Happy (The Rolling Stones song) hours, cut and done. At noon it had never existed. At four o'clock it was on tape." The basic tracks were recorded in the Nellcôte basement, using the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio, with Richards on bass, guitar and vocals, producer Jimmy Miller on drums, and saxophonist Bobby Keys on maracas. Piano by Nicky Hopkins was added later, as were Jim Price's trumpet, Keys' saxophone, Mick Taylor's guitar and the final vocal tracks, including Mick Jagger's backing vocals. "Happy" was the only single by the band to chart on the Hot 100 on which Richards sang lead. Since 1972, Richards has
The Rolling Stones the ballad originally written for Marianne Faithfull, was one of the first songs written by Jagger and Richards and one of many written by the duo for other artists. Jagger said of the song, "It's a relatively mature song considering the rest of the output at the time. And we didn't think of [recording] it, because the Rolling Stones were a butch blues group." The Rolling Stones did later record a version which became a top five hit in the US. Of their early writing experience, Richards said, The amazing thing is that although Mick and I thought these songs