“Wild Horses” by The Rolling Stones

"Wild Horses" is the Rolling Stones at their most bruised and tender, a country-tinged ballad from Sticky Fingers, the 1971 album, that also went out as a single in June that year with "Sway" on the flip. They cut it over three days in December 1969 at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama, with Albert and David Maysles filming them for Gimme Shelter, then had to sit on it for more than a year while the band wrangled with their old label, ABKCO, and Allen Klein.

Mick Jagger and Keith Richards wrote it and share the vocals, Richards and Mick Taylor weave their guitars around each other, Jim Dickinson sits in on piano, and Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman keep it slow and steady. Jimmy Miller produced. Rolling Stone later put it at 334 on its 500 greatest songs list, then moved it up to 193 in 2021.

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