SOTD - in the sweet ol' country where I come from, nobody ever works, nothing gets done...

The Rolling Stones - "Hang Fire"

from the album Tattoo You (1981)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #20 (two weeks)

weeks in top-40: 6

Today's Song of the Day was the third single off of the Rolling Stones' classic Tattoo You LP, which gathered assorted songs from recording sessions from their previous albums. "Hang Fire" was from 1978's Some Girls sessions (which gave us "Miss You" and "Beast Of Burden"), and has a deceptively politically subversive message underneath the toss-off surf-rock backdrop. As a kid, I thought "hang fire" was just a drugged up version of "hang five", but it's a slang phrase for loafing around, stemming from the weaponry term for a misfired gun. It's almost a put-down of the youth culture as "dole queens", which I guess at this point in their career they've moved to artistic elitists. Oh well. Still a fun little ditty. The song made the pop top 20 and the #2 spot on the rock radio chart.

 Up tomorrow: a rock "continent" of a supergroup.