“Wild Horses” was said to have been written about Marianne - TopicsExpress

“Wild Horses” was said to have been written about Marianne Faithfull, Mick Jagger’s girlfriend of a number of years in the late 1960s.“ As the story goes, Faithfull, who had serious drug problems for years, went along with Mick Jagger in July 1969 for the filming of the drama Ned Kelly. She was going to play Kelly’s sister in the film, but soon after she arrived in July of 1969, it was clear to her that her relationship with Jagger was deterioating, so the day after the landed in Australia, Faithfull landed in the hospital from an overdose of sleeping pills. She was in a coma for a time, and when she awoke, she supposedly told Jagger, “Wild horses couldn’t drag me away.” The kicker, though, is that Jagger did not even come UP with the phrase “Wild Horses” on the song! Keith Richards typically would come up with melodies for the songs he would co-write with Jagger, but occasionally, like in the case of “Wild Horses,” he would come up with the melody and the chorus. So in late 1969, Jagger wrote the lyrics to Richards’ melody and chorus, “Wild Horses.”