The Rolling Stones wrote “Sympathy for the Devil” in the late-60s by spending days in the studio together, playing bongos, taking drugs, guzzling Wild Turkey, and tapping into their fever dreams to find the perfect mix of raunch and darkness. Over time, however, they’ve established a more efficient process.
Here’s glimpse of rock’s greatest rockers in the midst of creating their most recent album, “A Bigger Bang”:
24 June 2005
Mr. Richards:
To meet our roadmap milestone deadlines for this fiscal year, it’s that time again to begin generating the content portion of the upcoming The Rolling Stones album, “A Bigger Bang� (just a placeholder name we’ll replace later with a better one). The album is due for release on 6 September 2005, so we have plenty of time, but it’s never too early to put our heads together! 
So I thought I’d reach out to you so we could get on the same page. Do you have sufficient bandwidth to begin this process?
I hope you’re doing well. Please circle back at your earliest convenience.
Thank you,
Mick Jagger
25 June 2005
Mr. Jagger:
Thank you for your e-mail of 24 June. I have a few extra cycles I can dedicate to this initiative. BTW, will we want to approach this project with ideas?
I look forward to your reply.
Sincerely,
Keith Richards
26 June 2005
Mr. Richards:
I want to ensure we stick to the schedule (see Excel sheet attached), but I suppose ideas can’t hurt at this stage in the process seeing as we are not quite yet mission-critical. Perhaps, we can even leverage any inspiration we may have? For example, the idea of a loved one who was young once but actually grows older seems partially compelling.
I look forward to your expedited feedback on this.
Thank you,
Mick Jagger
28 June 2005
Mr. Jagger:
The idea you posed in your last e-mail is not intriguing as far as that word is defined. Shall we perhaps aim for a content solution that may be more robust in terms of being quality-positive?
Sincerely,
Keith Richards
P.S. My body is completely decimated.
29 June 2005
Mr. Richards:
Thank you for your reply of 28 June. While I agree the was-young-once-but-now-am-older idea is not a good one at all, I feel we need to forge ahead so we don’t slip our deadline. I’ve generated a possible first stanza. We can than drill-down with this template to populate the rest of the song:
One time you were my baby chicken
Now you’ve grown into a fox
Once upon a time I was your little rooster
But am I just one of your cocks
Please note that this stanza makes a lot of sense.
Thank you,
Mick Jagger
30 June 2005
Mr. Jagger:
If I can just take a step back for a second, I’d like to reach out and express that I am encouraged by our productive launch of this process. I feel that dialoguing as we are is essential for achieving a successful outcome.
Now, back to the work at hand: I proactively made the assumption that we may want to fold in a melody into this song. Please see the attached PowerPoint for what I’ve done on that front so far.
Have we determined a designation for the song?
Sincerely,
Keith Richards
1 July 2005
Mr. Richards:
Thank you for the PowerPoint slides describing your melody. Some great bullet points. I feel like this song is coming together as well as can be expected.
I have not yet drafted a name for the song and I should turn in as I’m quite exhausted from my run, but we can call it “Rough Justice.� (We should probably, for the future, devise a naming convention so that we don’t have to waste mindshare generating completely new titles for each song.)
Again, I should turn in, but just a quick brainstorm for a chorus to give us a jumping-off point:
It’s rough justice on ya
You think you really sussed me
It’s rough justice
But you know I’ll never break your heart
Look forward to hearing from you. FYI, I’m off to the Seychelles Wednesday.
Mick Jagger
2 July 2005
Mr. Jagger:
Seychelles? Sounds awful! (Just kidding! 
I’m Keith Richards; people expect me to kid around once-in-awhile, right? 
)
Anyway, I think your draft of the chorus is workable. As a matter of fact, I envision that critics may even appreciate that a music organization has finally addressed the issue of sussing.
The “break your heart� metaphor is interesting. It seems a nice, direct statement of the pain some people go through upon the end of a relationship. My only concern: is it too “artsy� for the typical consumer?
Sincerely,
Keith Richards
4 July 2005
Mr. Richards:
As for your question re: the “break your heart� lyric, my strategy with this is to incorporate some of the more lyrical-based language of the songs that served our business well in previous years (e.g., “Anybody Seen My Baby?� “Flip the Switch,� and the one song that really epitomizes the Rolling Stones mystique, “Sweethearts Together� from Voodoo Lounge).
I feel we’ve done some good work here, so I’m going to have Karen merge the lyrics and melody files and get this song locked.
As for the next song on the album, is there any reason we can’t call it “Let Me Down Slow�?
Ping me with your feedback ASAP.
Thank you,
Mick Jagger
