For over six decades, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones have stood as the twin pillars of rock ‘n’ roll history. While fans have spent generations debating which camp they belong to, the actual members of these legendary bands have maintained a deep, mutual respect. Yet, despite all the shared history and occasional vocal collaborations dating back to the 1960s, a true instrumental crossover in the studio never actually happened—until now.
With the release of The Rolling Stones’ 25th studio album, Foreign Tongues, frontman Mick Jagger opened up to NME about a short-lived but thrilling studio arrangement: hiring Sir Paul McCartney to act strictly as the band’s session bass player.
Jagger’s Initial Skepticism
The collaboration officially began during the sessions that spawned 2023’s Hackney Diamonds and carried over into the freshly minted Foreign Tongues. Jagger admitted that when the idea first came up, he harbored serious doubts about how the dynamic would work. McCartney is universally recognized as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, a musician fiercely accustomed to directing his own arrangements and exerting total control over his musical output. The Stones, conversely, were looking for someone to lay down specific, straightforward lines without rewriting the script.
“Obviously, I’ve known Paul for ages, he’s not a stranger, but I mean, he’d never played bass with us before,” Jagger pointed out during his interview with NME. “It’s a different thing, you know? I’d sung with him before, done harmonies and stuff. But you were thinking, well…”
The Stones needed McCartney for two distinctly aggressive tracks: the blistering, punk-infused “Bite My Head Off” from Hackney Diamonds, and a heavy, grooving “funk bass player” song titled “Covered In You” on the brand-new Foreign Tongues record.
Jagger initially questioned whether the former Beatle would truly connect with the raw, overdriven energy required for the tracks. He went as far as flagging his concerns to Grammy-winning producer Andrew Watt. Jagger recalled telling Watt: “Is he gonna be into this? Because it’s really a punk tune, and it’s going to go really fast, and I want it to do that, and it’s going to be I want overdriven bass. It’s gonna be simple. No mucking about, you know.”
Watt simply laughed off the frontman’s anxiety, assuring him: “No, no, no, Paul can do that.”
A Masterclass in 10 Minutes
When McCartney finally stepped into the room with his bass guitar, any lingering tension evaporated immediately. Rather than trying to take over the session, Sir Paul tuned in, turned up, and delivered pure rock-and-roll precision.
“He did it,” Jagger exclaimed while reflecting on the sessions. “He did exactly what was needed in like 10 minutes. …Thank you very much! (Laughs)”
McCartney was equally thrilled to step away from the bandleader podium and just be “one of the guys” in the studio. He later told NME that the session felt like an absolute blast: “You could be a bit blasé and go, ‘Yeah, OK, so what?’ But for me, it wasn’t – it went the other way. It was like, ‘Wow, there’s Mick! Ooh, there’s Keith! Woah, there’s Ronnie!’ It was exciting. It was really good. A great thing is all I had to do was play bass and not make mistakes, so it was good.”
The Star-Studded ‘Foreign Tongues’ Summit
McCartney’s stellar performance on “Covered In You” is part of a much larger, star-studded vision for Foreign Tongues. Working closely with producer Andrew Watt at Metropolis Studios in London, the Stones treated this 14-track release as a true musical summit.
Alongside McCartney’s bass grooves, the album boasts massive collaborations with Robert Smith of The Cure (on the track “Divine Intervention”), hard-rock patterns from Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith, classic licks from Steve Winwood, and an unexpected cowbell contribution from Bruno Mars. Most movingly, the album features archival performances from the Stones’ legendary late drummer, Charlie Watts, giving the entire project an immense historical weight.
Ultimately, the collaboration shows that even after 60 years at the top, the world’s biggest rock stars can still find ways to surprise each other.
