All Down the Line
song by The Rolling Stones
"All Down the Line" is a song by the English rock band the Rolling Stones, which is included on their 1972 album Exile on Main St.. Although at one point slated to be the lead single from the album, it was ultimately released as a single as the B-side of "Happy".
Background
Written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, "All Down the Line" is a straight-ahead electric rock song which opens side four of Exile on Main St.. An acoustic version of the song was recorded in 1969 during the early sessions of what would become Sticky Fingers. Recording took place at Nellcôte, Keith Richards's rented villa in France, and at Sunset Sound Studios in Los Angeles.
The Rolling Stones gave a Los Angeles radio station a demo of "All Down the Line" to play while they drove around and listened to it on the radio.
Record World called the song "the Stones at their best."
After the release of Exile on Main St., Allen Klein sued the Rolling Stones for breach of settlement because "All Down the Line" and four other songs on the album were composed while Jagger and Richards were under contract with his company, ABKCO. ABKCO acquired publishing rights to the songs, giving it a share of the royalties from Exile on Main St., and was able to publish another album of previously released Rolling Stones songs, More Hot Rocks (Big Hits & Fazed Cookies).
Personnel
The Rolling Stones
Mick Jagger – lead vocals
Keith Richards – rhythm guitar, backing vocals
Mick Taylor – slide guitar
Charlie Watts – drums
Additional Performers
Nicky Hopkins – piano
Bobby Keys – saxophone
Jim Price – trumpet, trombone
Kathi McDonald – backing vocals
Bill Plummer – standup bass
Jimmy Miller – maracas
Concert performances
The Rolling Stones performed "All Down the Line" on every tour from 1972 to 1981 and have included the song on every tour since the Voodoo Lounge Tour (1994–95).
Live performances from June 1972 and November 1981 were included in the concert films Ladies and Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones and Let's Spend the Night Together, respectively. A live version of the song from May 1995 appeared as a B-side of the "Like a Rolling Stone" (Live) single promoting the Stripped album.
“All Down the Line” enters the record as song by The Rolling Stones. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Down, Line and song can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“All Down the Line” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Down, Line and song provides the most credible route into that argument.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 24, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q3650368. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1972, 1969, 1981 and 1994.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “All Down the Line” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.