Song Lyric Sunday – Start Me Up

Whenever I hear the intro to this song it reminds me of being at a pro basketball game. I’m immediately pumped up! As you can see this week I have chosen “Start Me Up” by The Rolling Stones. Jim Adams prompted us with Around, Down, Sideways and Up for Song Lyric Sunday.

This is a great live concert video with some backstage clips. The music starts at 1 minute 25 secs. Mick is in his usual fine form on stage and I love him performing this song in his green coat!

Wiki says, “Start Me Up” is featured on the 1981 album Tattoo You. Released as the album’s lead single, it reached number one on Australian Kent Music Report, number two on the Billboard Hot 100 and number seven on the UK Singles Chart.

The basic track “Start Me Up” was recorded during the January and March 1978 sessions for the Rolling Stones’ album Some Girls. The song began as a reggae-rock track named “Never Stop”, but after dozens of takes it was abandoned. “Start Me Up” was not chosen for the album and was saved for later use. Richards commented:

It was one of those things we cut a lot of times; one of those cuts that you can play forever and ever in the studio. Twenty minutes go by and you’re still locked into those two chords … Sometimes you become conscious of the fact that, ‘Oh, it’s “Brown Sugar” again,’ so you begin to explore other rhythmic possibilities. It’s basically trial and error. As I said, that one was pretty locked into a reggae rhythm for quite a few weeks. We were cutting it for Emotional Rescue, but it was nowhere near coming through, and we put it aside and almost forgot about it. 

In 1981, with the band looking to tour, engineer Chris Kimsey proposed to lead singer Mick Jagger that archived songs could comprise the set. While searching through the vaults, Kimsey found the two takes of the song with a more rock vibe among some fifty reggae versions. Overdubs were completed on the track in early 1981 in New York City at the recording studios Electric Lady Studios and The Hit Factory. On the band’s recording style for this track in particular, Kimsey commented in 2004:

Including run-throughs, ‘Start Me Up’ took about six hours to record. You see, if they all played the right chords in the right time, went to the chorus at the right time and got to the middle eight together, that was a master. It was like, ‘Oh, wow!’ Don’t forget, they would never sit down and work out a song. They would jam it and the song would evolve out of that. That’s their magic.

Lyrics
Start Me Up
The Rolling Stones

 If you start me up
 If you start me up I'll never stop

 You can start me up
 You can start me up I'll never stop
 I've been running hot
 You got me ticking going to blow my top
 If you start me up
 If you start me up I'll never stop

 Never stop, never stop, never stop
 You make a grown man cry
 You make a grown man cry
 You make a grown man cry

 Spread out the oil, the gasoline
 I walk smooth, ride in a mean, mean machine
 Start it up
 If you start it up

 Kick on the starter
 Give it all you got, you got, you got
 I can't compete with the riders in the other heats
 If you rough it up
 If you like it, I can slide it up
 Slide it up, slide it up, slide it up

 Don't make a grown man cry
 Don't make a grown man cry
 Don't make a grown man cry

 My eyes dilate, my lips go green
 My hands are greasy
 She's a mean, mean machine
 Start it up
 Start me up
 Ah, give it all you got
 You got to never, never, never stop
 Slide it up, baby, just slide it up
 Slide it up, slide it up, never, never, never

 You make a grown man cry
 You make a grown man cry
 You make a grown man cry

 Ride like the wind at double speed
 I'll take you places that you've never, never seen
 If you start it up
 Love the day when we will never stop, never stop
 Never, never, never stop
 Tough me up
 Never stop, never stop

 You, you, you make a grown man cry
 You, you made a dead man come
 You, you made a dead man come

 Source: LyricFind
 Songwriters: Mick Jagger / Keith Richards
 Start Me Up lyrics
© Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC