Mick Jagger and Keith Richards have announced the Rolling Stones will stop performing their song “Brown Sugar,” amid discomfort about the 50-year-old classic’s references to slavery. The band, currently on the road for a 13-date U.S. tour, have not played Brown Sugar since kicking off in St. Louis on September 26. The 1969 song has been a staple of their live show since it came out 50 years ago, and is the second most played song in their catalog after Jumpin’ Jack Flash, with 1,136 known performances. Jagger, asked about the song not appearing on their recent set list, told The Los Angeles Times they had decided to give the song a break. “We’ve played ‘Brown Sugar’ every night since 1970, so sometimes you think, we’ll take that one out for now and see how it goes,’” he said. Keith Richards, who wrote the song with Jagger during a 1969 recording session at the famed Muscle Shoals studio in Alabama, said he was taken aback by the recent discomfort about the lyrics, since it was always a grotesque story about slavery, rape and sexual violence. “I’m trying to figure out with the sisters quite where the beef is,” Richards said. “Didn’t they understand this was a song about the horrors of slavery? But they’re trying to bury it. At the moment I don’t want to get into conflicts with all of this s***. But I’m hoping that we’ll be able to resurrect the babe in her glory somewhere along the track.”
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