“Undercover of the Night” by The Rolling Stones

"Undercover of the Night" opens the Rolling Stones' 1983 album Undercover and was the first single off it, and it's Mick Jagger's baby from start to finish; Keith Richards has said Jagger had the whole thing mapped out and he simply played on it. Jagger drew on William Burroughs' Cities of the Red Night, a novel of political and sexual repression, and wove in references to what was happening in Argentina and Chile.

It was probably written in Paris late in 1982, where the album sessions started. Ronnie Wood remembered working it up with Jagger and Charlie Watts, and an earlier percussive, acoustic take he thought suited it better than the glossy finished cut, which he figured was Jagger's vision. The Glimmer Twins produced it with Chris Kimsey, who also engineered and mixed.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.