She’s A Rainbow

“She’s a Rainbow” is a song by the Rolling Stones and was featured on their 1967 album “Their Satanic Majesties Request”

The song was written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, members of the band. The strings in the song were arranged by John Paul Jones, the bassist and keyboardist of the Rock band Led Zeppelin

The Songwriting Process

When the Glimmer Twins (Jagger and Richards) wrote the song, they envisioned it as “a sort of music box,” as Richards told an interviewer in 2016. The band and producer Andrew Loog Oldham took that idea as literally as possible, as, for four minutes, the song keeps coming to life, led by Nicky Hopkins’ piano lines, and then grinding to a halt

source:https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/the-rolling-stones-shes-a-rainbow/

A word about the Glimmer Twins

Jagger and Richards adopted the nickname “The Glimmer Twins” after a vacation cruise they took to Brazil in December 1968/January 1969 with their then-girlfriends. An older English couple on the ship kept asking Richards and Jagger who they were. When they refused to reveal their identities, the woman reportedly kept asking, “just give us a glimmer” (as in “give us a hint about who you are”), which amused Jagger and Richards

A giant mess

The writing of the album actually took the band over 8 months.

Mick Jagger and Keith Richards spend time behind bars immediately after the time they began recording in accuses of drug possession.

Here the band members talk about the arresting day

In his 2002 book Rolling with the Stones, Bill Wyman, the band’s bassist describes the situations in the studio: “Every day at the studio it was a lottery as to who would turn up and what – if any – positive contribution they would make when they did,” he said. “Keith would arrive with anywhere up to ten people, Brian with another half-a-dozen and it was the same for Mick. They were assorted girlfriends and friends. I hated it! Then again, so did Andrew (Oldham) and just gave up on it. There were times when I wish I could have done, too.”

She comes in colors

one of the most famous line in the song is “She comes in colors everywhere”.

Some people believes that the line was inspired by the song “She comes in colors” by Love band, written by Arthur Love

According to Da Capo engineer Bruce Botnick, Lee was bothered by the line he believed the Rolling Stones had stolen

Guitarist Johnny Echols of Love has said She Comes in Colors  “was about this girl named Annette who would come to all our shows wearing these outrageous gypsy clothes”

A word about the album:

Satanic Majestic vs Sgt.Pepper

The album Satanic Majestic is their sixth British and eighth American studio album, and their first to be released in identical versions in both countries. The album’s title is a play on the “Her Britannic Majesty requests and requires…” text that appears inside a British Passport.

Over the years a debate arose:  Was the Rolling Stones’ “Their Satanic Majesties Request” their attempt to imitate “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” by the Beatles?

on an interview John Lennon once said:

What do you think of the Stones today?
I think it’s a lot of hype. I like “Honky Tonk Woman” but I think Mick’s a joke, with all that fag dancing, I always did. I enjoy it, I’ll probably go and see his films and all, like everybody else, but really, I think it’s a joke.

Do you see him much now?
No, I never do see him. We saw a bit of each other around when Allen was first coming in — I think Mick got jealous. I was always very respectful about Mick and the Stones, but he said a lot of sort of tarty things about the Beatles, which I am hurt by, because you know, I can knock the Beatles, but don’t let Mick Jagger knock them. I would like to just list what we did and what the Stones did two months after on every fuckin’ album. Every fuckin’ thing we did, Mick does exactly the same — he imitates us. And I would like one of you fuckin’ underground people to point it out, you know “Satanic Majesties” is Pepper, “We Love You,” it’s the most fuckin’ bullshit, that’s “All You Need Is Love.”

The full (3 hour) interview: