How Country and Folk Shaped the Stones’ Ballads on 'Let It Bleed' and 'Sticky Fingers'

By the late 1960s, the Stones were getting tired of being the world’s loudest, most dangerous blues-rock band. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards started listening to Gram Parsons, The Byrds, and Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline—and it showed. On Let It Bleed (1969) and Sticky Fingers (1971), they swapped some of their usual sneering swagger for lap steel, acoustic guitars, and lyrics that told stories of regret, loneliness, and faded love.

“Wild Horses” was the clearest shift. Jagger wrote the lyrics as a kind of goodbye to his girlfriend and to the road lifestyle, but Richards’ open-G tuning and the pedal steel from Ry Cooder gave it a sad, country-folk ache. “Dead Flowers” took that mood darker—a junkie’s lament disguised as a honky-tonk breakup song, complete with a cheerful chorus that makes the pain sound even worse. The country and folk influences weren’t just decoration; they let the Stones write about vulnerability without losing their edge.