The Rolling Stones – “Criss Cross”

The Rolling Stones – “Criss Cross”

The Rolling Stones, a good band, came out with a new song called “Living In A Ghost Town” earlier this year. It was impressive. But why listen to a brand-new Rolling Stones song when you could listen to a previously unreleased Rolling Stones song from 1973? Because that’s what you get to do today.

The Stones have just announced a deluxe reissue of their 1973 album Goats Head Soup. Goats Head Soup, the follow-up to the previous year’s Exile On Main St., doesn’t have the vaunted reputation of some of the band’s other records. They recorded it across multiple session in Jamaica, the US, and the UK, while worn out from drugs, touring, notoriety, and various clashes with the law. But Goats Head Soup did produce a #1 single in the lovely wounded ballad “Angie,” and it’s still the fucking Stones in the fucking early ’70s, which means it still kicks ass.

The Stones are releasing the Goats Head Soup reissue in a bunch of different versions, including four-disc CD and vinyl editions. It’ll feature a fancy remaster, alternate versions, outtakes, the 15-song live album Brussels Affair, a 100-page book full of essays and photos, and three reproduced 1973 tour posters. It’ll also feature three previously unreleased songs: “Criss Cross,” “All The Rage,” and “Scarlet,” the latter of which features Jimmy Page on guitar.

Along with the announcement, the Stones have shared “Criss Cross,” one of those three songs. It’s a funky, strutting, classically Stones rocker. The band doesn’t do anything you haven’t heard on “Criss Cross,” but the song does feature Mick Jagger singing the phrase “I think I need a blood transfusion” and pronouncing “transfusion” as “trans-fewww-shawwwwn.” Pretty good! The song has a music video from director Diana Kunst, and the clip follows an attractive young woman getting into wild-child exploits across New York. (This is sadly one of those videos where you hear the sound effects over the song, which is not what you want for a 1973 Stones song that you’ve never heard.) Below, check out “Criss Cross” and an unboxing video for the new reissue.

The deluxe Goats Head Soup reissue is out 9/4 on Interscope/Polydor/UMe.

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