The Reggae Ghost in 'Start Me Up' – How a Car Engine Hook Became a Rock Anthem

Most people know “Start Me Up” as the ultimate stadium opener—that riff, that swagger. But the song started life as a reggae jam called “Never Stop,” written during the Black and Blue sessions in 1975. Keith Richards originally built the riff as a slow, offbeat skank, and the lyrics were literally about starting a car engine: “Never stop, never stop / never stop the engine.” The band tried it as a reggae tune for years, even cutting it during the Some Girls sessions, but it never clicked.

It wasn’t until 1981, during the Tattoo You sessions, that producer Chris Kimsey suggested speeding it up. The band shifted the riff from the offbeat to the downbeat, turning that lazy reggae pulse into a straight-ahead rock groove. Mick Jagger rewrote the lyrics from “never stop” into “start me up,” keeping the engine metaphor but adding a double-entendre that gave the song new life. The result was a track that feels like it was born in a garage, not a studio—complete with a false start on the master take that the band kept because it sounded raw.

The reggae version still exists on bootlegs. Listen closely to the Tattoo You outtakes and you can hear the ghost of that skanking rhythm before the band found the rock in the riff. It’s a reminder that sometimes the best hits come from songs that just wouldn’t sit still.