Mick Jagger expected newly unearthed Rolling Stones songs to be "terrible"

Publish Date
Friday, 4 September 2020, 11:42AM

If Mick Jagger had his way, The Rolling Stones would not have put out two previously-unreleased songs ahead of the upcoming reissue of Goats Head Soup.

Jagger is of the mindset that songs don't get released for a reason, but he admits that he gets proven wrong from time to time.

"They're all terrible! That's always my initial reaction,' They're all useless," the frontman told the Sunday Times. "I mean, actually, I always liked the songs, but they weren't finished."

The new old song that has generated the most interest so far was "Scarlet," a track recorded in October of 1974 at Ronnie Wood's home studio that featured Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page and Traffic/Blind Faith's Rich Grech.

Keith Richards explained that the "Scarlet" session was a demo that was somehow fell out of favor before the Stones got to recording another album.

Jagger said he never felt like the song was finished until it was sweetened in mixing for the upcoming Goats Head Soup reissue. Ultimately, Jagger had to concede that "Scarlet," "Criss Cross" and "All The Rage" were "up there with the rest of the songs on this record."

Page, too, in a separate interview said he was happy with the final product.

"All the guitar parts I remember doing, everything was on there," he said. "I thought it sounded really solid, and everybody's really on form."

The Goats Head Soup box set arrives Friday.

This article was first published on iheart.com and is republished here with permission

Take your Radio, Podcasts and Music with you