Exile In May Street Part 6: Exile On Main St. Blues

Rock Turtleneck wraps up our month-long celebration of the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street deluxe reissue with some outtakes from the outtakes.

As you are most likely well aware, Exile redux features a second disc of previously unreleased bonus tracks from the Exile era. Some are completely new to Stones fans and had eluded bootleggers for almost 40 years, like "Plundered My Soul" and "Following the River" (both of which feature new 2009 vocals by Jagger).



Others, like this early version of "Loving Cup" that dates back to the 1969 Let it Bleed sessions, are considered perhaps even better than the versions that wound up on Exile.


But as someone who's had a collection of Exile outtakes in their possession long before the new reissue, I was shocked by some of the material that was left off the Exile outtakes CD.

One is an awesome acoustic demo of "All Down the Line" which like "Loving Cup," may date back to 1969.

Another is "Exile on Main Street Blues," a piano ditty by Mick Jagger performed in the style of Bessie Smith that was used in this super rare promo for the record upon its original release in 1972.


As with "Glass Onion" and "Savoy Truffle" on The Beatles' White Album, "Exile on Main Street Blues" cleverly name checks many titles from their new record.

Exile on Main Street, it's a strange street to walk down
Now let it loose, now come on, let it all hang down
Eh round up those people, move them out of town
Gimmie little drink from your loving cup
Now shake your hip mama, keep me all shook up
Feeling so doggone happy like a natural child
Oh help me do the boogie all down the line
Come on Virginia, let's shoot some dice
My sweet black angel, shine a little light

"Exile on Main Street Blues" would have made a dandy lo-fi coda for the sprawling double LP but remains on the Stones' cutting room floor. For a limited time however, Rock Turtleneck is making it available for download here, as our own coda to our historic Exile in May Street celebration. Thanks and may the good lord Shine A Light on you.

mp3: "Exile On Main Street Blues"
mp3: "All Down the Line" acoustic demo

Bonus bonus track:
mp3: "A Line on You" (early version of "Shine A Light")