The Rolling Stones, speaking to BBC Radio Five Live, have described some of their early songs as being "crap". Calling the Stones the “original manufactured pop band” Mick Jagger recalled how the band’s first five UK hits were cover versions, and that he only struck up his hit songwriting partnership with guitarist Keith Richards after their manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, locked them in a room. "We couldn't write rock songs, we just wrote these crap ballads," he said. The first tune they wrote was "a horrible song", he admitted.
The duo wrote a “crap ballad, ‘As Tears Go By’ - I can say now, it's a wonderful tune, but we didn't think it was that great at the time." The song delivered at top ten hit for Marianne Faithfull in 1964. "Eventually we got to grips with writing rock tunes, but it took a little time," he concluded. The first single they wrote, ‘The Last Time’, went to number one and, of course, was followed up over time by classics like ‘Satisfaction’, ‘Get Off My Cloud’ and ‘Paint It Black’.