10 best Rolling Stones songs you (probably) don't know

We've heard "Satisfaction," "Brown Sugar" and "Start Me Up" a thousand times. Here are ten Rolling Stones songs you will want to hear.

1. LOVING CUP (1972)
The Rolling Stones have always been one of the world’s worst bridge makers. In most of their first 18 years, they did the whole verse/chorus/building outro like kings, but too often an obligatory verse feels tacked on – particularly in Mick’s later songs. This rather obscure one though, a beauty for all its 4:24, conceals one of the Stones’ greatest crafted 60-second breaks in its 50 years. As the bridge begins at 2:00 in, the music drops to high-hat and cacophony on horns, building to piano and acoustic, Charlie lazy on the beat, with Mick following his passive “I feel your mouth kissing me again” with the – no other word for it — soaring “what a beautiful buzz.” It leads to a verse-line finale, with Keith doubling every word, “I’m nitty, gritty, and my shirt’s all torn, but I’d love to spill the beans with you till dawn.” Sure, it’s silly reading it out of context, but it’s capping a spellbound minute of layered parts building to the song’s terrific outro of syncopated horns, “gimme little drink” chants, boogie pianos and, if you listen closely, steel drums.

2. MOONLIGHT MILE (1971)
One of Jagger’s most textured, surprising compositions. Playing the acoustic intro (Keith’s not on the song), he sets up a dreamy landscape that finishes the mostly subdued second side of Sticky Fingers by dipping and flowing, sparse and dark: piano notes here, Mick Taylor’s reverbed guitar there, Charlie’s bellowing cymbals followed by pit-pat tom-tom rolls, and finally teasing strings turning to a full-on orchestration outro. And I really like how Mick overpronounces “come on, uhh” at 3:33 mark.

3. MEMORY MOTEL (1976)
This moody, drifting ballad – and the Stones’ best exploit of ‘70s electric pianos — is the single highlight of the strung-out Black and Blue album, and an absolute joy of a secret for fans who haven’t heard it yet. Mick brings in some unusually tasty lyrical details: pick-up trucks painted green and blue, singers in Boston bars with hazel eyes, 15-state tours including Baton Rouge, loneliness on the 22nd floor. While Keith’s voice has never sounded better than his bare-bone simple outro to the choruses: “she’s got a mind of her own, and she uses it well.”

4. CHILD OF THE MOON (1968)
The Stones' 1967 psychedelic album Their Satanic Majesties Request got their producer to quit his job. It's a mess, a half-hearted attempt to chase the Beatles (for the very last time). Their next song, this, would have helped if they could have delayed the release a few months. It leans towards the "Jumpin' Jack Flash" sound to come, and the sparse video is menacingly effective.

5. SWEET VIRGINIA (1972)
The only reason you might not know this is because the chorus so memorably drops the S-bomb, keeping it off the radio. It is simply fantastic, beginning with Mick's surprisingly effective intro harmonica solo.

6. WORRIED ABOUT YOU (1981)
The Rolling Stones aren’t really known for their guitar solos. And their best — I’d argue — isn’t by a Stone at all. It comes buried in this lost song, opening side two of their last great album, Tattoo You. The vocals are inspired – carrying on the falsetto torch from 1976’s “Fool to Cry,” “1978’s “Miss You,” 1980’s “Emotional Rescue” – and starting sparse with open chords and electric piano, and building energy with sly guitar noodles and peppy drums. Then it explodes open at the 2:46 mark, as a stunning guitar solo fills 34 entire seconds, a decadent span for this band. The man behind it is a session player from 'Bama named Wayne Perkins.

7. DANDELION (1967)
As wrong as the Rolling Stones’ lame attempt to cut-and-paste the Sgt Pepper’s thunder with Their Satanic Majesties Request might be, it is actually fascinating in how far the Stones were willing to go down that the real Lucy in the Sky of Diamonds road. (Compare with Sgt Pepper’s title track of “When I’m Sixty-Four.”) The Stones psychedelic-dalliance would have been better if the album had been more in line with this peppy obscure B-side to a dreary A-side (“We Love You”). “Dandelion” is really good. Brian Jones is on on oboe, there’s bigger-than-usual drums by Charlie, and it’s rumored John and Paul singing the backups (the “ahhs” and ending “dand-EE-line” sure sounds like them – and maybe they purposely hit that flat note at the 2:00 mark). Psychedelic music, thankfully, had just a year or so in the sun. I wouldn’t have minded a bit more of this version.

8. THIEF IN THE NIGHT (1997)
Since 1981, pretty much only the Keith songs – on solo or Stones albums — are ever worth hearing. And in this span, Keith has increasingly done with vocals what he used to do with guitars: blending one part over the other, upsetting the normal balance of lead here, back-up there. This dreamy song prods slyly forth off Charlie’s ringing ride cymbal, with much coming/going – a little acoustic guitar lead, a vibrato open-chord on electric, a lasting sax note. Most of all, it’s how the back-ups play off Keith’s low-key vocal. Mick is absent.

9. STAR STAR (1973)
Do you know this? Chuck Berryish pisstake of groupie life with a rousing and inspired “Star Star” (aka “Starf*cker”), which gets specific on Polaroid antics and Steve McQueen’s lower appeal.

10. WHO'S BEEN SLEEPING HERE? (1967)
The opening 15 seconds of this song are lovely – a tinkly acoustic takes form as a hum of harmonica passes, like morning birds, and a feedback guitar ebbs menacingly to suggest not all is well this foggy morning. This is the most ambitious architecture on their most British album, Between the Buttons, with its parceled mix of pianos, acoustics, feedback, pianos. Since the midnight rendezvous, quite-English cast includes butlers, brigadiers and cavaliers – Mick had clearly been listening to Dylan’s character-driven songs from his first electric albums — the folks over at “Downton Abbey” should have used this for TV promos.