Too Rude

Album: Dirty Work (1986)
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Songfacts®:

  • The song was originally recorded by the Jamaican reggae star Half Pint with the title of "Winsome." It was a big hit and his first #1 in his home country. Half Pint heard about the Stones covering his song from percussionist Sydney Wolfe who was at a studio in Holland when Keith Richards chose it. Wolfe relayed the news to Half Pint about the re-titled rock version.

    The Jamaican reggae star surmised in The Sunday Gleaner: "He (Richards) used to spend a lot of time in Jamaica. He probably was around when it was popular on the charts."

    Half Pint added: "They did it in a slow tempo way. That tempo was more like a ballad tempo, but you can hear the rock attitude. They had rock with a pop feel."

    He concluded that the song's reggae origins were not forgotten and the Stones also "did it in a way that you can realize it was a reggae song. It was not far from reggae, but you could hear the difference."
  • Keith Richards sang on this with the reggae star Jimmy Cliff, who had a hit years later with "I Can See Clearly Now." Stones lead singer Mick Jagger wasn't very involved with the Dirty Work album because he was focused on his solo career.
  • "Too Rude" was considered for the album title.

Comments: 1

  • Patrick from Greenville, ScThis was a standard for Keith's tours with "The X-Pensive Winos." Speaking of Jimmy Cliff, I love "Vietnam."
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