Mick Jagger reveals why The Rolling Stones have covered Amy Winehouse on their new album

1 July 2026, 12:32

The Rolling Stones have recorded one of their most modern covers for Foreign Tongues.

Ever since then-manager Andrew Loog Oldham locked Mick Jagger and Keith Richards into a kitchen and forced them to become songwriters, The Rolling Stones have generally focused on their own material.

'Tell Me' was their first self-penned single in the US in 1964, and the UK got the band's first Jagger/Richards single the following year with 'The Last Time'.

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Released the same year, Aftermath was their first album to made up entirely of songs written by Mick and Keith.

The Rolling Stones' releases after that were dominated by original material, and the rare covers were usually songs by their classic blues influences, namely Robert Wilkins' 'Prodigal Son' on Beggars Banquet and Robert Johnson's 'Love in Vain' on Let It Bleed.

There was also 2016's full blues covers album Blue & Lonesome, while 2023's Hackney Diamonds closed with a version of Muddy Waters 'Rollin' Stone' (recorded as 'Rolling Stone Blues').

Amy Winehouse - You Know I'm No Good

But The Rolling Stones' upcoming 25th album Foreign Tongues doesn't just close with a take on band hero Chuck Berry's 'Beautiful Delilah', but also one of the group's most modern covers: Amy WInehouse's 2007 single 'You Know I'm No Good'.

Asked about why they chose to cover Winehouse, Mick Jagger told the NME: "I think it's all part of the slight Britishness of it.

"Ten of the tracks were recorded in London… We did pretty much her arrangement. The same key.

"And I did the horn part on harmonica which was fun cos it’s always fun to play harmonica in a minor key.”