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60 Years Ago, the Rolling Stones Were Accused of Racism Over This Classic Song (and It’s Not the One You Think)

The punctuation in ‘Paint It, Black’ was reportedly a record-label mistake, but some fans read the title as something far more offensive.

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The Rolling Stones have faced accusations of racism a number of times throughout their careers. “Some Girls,” from their 1978 album of the same name, sparked immediate controversy due to a lyric in which Mick Jagger says, “Black girls just wanna get f—ked all night, I just don’t have that much jam.”

Reverend Jesse Jackson denounced the line, calling it a “racial insult” that “degrades blacks and women.” Jagger refused to censor the song, but the record label issued an apology, saying that the track was a “parody of certain stereotypical attitudes,” and that it........

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