COVER STORY
Keith Richards by Paul Natkin to counteract that feeling . I was feeling anything but happy when I wrote ‘ Happy .’ I wrote ‘ Happy ’ to make sure there was a feeling like that .
“ The important thing to me is to sit down with an instrument . You might spend three or four hours going through the Buddy Holly songbook and then out of nowhere there ’ ll be a little crash , and there it goes . All it takes is a split second . It might be an accident – a mistake that sets you off . It ’ s a matter of sitting down and playing more than with any definite intention to write . All you ’ ve got to do is be receptive and recognize it when it happens , because it can come from the weirdest angles . Rarely do I write a song totally by myself . Even if I actually do write it by myself , I always like to have someone around playing along with me going , yeah , yeah . I ’ m a band man – a group man . I can ’ t sit there alone in a room and say , it ’ s songwriting time – ding , ding , ding ! I work best when the sun goes down . I ’ ve eaten , had a few drinks , and I ’ ve got some good buddies around . I love sitting around with an acoustic guitar and whacking out songs with friends and family . Somehow they never sound as good as they do that first night on the living room couch .”
Keith works differently with Ronnie Wood than he does with Jagger . “ When Ron and I sit down together to play we ’ re two guitarists . Whereas with Mick and I there ’ s maybe more of an idea in our heads that what we ’ re after is a song at the end of what we ’ re doing . When Mick comes in with a song , usually he ’ s got it worked out pretty much . He may need a bridge to be written , or a different beat , or to turn it around a little bit . Over our whole period , maybe 50 % of the time he writes the lyrics and I write the melody . But that ’ s a far , far too simplistic explanation . We write in every conceivable combination of ways . It ’ s really an incredibly elastic arrangement – especially when you ’ re writing with a partner for a band , a specific unit , rather than just writing a song to see who you could sell
DECEMBER SPECIAL DIGITAL EDITION GUITAR TRICKS INSIDER 35