We Love You

We Love You was a non-album single, released in the UK on Decca as F 12654 on August 18, 1967 and in the US on London 905 on September 2, where Dandelion was promoted as the A-side. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards wrote it and Andrew Loog Oldham produced it. It runs 4:38 and reached number 8 in the UK, number 50 on the US Hot 100 as its own listing, number 1 in the Netherlands and number 2 in Germany. Which side was the UK A-side is contested between two Wikipedia articles. It was not on Their Satanic Majesties Request, and later turned up on Through the Past, Darkly (Big Hits Vol. 2) and on Singles Collection: The London Years.

It was recorded at Olympic Studios in London on June 13 and 21 and July 2 and 19, 1967, during the sessions for the album. Jagger sings; Richards plays guitar and sings backing vocals; Brian Jones plays Mellotron; Bill Wyman bass; Charlie Watts drums; Nicky Hopkins piano; and John Lennon and Paul McCartney sing backing vocals, uncredited, perhaps because of EMI contractual issues. The Lennon and McCartney session was the night of July 19. McCartney told The Beatles Anthology that Mick had been stuck for an idea and asked them to come along. Glyn Johns engineered, with Eddie Kramer assisting.

The song and the film

It was written after the February 1967 drug arrests and is traditionally read as a thank-you to the fans who stood by Jagger and Richards, with contempt for the establishment. It opens with footsteps and slamming prison doors. Some listeners have read it as a parody of All You Need Is Love. Nick Hasted called it a defiant, two-fingered retaliation to establishment attempts to jail Jagger, Richards and Jones, and Jagger called it just a bit of fun. John Lennon, in a 1970 Rolling Stone interview, saw it as the Stones copying the Beatles.

The promotional film, directed by Peter Whitehead, mixes studio footage with a re-enactment of the 1895 Oscar Wilde trial, with Jagger as Wilde, Richards as the judge and Marianne Faithfull as Lord Alfred Douglas. Top of the Pops refused to show it. It was remastered in 4K and released online in 2022, and that official upload is the one on hypersongs. Keith Altham of the NME called the record a musical mindjammer with everything going like the clappers; Philip Norman called it the band's artistic nadir; Mojo's John Harris in 2002 defended it; and Uncut ranked it the band's tenth best song. Ryuichi Sakamoto covered it in 1989 on Beauty, with Robert Wyatt and Brian Wilson singing.