After sharing a previously unreleased cover of Troubles A’ Comin, The Rolling Stones have returned with yet another never-before-heard single – an original track titled Come To The Ball.
Like Troubles A' Comin, Come To The Ball appears on the band's deluxe remastered reissue of their 1981 album Tattoo You, which dropped last Friday (October 22).
It crops up on the record's expanded tracklist under the Lost & Found: Rarities disc – which contains nine songs that were recorded at the same time as the rest of the 11-track album – and was originally penned by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.
Also attributed to the track is long-time Stones producer Jimmy Miller, whose credits for the band include their albums Beggars Banquet (1968), Let It Bleed (1969), Sticky Fingers (1971) and Exile On Main St. (1972).
The track itself is flavored with all the Stones goodness you’d expect, boasting an abundance of slinky decorative slide lines and melodic electric guitar flourishes that weave underneath Jagger’s swaggering vocals.
Some high-octane drum lines – curated and dispatched with expert precision by the late Charlie Watts – ensure Come To The Ball maintains its infectious energy throughout, giving his bandmates – Jagger, Richards, Ronnie Wood and then-bassist Bill Wyman – room to rustle up their rock-charged soundscapes.
In a post to the band’s official Instagram, Wood said of the band’s Tattoo You reissue, “We realized that there was a lot of great music that we had recorded in the past that had never been released, particularly from all the material we had amassed during the Some Girls and Emotional Rescue sessions.
“So,” he continued, “we went back and started sifting through it all, and eventually got to the point where there was an album’s worth.”
Richards added, “Sometimes we write our songs in installments – just get the melody and the music, and we’ll cut the tracks and write the words later.
“That way, the actual tracks have matured, just like wine,” he said. “You just leave it in the cellar for a bit, and it comes out a little better a few years later.”
The Rolling Stones are currently in the midst of their No Filter Tour of the US, for which they’ve brought onboard frequent Richards collaborator and session powerhouse Steve Jordan for drumming duties.
Following Jordan’s recruitment, the band went on to play their first public concert in 2021 without the presence of Watts, who passed away earlier this year at the age of 80.
Jagger paid tribute to Watts during the performance, saying, “This is our first tour without him. All the reaction from you guys, and all the things that you’ve said, have been really touching and we want to thank you all very much.
“We’ll miss Charlie so much both on the stage and off the stage.”
The deluxe remastered reissue of Tattoo You is available now on a number of digital and physical formats via Polydor/Interscope/UMe.
