The Rolling Stones’ ‘Brown Sugar’: Muscle Shoals, Controversy, and the Decision to Retire It Live

The Stones cut “Brown Sugar” at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama during a two-day session in December 1969. The raw, blues-rock groove came together quickly, thanks in part to a rented tape machine and piano player Jim Dickinson, who banged out that rolling riff. But underneath the swagger, the lyrics were a tangle of slave ships, whips, and “brown sugar” as both a heroin reference and a metaphor for Black women—written by a white British band and sung with a wink.

For decades the band played it as a setlist staple, but by the 2010s the discomfort grew. In 2021, Mick Jagger told the Los Angeles Times that the band had stopped performing it because people were “singing along to lyrics about slavery.” He admitted the song was “a mess” and needed to be retired, though he didn