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Undercover of the Night
"Undercover of the Night" is the lead track and first single from the English band the Rolling Stones' 1983 album Undercover.
The song was largely a Mick Jagger composition, with guitarist Keith Richards going as far as saying, "Mick had this one all mapped out, I just played on it". Jagger later said that the song "was heavily influenced by William Burroughs’ Cities of the Red Night, a free-wheeling novel about political and sexual repression. It combines a number of different references to what was going down in Argentina and Chile." The song was likely written in Paris in late 1982, where recording began on the album.
In 2003, guitarist Ronnie Wood described the fractious writing as "just me, Mick and Charlie [Watts]... [We] took it up into some wonderful adventures with all these different changes... There was a great percussive and acoustic version, which is the kind of song it should be. The final polished, glossed-up version may have been Mick's vision of the song..."
The lyrics see Jagger explore the then-ongoing political corruption in Central and South America:
All the young men, they've been rounded up;
And sent to camps back in the jungle;
And people whisper, people double-talk;
Once proud fathers act so humble.
"Undercover of the Night" is one of the few songs by the Rolling Stones which overtly explore political ideas. [citation needed]
Hubert Kretzschmar, photographer and illustrator, said, "As far as I remember Jagger came to the meeting with the title, I knew that there was political unrest in South America around that time, El Salvador, Argentina and Chile. There was no visual concept when I first met with Jagger and he talked about the song Undercover. At that time in 1983 there was a feud between Jagger and Richards, of which I only very much later became aware. They never were in the studio at the same time."
Keith Richards said of the release, "It must have been pretty bad for anyone around us who worked in Undercover. A hostile, discordant atmosphere. We were barely talking or communicating and if we were, we were bickering and sniping."
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Undercover of the Night
"Undercover of the Night" is the lead track and first single from the English band the Rolling Stones' 1983 album Undercover.
The song was largely a Mick Jagger composition, with guitarist Keith Richards going as far as saying, "Mick had this one all mapped out, I just played on it". Jagger later said that the song "was heavily influenced by William Burroughs’ Cities of the Red Night, a free-wheeling novel about political and sexual repression. It combines a number of different references to what was going down in Argentina and Chile." The song was likely written in Paris in late 1982, where recording began on the album.
In 2003, guitarist Ronnie Wood described the fractious writing as "just me, Mick and Charlie [Watts]... [We] took it up into some wonderful adventures with all these different changes... There was a great percussive and acoustic version, which is the kind of song it should be. The final polished, glossed-up version may have been Mick's vision of the song..."
The lyrics see Jagger explore the then-ongoing political corruption in Central and South America:
All the young men, they've been rounded up;
And sent to camps back in the jungle;
And people whisper, people double-talk;
Once proud fathers act so humble.
"Undercover of the Night" is one of the few songs by the Rolling Stones which overtly explore political ideas. [citation needed]
Hubert Kretzschmar, photographer and illustrator, said, "As far as I remember Jagger came to the meeting with the title, I knew that there was political unrest in South America around that time, El Salvador, Argentina and Chile. There was no visual concept when I first met with Jagger and he talked about the song Undercover. At that time in 1983 there was a feud between Jagger and Richards, of which I only very much later became aware. They never were in the studio at the same time."
Keith Richards said of the release, "It must have been pretty bad for anyone around us who worked in Undercover. A hostile, discordant atmosphere. We were barely talking or communicating and if we were, we were bickering and sniping."