“We’ve played ‘Brown Sugar’ every night since 1970, so sometimes you think, ‘We’ll take that one out for now and see how it goes,'” he said. “We might put it back in.”
Keith Richards told the Times he hopes to be able to play some version of the song in the future.
“I’m trying to figure out with the sisters quite where the beef is. Didn’t they understand this was a song about the horrors of slavery? But they’re trying to bury it. At the moment I don’t want to get into conflicts with all of this sh**,” he said. “But I’m hoping that we’ll be able to resurrect the babe in her glory somewhere along the track.”
Released in 1971, the opening lines of “Brown Sugar” reference a woman being sold into slavery and whipped around midnight. The chorus in the song includes “brown sugar,” referring to Black women, asking “How come you taste so good?”