The Rolling Stones – She’s So Cold

October 15, 2013 - LUD: October 31, 2024

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“She’s So Cold” – Single by the Rolling Stones from the album Emotional Rescue
B-side: “Send It to Me”
Released: September 1980
Recorded: October 1979
Songwriters: Jagger/Richards
Producer: The Glimmer Twins
Charted: No.26 in US and No.33 in UK

Rock and roll is filled with songs about cold, heartless women – “Cold As Ice” by Foreigner and “Stone Cold” by Rainbow, for example. Mick Jagger decided the Rolling Stones should have one of their own, so he and Keith Richards came up with “She’s So Cold.”

Jagger wrote the lyric in about an hour, going way over the top, as he was wont to do for entertainment value. The girl is cold, but he’s so hot for her. He’s the burning bush… the burning fire… the bleeding volcano! On the other hand, she’s so cold that when he touches her, his hand freezes.

At the end of the song, Jagger reminds her that her beauty will fade and there will come a day when she’ll be not just cold, but alone.

“She’s So Cold” is a song recorded by The Rolling Stones, released in September 1980 on the Emotional Rescue album. It was also issued as the second single from the album, with “Send It to Me” as the B-side. Due to the song’s lyric “she’s so goddamned cold”, the promotional copy sent to radio stations had a “cleaned up version” on one side, with the “God damn version” on the other.

The single peaked at number 33 in the UK Singles Chart and number 26 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart in November 1980. Along with the tracks, “Dance” and “Emotional Rescue”, “She’s So Cold” went to number nine on the Disco Top 100 chart.

The video was directed by David Mallet, one of the first film-makers to transition to music videos. Mallet did some high-concept videos like David Bowie’s “Ashes To Ashes” and Peter Gabriel’s “Games Without Frontiers,” but this one was a hit-and-run, showing the Stones performing the song on a soundstage set up to look like a grid, with the band hamming it up throughout. It was very effective and proved popular on MTV when the network launched in 1981. Keeping the band front and center in their videos helped introduced them to the MTV audience of American teenagers that only knew them from their parents’ record collection.