"
Memo from Turner" is a solo record by
Mick JaggerSir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger is an English musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist and a founding member of The Rolling Stones....
, featuring a guitar solo by
Ry CooderRyland Peter "Ry" Cooder is an American guitarist, singer and composer. He is known for his slide guitar work, his interest in roots music from the United States, and, more recently, his collaborations with traditional musicians from many countries.His solo work has been eclectic, encompassing...
, from the soundtrack of
PerformancePerformance is a 1968 British crime drama film; the film was produced in 1968 but not released until 1970. Directed by Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg, Performance stars James Fox and Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones in his film acting debut.-Plot:...
, where Jagger played a major part. It was re-released in October 2007 on a seventeen-song retrospective compilation album
The Very Best of Mick JaggerThe Very Best of Mick Jagger is a compilation album that was released worldwide on 1 October 2007 and the following day in the United States on WEA/Rhino Records...
, making a re-appearance as a Jagger solo effort. After its original release in 1970, it had been included on Rolling Stones compilations, such as
Singles Collection: The London YearsSingles Collection: The London Years is a compilation album of Rolling Stones music released by former manager Allen Klein's ABKCO Records after the band's departure from Decca and Klein....
as a track credited to the
Jagger/RichardsThe songwriting partnership of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, known as Jagger/Richards , is a musical collaboration whose output has produced the majority of the catalogue of The Rolling Stones....
songwriting partnership. "Memo from Turner" was ranked #92 in the 100 Greatest Guitar Songs list of
Rolling Stone.
Versions
Two different versions of "Memo from Turner" have been released. The first released version of the song, typified by its slide guitar, was the one recorded for
the soundtrackPerformance is a 1970 soundtrack album to the film Performance by Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg. It features music from Randy Newman, Merry Clayton, Ry Cooder, Jack Nitzsche, Buffy Sainte-Marie, The Last Poets and Mick Jagger....
to the movie
PerformancePerformance is a 1968 British crime drama film; the film was produced in 1968 but not released until 1970. Directed by Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg, Performance stars James Fox and Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones in his film acting debut.-Plot:...
, starring
Mick JaggerSir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger is an English musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist and a founding member of The Rolling Stones....
as the song title's "Turner". It is featured prominently in the movie, with Mick Jagger, as Turner, lip-synching it. This is the more well-known version of the song, as it was released as a solo single by Jagger in England in 1970 and is featured on the later
Singles Collection: The London Years.
Ry CooderRyland Peter "Ry" Cooder is an American guitarist, singer and composer. He is known for his slide guitar work, his interest in roots music from the United States, and, more recently, his collaborations with traditional musicians from many countries.His solo work has been eclectic, encompassing...
plays the slide guitar part on this version, which was probably recorded in late 1968, near the time the film was being shot. The identity of the other musicians is not known, though they were likely session players chosen by soundtrack producer
Jack NitzscheBernard Alfred "Jack" Nitzsche was an arranger, producer, songwriter, and film score composer. He first came to prominence in the late 1950s as the right-hand-man of producer Phil Spector, and went on to work with the Rolling Stones, Neil Young and others...
.
The second version, released on
MetamorphosisMetamorphosis is the third compilation album of The Rolling Stones music released by former manager Allen Klein's ABKCO Records after the band's departure from Decca and Klein...
in 1975 on the
Allen KleinAllen Klein was an American businessman, talent agent and record label executive. His clients included The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.- The accountant :...
Decca/London pre-existing legacy contracts of the Stones 1960s recordings, was a different version recorded in November 1968, and has a looser feel than the released version. This version features
Al KooperAl Kooper is an American songwriter, record producer and musician, known for organizing Blood, Sweat & Tears , providing studio support for Bob Dylan when he went electric in 1965, and also bringing together guitarists Mike Bloomfield and Stephen Stills to...
on guitar, and perhaps
Brian JonesLewis Brian Hopkins Jones , known as Brian Jones, was an English musician and a founding member of the Rolling Stones....
and Stevie Winwood of
TrafficTraffic were an English rock band whose members came from the West Midlands. The group formed in April 1967 by Steve Winwood, Jim Capaldi, Chris Wood and Dave Mason...
as well. Either
Charlie WattsCharles Robert "Charlie" Watts is an English drummer, best known as a member of The Rolling Stones. He is also the leader of a jazz band, a record producer, commercial artist, and horse breeder.-Early life:...
or
Jim CapaldiNicola James "Jim" Capaldi was an English musician and songwriter. His musical career lasted more than four decades. He co-founded Traffic in Birmingham with Steve Winwood, and the band's psychedelic rock was influential in Britain and the United States...
(also of Traffic) plays drums on this recording. Credited to "Jagger/Richards", it is not clear how many of the Rolling Stones besides Jagger played on it.
Besides the differing lineup between the two versions, there are also slight changes to the lyrics. The track was reviewed as Jagger:
...puts on his best drawling speak-sing voice for the lyrics, spinning bizarre mini-snapshots of decadent, cruel gangster behavior... The music isn't grim, though; it's more in a sly, ironic happy-go-lucky vein, as if to illustrate the callous, carefree glee gangsters take in such antics. It's not a celebration of the gangster mentality, though, so much as a subtle, mocking look at its decadence, with hints of repressed homosexuality and almost gruesome imagery of dog-eat-dog behavior."
The lyric about "the man who works the soft machine" may be a reference to the
William S. BurroughsWilliam Seward Burroughs II was an American novelist, poet, essayist and spoken word performer. A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th...
novel
The Soft MachineThe Soft Machine is a novel by William S. Burroughs, first published in 1961, two years after his groundbreaking Naked Lunch. It was originally composed using the cut-up and fold-in techniques from manuscripts belonging to The Word Hoard...
. Burroughs and writer Robert Palmer assume this connection in a 1972
Rolling StoneRolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
magazine interview, and strong Burroughsian themes are contained in the film the song was written for.
Ronnie Wood performed "Memo from Turner" live at various club gigs in 1987-88, including some of his shows with
Bo DiddleyEllas Otha Bates , known by his stage name Bo Diddley, was an American rhythm and blues vocalist, guitarist, songwriter , and inventor...
.
Martin ScorseseMartin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
uses the track in a scene from
GoodfellasGoodfellas is a 1990 American crime film directed by Martin Scorsese. It is a film adaptation of the 1986 non-fiction book Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi, who co-wrote the screenplay with Scorsese...
where
Ray Liotta[File:Ray Liotta is an American actor, best known for his portrayal of Henry Hill in the crime-drama Goodfellas, directed by Martin Scorsese and his role as Shoeless Joe Jackson in Field of Dreams...
's character Henry emerges from the house during the daylight on a cocaine binge.