‘Happy’

The madness out there, it seems, increases every minute. I could list all the things in just the past few days that have enraged me, made me shake my head or made me drop my jaw, but what’s the point? In another ten minutes, or so it seems, another outrage or example of idiocy will come along.

And I haven’t been sleeping well the past few weeks, which leaves my tolerance for all that stuff low. I need something happy.

So here’s one of the few Rolling Stones’ tracks on which Keith Richard sang the lead vocal: “Happy” from 1972. I recall hearing it on the radio a bit that summer (it went to No. 22 in the Billboard Hot 100), so by the time I got my copy of Exile On Main St. a year later, I was already accustomed to the pinched, thin vocal.

Instrumentally, it fits right into the raw and mostly weary aesthetic of Exile, which I think I’ve marked here before as one of the contenders for best rock album of all time (a judgment I came to only in the 1990s after years of listening).

And that’ll have to do it for today.

Tags: Rolling Stones