Honky Tonk Women - Inspiration and Recording

Inspiration and Recording

The song was written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards while on holiday in Brazil from late December 1968 to early January 1969. Inspired by Brazilian gauchos at the ranch where Jagger and Richards were staying in Matão, São Paulo, the song was originally released as an acoustic country song.

Two versions of the song were recorded by the band: the familiar hit which appeared on the 45 single and their collection of late 1960s singles, Through the Past, Darkly (Big Hits Vol. 2); and a honky-tonk version entitled "Country Honk" with slightly different lyrics, which appeared on Let It Bleed. The concert rendition of the song featured on Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! differs from both the hit version and the country version, with a markedly different guitar introduction and an entirely different second verse, but is much closer to the single version than the album version.

Thematically, a "honky tonk woman" refers to a dancing girl in a western bar who may work as a prostitute; the setting for the narrative in the first verse of the blues version is Memphis, while "Country Honk" sets the first verse in Jackson.

The band initially recorded the track called "Country Honk", in London in early February 1969. The song was transformed into the familiar electric, riff-based hit single "Honky Tonk Women" sometime in the spring of 1969, prior to Mick Taylor's joining the group. In an interview in the magazine Crawdaddy, Richards credits Taylor for influencing the track: "... the song was originally written as a real Hank Williams/Jimmie Rodgers/1930s country song. And it got turned around to this other thing by Mick Taylor, who got into a completely different feel, throwing it off the wall another way." However, in 1979 Taylor recalled it this way: "I definitely added something to Honky Tonk Women, but it was more or less complete by the time I arrived and did my overdubs."

The song is distinctive as it opens not with a guitar riff, but with a beat played on a cowbell. The Rolling Stones' producer Jimmy Miller performed the cowbell for the recording.

Ry Cooder has asserted that he originated the song's main guitar riff, and has accused the Rolling Stones of "ripping him off". Rolling Stones pianist Ian Stewart said of the track: "It's bloody ten times Keith you hear."