• Track: Dead Flowers
• Artist: The Rolling Stones
• Album: Sticky Fingers
• Year: 1971

Lyrics:

Well when you’re sitting there in your silk upholstered chair
Talkin’ to some rich folk that you know
Well I hope you won’t see me in my ragged company
Well, you know I could never be alone

Take me down little Susie, take me down
I know you think you’re the queen of the underground
And you can send me dead flowers every morning
Send me dead flowers by the mail
Send me dead flowers to my wedding
And I won’t forget to put roses on your grave

Well when you’re sitting back in your rose-pink Cadillac
Making bets on Kentucky Derby Day
Ah, I’ll be in my basement room with a needle and a spoon
And another girl to take my pain away

I’ll be in my basement room with a needle and a spoon
And another girl to take my pain away

Take me down little Susie, take me down
I know you think you’re the queen of the underground
And you can send me dead flowers every morning
Send me dead flowers by the mail
Send me dead flowers to my wedding
And I won’t forget to put roses on your grave

Take me down little Susie, take me down
I know you think you’re the queen of the underground
And you can send me dead flowers every morning
Send me dead flowers by the U.S. Mail
Say it with dead flowers in my wedding
And I won’t forget to put roses on your grave
No, I won’t forget to put roses on your grave

Get It:

If you’re going to pick up a copy of Sticky Fingers, be sure to get the remastered and expanded edition; it’s well worth the investment to purchase this classic album, which has been greatly improved with remastering:

Dead Flowers comes from one of the Stones’ best albums—received very well by both critics and fans—Sticky Fingers. It was written during the Stones’ legendary drug addiction years, and it clearly references heroin use. The song has a distinctly country flourish, which music historians attribute to Mick Jagger’s association with Gram Parsons during the early and mid-seventies. It was a regular in the Stones’ set list during the Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main Street tours but was dropped from regular rotation until the Steel Wheels tour in 1989. I was lucky enough to see that tour and hear Dead Flowers performed live in the old Hoosier Dome.

While the song didn’t chart, several other singles from the album did. including Brown Sugar, Wild Horses, and Can’t You Hear Me Knockin’? The original vinyl packaging included a real working zipper that when opened showed a pair of tighty-whities. Many people thought that the, um, gifted cover model was none other than Mick Jagger, but cover designer Andy Warhol said that numerous models were photographed, and he declined to reveal the model’s identity. And here I always thought Mick had just “misplaced” his mic right before the shoot…

Sticky Fingers hit number one on both the U.S. and UK charts.

Video:

There is no official music video for this song (at least none that I am aware of) so below is a recording of the studio version of the track:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_emq_NzO7H8

My favorite version of the song, however, comes from the Stones’ Stripped album, which is a well-produced live recording of the Stones playing select songs in a semi-acoustic format. While billed as being “stripped,” this version is much more powerful. Give it a listen, and I think you will agree. The entire Stripped album is vastly underrated.

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