WCSX Classic Cuts : 19th Nervous Breakdown
WCSX Classic Cuts
The Rolling Stones: “19th Nervous Breakdown”
The Hook: An early attempt to write about a subject previously ignored by pop music.
Album: Appeared on the first Stones’ compilation album, Big Hits (High Tide and Green Grass), just a month after it was released as a single.
Year: 1966
Writers: Mick Jagger and Keith Richards
Stats: Peaked at number-two on the Billboard Hot 100.
Background: Mick Jagger tells us that “19th Nervous Breakdown” was written at a transitional moment in popular music history, and that its subject matter is really a product of those times.
Mick Jagger on “19th Nervous Breakdown.” OC:…innocent days. :24
“It’s a bit of a joke song I think, really. The point is, it’s very hard to put yourself back into this period now, but popular songs didn’t really address anything very much. And so to write about anything off the normal run-in-the-mill love clichés was never touched. So you could say anything outside that would shock people. A couple of years after that, things took a turn in a sort of more dark direction, but they were very innocent days.”
