Keith Richards’ Top 10 Rolling Stones Songs

It’s an ego thing, the urge for band members who aren’t singers to want to sing.

Doesn’t matter what kind of music you play — classic rock, indie rock, pop. For as long as there have been bands, bass players, drummers and guitarists have wanted to step up to the mic.

Keith Richards first started singing lead on Rolling Stones songs right around the time their albums started getting great in the late ’60s, as noted in the below list of the Top 10 Keith Richards Rolling Stones Songs.

READ MORE: The Top 100 Rock Songs of All Time

Ever since then, his raspy voice has pretty much shown up on at least one song per Stones album.

While the band’s greatest songs feature Mick Jagger on lead vocals, Richards’ vocal contributions to Rolling Stones albums have been a winning contrast through the decades.

10. “Wanna Hold You” (From Undercover, 1983)

Richards’ contribution to the underrated Undercover album is a typically guitar-fueled Chuck Berry-style rocker about a poor rock ‘n’ roll boy offering all his lovin’ to some girl. The lyrics might seem kinda odd coming from Richards, who was beyond multimillionaire status in 1983, but his greasy guitar licks and slurred vocals make it sound like he might not be too far from sliding into debt.

 

9. “Something Happened to Me Yesterday” (From Between the Buttons, 1967)

Along with “Connection,” “Something Happened to Me Yesterday” is the first song to feature a lead vocal by Richards. Like “Connection,” Between the Buttons‘ closing track features a co-lead between Richards and Jagger; here, Richards takes the choruses while Jagger sings the verses. Richards wouldn’t go entirely solo on a Stones cut until 1969’s “You Got the Silver.”

 

8. “Little T&A” (From Tattoo You, 1981)

The B-side to “Waiting on a Friend” and a popular album track from 1981’s odds-and-ends collection Tattoo You — a sassy tribute to women across the globe — pretty much sums up the Stones’ wild ride in the ’60s and ’70s. Over another one of Richards’ Chuck Berry-inspired riffs, he runs down the good (and some bad) times he’s had with women over the years.

 

7. “Coming Down Again” (From Goats Head Soup, 1973)

Richards shares lead vocals with Jagger on this moving ballad from Goats Head Soup about Richards’ relationship with Anita Pallenberg. It features one of his best and most restrained performances, and his subtle wah-wah guitar work on the song helps build the tone without getting in the way, a rarity during a period when the Stones’ fame was starting to get away from them.

 

6. “Connection” (From Between the Buttons, 1967)

Keith Richards had his first featured lead vocals on a pair of songs from 1967’s Between the Buttons. “Connection,” though cowritten with Jagger, was mostly penned by Richards about waiting in airports, something the Stones were becoming more accustomed to in the mid-’60s as their stardom grew.

 

5. “Before They Make Me Run” (From Some Girls, 1978)

In 1977, Richards was busted for heroin possession in Toronto. A year later, he recorded a song about his pending trial for Some Girls, one of the Stones’ best albums. It’s one of Richards’ all-time greatest solo cuts, a stinging throwback rocker with a wonderfully tossed-off vocal that’s just as exhausted by the whole ordeal as it is eager to put it all behind.

 

4. “You Got the Silver” (From Let It Bleed, 1969)

Richards’ first solo lead vocal (he and Jagger shared the mic on a few previous songs) is, appropriately, a rural blues tune that he totally nails. It’s also the last song the Rolling Stones recorded with Brian Jones. Jagger also cut a version of “You Got the Silver” for Let It Bleed that was considered for the album before Richards’ grittier take ended up on it. It was the right decision.

 

3. “Salt of the Earth” (From Beggars Banquet, 1968)

Richards and Jagger share lead vocals on the closing track from 1968’s Beggars Banquet, a fitting end to the Stones’ back-to-basics record after 1967’s psychedelic-shaded Their Satanic Majesties Request. In addition to singing “Salt of the Earth”‘s opening line, Richards contributes the acoustic and slide guitars heard throughout the song.

 

2. “Memory Motel” (From Black and Blue, 1976)

This seven-minute highlight from Black and Blue, a mid-’70s setback following a classic run of four essential albums, is one of the few songs where Richards shares lead vocals with Jagger. It’s the LP’s best song. And if that isn’t notable enough, Richards doesn’t even play guitar on “Memory Motel.” It’s one of the band’s greatest ballads.

 

1. “Happy” (From Exile on Main St., 1972)

One of the few Rolling Stones singles to feature Richards on lead vocals, “Happy” is the only one to reach the Top 40 (it peaked at No. 22). It’s a highlight of Exile on Main St., the band’s best album, and a riff-propelled rocker that peeks through the LP’s drug-fueled haze. It’s also a celebration of his savage lifestyle: “Never wanted to be like papa,” he sings, “working for the boss every night and day.” Songs like this guaranteed he never would.