Five Good Covers presents five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song.

By now it’s hard to find a little-known Rolling Stones song that deserves to be better known, but “Back Street Girl” absolutely qualifies. Originally on their 1967 album Between the Buttons, it was stripped from that release in the U.S. and slapped onto the odds ‘n’ ends collection Flowers. It’s a showcase for Mick Jagger to be even more unpleasant about a woman than he is in “Under My Thumb,” as he’s dismissing a girl to her face, calling her “rather common and coarse,” but still wanting her at his beck and call when nobody’s looking. All this is done in waltz time, with a truly pretty melody; put them together and you have a song that’s a prime candidate for the next Wes Anderson soundtrack.
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