Which 1970s Rolling Stones song uses a telephone ring tape loop, and why?
The tape loop of a ringing telephone appears on “Fingerprint File,” the closing track of the Rolling Stones’ 1974 album It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll. The song is built around a funky, paranoid groove, and the intermittent phone ring — achieved by looping a recording of an actual telephone — reinforces the lyrical theme of surveillance and mistrust.
The inspiration came directly from the Watergate scandal, which was still unfolding at the time of recording. Mick Jagger was fascinated by the atmosphere of wiretaps, black
