Ergo, the Ogre

It’s time once again for Song Lyric Sunday, hosted by Jim Adams. This week, Jim has asked us to choose a song about tax or money. I chose “Angie” by the Rolling Stones. It isn’t about money exactly, but the word is in the lyrics a couple of times.

The real reason I chose it is because one of my favorite people and life-long friend was named Angie. She passed away a few months ago. She was one of the very first people I met, and I miss the hell out of her every day.

The Story

The big rumor about this song is that it was written about David Bowie’s wife, Angela, who wrote in her autobiography that she once walked in on Bowie and Mick Jagger in bed together – a story Jagger denies. According to the rumor, Jagger wrote this song to appease her, but it was Jagger’s bandmate Keith Richards who wrote most of the song. Jagger had this to say about it: “People began to say that song was written about David Bowie’s wife, but the truth is that Keith wrote the title. He said, ‘Angie,’ and I think it was to do with his daughter. She’s called Angela. And then I just wrote the rest of it.”

There was also speculation that Richards’ girlfriend Anita Pallenberg inspired this song, but Keith cleared it up in his 2010 autobiography Life, where he wrote: “While I was in the [Vevey drug] clinic (in March-April 1972), Anita was down the road having our daughter, Angela. Once I came out of the usual trauma, I had a guitar with me and I wrote ‘Angie’ in an afternoon, sitting in bed, because I could finally move my fingers and put them in the right place again, and I didn’t feel like I had to s–t the bed or climb the walls or feel manic anymore. I just went, ‘Angie, Angie.’ It was not about any particular person; it was a name, like ohhh, Diana. I didn’t know Angela was going to be called Angela when I wrote ‘Angie.’ In those days you didn’t know what sex the thing was going to be until it popped out.”

Bertrand – Paris, France

A rare ballad for The Stones, this was the first single released from Goat’s Head Soup. It wasn’t typical of their sound, since most of the band’s material at the time was hard and aggressive. Still, it was a huge hit, and their only ballad that hit #1 in the US.

This is one of the few Rolling Stones songs that is acoustic.

Keith Richards wrote this song in Switzerland after the Exile on Main St. album had been approved by the record company, but before it was released. “Angie” was one of the first songs The Stones recorded for Goat’s Head Soup, which they first attempted in Jamaica at the Dynamic Sounds studio in Kingston. They got very little done at these sessions, arriving nightly with armed escort and locking the doors until they were done for the day. Much of the album was done at sessions in Los Angeles and London under more hospitable conditions.

The Angela Bowie rumor picked up steam in 1990, when she went on The Joan Rivers Show and claimed she once walked in on David Bowie and Mick Jagger in bed together naked. What’s even more shocking is that Rivers had her own talk show. She was quickly replaced by Arsenio Hall.

Nicky Hopkins played piano on this track. He became part of the band’s inner circle after working on the 1966 Stones album Between The Buttons. >>

In 2005 German chancellor Angela Merkel appropriated this acoustic ballad for her Christian Democratic Union Party. “We’re surprised that permission wasn’t requested,” said a Stones spokesman of Merkel’s choice of song. “If it had been, we would have said no.”

The line from this song, “Ain’t it time we said goodbye,” was used as the title to Robert Greenfield’s 2014 book, which chronicles his time covering the Stones’ 1971 British tour and their Exile on Main St. sessions for Rolling Stone magazine. Greenfield is not a fan of the song, however, calling it “soppy and far too sweet for my taste.”

Angela was born in a Catholic hospital, and her name was bestowed upon her by the nuns. “I’m glad she was called Angela, because Anita had adorned her with all these really weird names like Dandelion, which Angela quickly got rid of as soon as she grew up,” Richards told Uncut magazine in 2020. “So, she’s Angie now, strangely enough.”

The Lyrics

Angie, Angie
When will those clouds all disappear?

Angie, Angie
Where will it lead us from here?

With no loving in our souls
And no money in our coats
You can’t say we’re satisfied
Angie, Angie

You can’t say we never tried

Angie, you’re beautiful, yeah
But ain’t it time we said goodbye?

Angie
I still love you

Remember all those nights we cried?
All the dreams we held so close

Seemed to all go up in smoke
Let me whisper in your ear
Angie, Angie

Where will it lead us from here?

Oh, Angie, don’t you weep
All your kisses still taste sweet
I hate that sadness in your eyes
But, Angie, Angie

Ain’t it time we said goodbye, yeah?

With no loving in our souls
And no money in our coats
You can’t say we’re satisfied
But, Angie, I still love you, baby
Everywhere I look, I see your eyes
There ain’t a woman that comes close to you
Come on, baby, dry your eyes
Angie, Angie
Ain’t it good to be alive?
Angie, Angie
They can’t say we never tried

Songwriters: Mick Jagger, Keith Richard. For non-commercial use only.

The Video