of writing it entirely. Instead, the British rock ‘n’ rollers offered “Angie”. This song was actually sweet, not just sweet in a way that fetishizes an enslaved person’s skin color. “Angie” has several alleged sources of inspiration, some of which are romantic and others that are familial. At various points in Keith Richards’ career, he’s cited “Angie” as being a song about no one and a song he wrote after being inspired by his daughter. 

In any case, The Rolling Stones were right to go with “Angie” instead of “Brown Sugar, Pt. II”. The song was a massive global success and topped the Billboard Hot 100 and hit the Top 5 in the band’s native United Kingdom, throughout Europe, in Africa, and in Australia and New Zealand.

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