Uploaded March 2015 | Updated September 2026, 6 hours ago
"Angie" is a song by the rock band The Rolling Stones, featured on their 1973 album Goats Head Soup.
Written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and recorded in November and December 1972, "Angie" is an acoustic-guitar-driven ballad which tells of the end of a romance. The song's distinctive piano accompaniment was played by Nicky Hopkins, a Rolling Stones recording-session regular. The strings on the piece (as well as on another song, "Winter") were arranged by Nicky Harrison. An unusual feature of the original recording is that singer Mick Jagger's vocal guide track (made before the final vocals were performed) is faintly audible throughout the song (an effect sometimes called a "ghost vocal").
Released as a single in August 1973, "Angie" went straight to the top of the US Billboard Hot 100 and reached No. 5 on the UK singles chart. The song was also a No. 1 hit in both Canada and Australia for five weeks each and topped the charts in many countries throughout Europe and the rest of the world.
There was speculation that the song was about David Bowie's first wife Angela, or the actress Angie Dickinson, or Keith Richards' newborn daughter, Dandelion Angela.Richards, who wrote almost all the music and lyrics for the song, claimed in his autobiography that the name Angie was a pseudonym for heroin, and that the song was about his attempt to quit using it while detoxing in Switzerland.
"Angie" is a song by the rock band The Rolling Stones, featured on their 1973 album Goats Head Soup.
Written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and recorded in November and December 1972, "Angie" is an acoustic-guitar-driven ballad which tells of the end of a romance. The song's distinctive piano accompaniment was played by Nicky Hopkins, a Rolling Stones recording-session regular. The strings on the piece (as well as on another song, "Winter") were arranged by Nicky Harrison. An unusual feature of the original recording is that singer Mick Jagger's vocal guide track (made before the final vocals were performed) is faintly audible throughout the song (an effect sometimes called a "ghost vocal").
Released as a single in August 1973, "Angie" went straight to the top of the US Billboard Hot 100 and reached No. 5 on the UK singles chart. The song was also a No. 1 hit in both Canada and Australia for five weeks each and topped the charts in many countries throughout Europe and the rest of the world.
There was speculation that the song was about David Bowie's first wife Angela, or the actress Angie Dickinson, or Keith Richards' newborn daughter, Dandelion Angela.Richards, who wrote almost all the music and lyrics for the song, claimed in his autobiography that the name Angie was a pseudonym for heroin, and that the song was about his attempt to quit using it while detoxing in Switzerland.
