Brown Sugar

Jagger wrote most of it. The band recorded it from 2 to 4 December 1969 at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Sheffield, Alabama, with Jimmy Miller producing. Richards played in open G, Taylor played guitar, Ian Stewart piano and Bobby Keys tenor saxophone. It was the first single on Rolling Stones Records, released on 16 April 1971, and reached number one in the US and number two in the UK.

Marsha Hunt and Claudia Lennear have each been named as the inspiration. Jagger wrote in the 1993 liner notes that the song was about the dual combination of drugs and girls, and he later said he would not write it today.

Live

The band debuted it at Altamont on 6 December 1969. Setlist.fm counted 1,120 performances in May 2019, and in 2021 the band announced it would be dropped from the US tour setlist. An alternate take with Al Kooper and Eric Clapton, recorded on 18 December 1970, was released in 2015.