“She's a Rainbow” by The Rolling Stones

"She's a Rainbow" is the sweetest surprise on the Rolling Stones' 1967 album Their Satanic Majesties Request, a Jagger and Richards song that sounds nothing like the swaggering band people thought they knew. Nicky Hopkins opens it with a bright ascending piano run that keeps circling back as the song's signature, Brian Jones colours it with Mellotron, and the strings were arranged by John Paul Jones, then a session hand and later of Led Zeppelin.

Everyone but Charlie Watts sings backing, yet the voices float so softly under the music that the words are hard to make out. The chorus borrows a phrase from Love's song "She Comes in Colours", released the December before. The band produced it themselves, with Glyn Johns engineering.

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