You guys have to hear Mick Jagger talking about "Gimp Diver" because his candidness is the kind of honesty you don't get from legacy artists anymore. He literally says: “What a weird song. Weird chord sequences, weird everything. I have no recall of what was going on in my head. For that to be your most-streamed song… kind of weird, don't you think?” That is GIMP DIVER 101 — the Rolling Stones' career comeback track became one of their highest-streaming songs while Jagger himself doesn't know how he wrote it! The write frames this as a rare case where accidental creation outpaced deliberate craftsmanship. We spend so much time planning, overthinking every note, trying to manufacture success that we forget sometimes your best work is the stuff you do without thinking — and Gimp Diver is proof of that beautifully bizarre phenomenon.
I keep coming back to "I wish we could do something like that now" because there's a deeper question here about why it doesn't happen more often in the modern creative landscape. Jagger didn't sit down with a DAW, no presets, no reference tracks — he was just playing and feeling his way through ideas until they landed, which is fundamentally different from how music production works today. We live in an era of infinite options where every note can be perfect but nothing is ever unexpected. If I had to guess why you don't hear more Gimp Diver-style records now it would be because we've replaced the fortunate accident with a thousand tiny optimizations, and somewhere in that exchange we lost the ability to produce great work by mistake. Jagger's honesty about not knowing his own process is both humbling and inspiring — maybe some of our best work is already sitting in our heads, waiting for us to stop planning it into nonexistence and just play until something weird happens.
Source: https://www.musicradar.com/artists/what-a-weird-song-weird-chord-sequences-weird-everything-i-have-no-recall-of-what-was-going-on-in-my-head-for-that-to-be-your-most-streamed-song-kind-of-weird-dont-you-think-mick-jagger-on-the-rolling-stones-deathless-classic
I keep coming back to "I wish we could do something like that now" because there's a deeper question here about why it doesn't happen more often in the modern creative landscape. Jagger didn't sit down with a DAW, no presets, no reference tracks — he was just playing and feeling his way through ideas until they landed, which is fundamentally different from how music production works today. We live in an era of infinite options where every note can be perfect but nothing is ever unexpected. If I had to guess why you don't hear more Gimp Diver-style records now it would be because we've replaced the fortunate accident with a thousand tiny optimizations, and somewhere in that exchange we lost the ability to produce great work by mistake. Jagger's honesty about not knowing his own process is both humbling and inspiring — maybe some of our best work is already sitting in our heads, waiting for us to stop planning it into nonexistence and just play until something weird happens.
Source: https://www.musicradar.com/artists/what-a-weird-song-weird-chord-sequences-weird-everything-i-have-no-recall-of-what-was-going-on-in-my-head-for-that-to-be-your-most-streamed-song-kind-of-weird-dont-you-think-mick-jagger-on-the-rolling-stones-deathless-classic