How 'Paint It Black' morphed from a standard pop tune into a sitar-driven psychedelic classic

The most telling detail: “Paint It Black” was nearly a generic Merseybeat number. Keith Richards wrote the original riff on an organ, noodling a melody that sounded more like a novelty pop tune—something you’d hear from Herman’s Hermits, not the Stones. It took Brian Jones’ fascination with Indian instruments and a last-minute rewrite to turn the song inside out.

Jones had recently taken up the sitar after being introduced to it by George Harrison. He played the new descending line, which immediately gave the track a darker, Eastern-tinged tension. The band scrapped the original arrangement, shifted the drum pattern into a galloping stomp (Bill Wyman’s bass and Charlie Watts’ floor tom drive it), and the song was transformed.

Lyrically, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards wrote the words as a direct expression of grief and nihilism. The narrator is at a funeral—black clothing, black skies, a world that he can’t bear to look at because it reminds him of loss. Jagger later said the idea came from a piece of literature or a friend’s experience, but the core was simply: “Everything is black, I want it to stop.” The sitar’s mournful drone made the lyric feel inevitable.