I had almost forgotten of this song until I read about it – not too long ago at Max’s blog – PowerPop. His principal version was by The Rolling Stones, but I slightly prefer the version by Marianne Faithfull. Both are wonderful of course.
This was one of the first songs written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. The Stones manager gave it to a singer he also managed named Marianne Faithfull, who released it in 1964. It was going to be the B-side of her first single, but the record company decided to make it the A-side and it became her first hit. The Stones recorded it a year later. In 1966 Faithfull became Jagger’s girlfriend and that would last 3-4 years.
Max – PopwerPop
It is the evening of the day
I sit and watch the children play
Smiling faces I can see
But not for me
I sit and watch as tears go by
My riches can’t buy everything
I want to hear the children sing
All I hear is the sound
Of rain falling on the ground
I sit and watch as tears go by
Marianne Faithfull version peaked at number nine on both the UK and Irish singles charts.
Wikipedia: By one account, Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham locked Jagger and Richards in a kitchen in order to force them to write a song together, even suggesting what type of song he wanted: “I want a song with brick walls all around it, high windows and no sex.” The result was initially named “As Time Goes By”, the title of the song Dooley Wilson sings in the film Casablanca. It was Oldham who replaced “Time” with “Tears”.
According to Jagger biographer Philip Norman, the song was mainly created by Jagger, in co-operation with session guitarist Big Jim Sullivan, although Jagger claims he was responsible for the lyrics while Richards wrote the melody.
In her own autobiography, Faithfull (1994), written together with David Dalton, she says “‘As Tears Go By’ was not, contrary to popular folklore, written for me, but it fitted me so perfectly it might as well have been”.
References:
1. As Tears Go By (song) – Wikipedia
