Paint It Black

There was certainly that conscious element in those RCA days, from the end of '65 to summer of '66, of pushing the envelope in milder ways. There was "Paint It Black," for example, recorded in March 1966, our sixth British number one. Brian Jones, now transformed into a multi-instrumentalist, having "given up playing the guitar," played sitar. It was a different style to everything I'd done before. Maybe it was the Jew in me. It's more to me like "Hava Nagila" or some Gypsy lick. Maybe I picked it up from my granddad. It's definitely on a different curve to everything else. I'd moved around the world a bit. I was no longer strictly a Chicago blues man, had to spread the wings a bit, to come up with melodies and ideas, although I can't say that we ever played Tel Aviv or Romania.

K.Richards. Life