Rolling Stones: "You Gotta Move" (Live '76)

"You Gotta Move" is a song written by Fred McDowell and Rev. Gary Davis. Being a well-known song of McDowell's as "You Got to Move", it was most famously recorded by the British rock and roll band The Rolling Stones and is featured on their 1971 album Sticky Fingers.

The song has a haunting and raw acoustic blues-riff and the lyrics has a clear touch of gospel, as Mick Jagger sings as if he were imitating a Southern Black dialect. It's a rustic, Delta blues song that's led on by Charlie Watts' minimalistic drumming and cymbal smashing, Mick Taylor's fierce el-guitar and some ritualistic backup vocals, and ends with an almost falsetto note, in a tradition of many gospel songs.

According to wikipedia, "The Rolling Stones" released a concert version on Love You Live in 1977, featuring Billy Preston, who played on Sam Cooke's version on the 1963 album Night Beat (which has different lyrics than the original).


- Lyrics:

(F. McDowell)

You gotta move
You gotta move
You gotta move, child
You gotta move
Oh, when the Lord gets ready
You gotta move

You may be high
You may be low
You may be rich, child
You may be poor
But when the Lord gets ready
You gotta move

You see that woman
Who walks the street
You see that police
Upon his beat
But then the Lord gets ready
You gotta move

You gotta move