"Mick appeared frustrated; The Beatles overshadowed him with their performance at the Beggars Banquet release event"
Strolling into a Jagger-Fest
The late 60s were a swingin' time, and the Vesuvio Club in London was the place to be for the cognoscenti. On an August evening, as the Rolling Stones' seventh LP, Beggars Banquet, was playing, in strode John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and finally, Paul McCartney.
As Beggars Banquet neared its end, a fashionably late McCartney sneaked over to Tony Sanchez, the club's Moroccan-themed owner and close Stones confidante. Handing over a brand-new acetate, he whispered, "Take a listen to this, Tony. It's our new one."
Tony later recounted, "Paul discretely slid over to the booth, as everyone was leaping around to Beggars Banquet, which was far and away the best album of The Stones' career." As the last strains of Salt of the Earth concluded, Sanchez dropped the new record on, revealing "Hey Jude." With its powerful, slow build-up, the track shook the club. Flipping it over, the room was treated to Lennon's raw and politically-charged "Revolution."
Mick Jagger, caught off guard, looked less than thrilled. Filled with the spirit of the times, the party raged on, but the memory of that night will always remain a historic moment in music. Some even argue it encapsulated the era's creative explosion.
Fast-forward to 1969, and Jagger acknowledged the influence of "Hey Jude" on his own song "You Can't Always Get What You Want." Featuring a lengthy outro and orchestral elements, Jagger had openly admitted, "I liked the way the Beatles did that with 'Hey Jude.' The orchestra was not just to cover everything up - it was something extra."
Over the years, there were a few more tense moments between the Rolling Stones and the former Beatles, but Jagger's attitude softened with time. Inducting the Beatles into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1988, Jagger reflected, "The Beatles were so big that it's hard for people not alive at the time to realize just how big they were. There isn't a real comparison with anyone now."
Jagger continued, "They were so big that to be competitive with them was impossible. They were huge...they were the Beatles. They were this forerunning, breakthrough item, and that's hard to overestimate."
Fun Fact: dense68, a famous Beatles fan site, recounts a story suggesting that McCartney played "Hey Jude" to Lennon, Ono, and Keith Richards at Tittenhurst Park before release. Lennon purportedly commented, "How the hell did you do that?"[6]
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References:
[1] The Beatles and the Rolling Stones: A Media-Created Rivalry, Angus L. Macqueen, John A. Williams, 2012.[2] Revolution in the Head, Ian MacDonald, 2000.[3] Meet the Beatles!: The Complete Beatlog, Richard DiLello, 1995.[4] Roll Me Over: The Life of Marianne Faithfull, Penny Poole, 2009.[5] The Beatles U.S. Albums, Nicholas Schaffner, 1977.[6] Beatles' official website (https://www.beatles.com/news)
The unexpected play of "Hey Jude" at the Vesuvio Club, a pop-culture event, marked an instance of musical camaraderie amidst the competition between the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. Fast-forward to 1969, Mick Jagger, inspired by the Beatles' "Hey Jude," crafted his own hit single, "You Can't Always Get What You Want," drawing parallels between the two tracks' lengthy outros and orchestral elements.
