I Got the Blues (1971) — Was the Rolling Stones’ Slow Burner a Self-Aware Nod to Their Own Blues Borrowing?

You listen to “I Got the Blues” and it’s practically a textbook 12-bar blues—slow, aching, Mick Jagger leaning into his best imitation of a Delta field holler. But the title itself is almost too on the nose. It’s like the Stones are winking. By 1971 they’d been mining American blues for nearly a decade, and this song feels less like a straight cover and more like a conscious performance of