“Made Of Stone” by The Stone Roses

"Made of Stone" is where the Stone Roses' self-titled 1989 debut stops strutting and starts to brood. Ian Brown and John Squire wrote it, John Leckie produced it for Silvertone, and it's the band at full Madchester stretch: Squire's guitar swirling and stinging, Gary Mounfield's bass rolling underneath, Reni drumming and singing backup behind Brown's cool, faraway lead.

Jackson Pollock's paintings bled into the artwork Squire made for both single and LP, and the B-sides kept the game going: "Going Down" nods to Pollock's No. 5, 1948, while "Guernica" runs the song backwards under fresh Squire guitar, with Brown singing the lyrics phonetically reversed. Their first national TV spot in Britain, a September 1989 slot on BBC's The Late Show, lasted a minute before the power died and Brown stormed off cursing. It has made the UK chart six separate times, peaking at 20.

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