Four months after the release of their massively popular self-titled debut album, The Stone Roses capped off 1989 with the release of their nearly ten minute long single, “Fool’s Gold”. The song was the Roses biggest hit at the time of its release, peaking at number eight on the UK Singles Chart.
“Fool’s Gold” deviates from the sound of previous Roses releases. Their trademark 60s-esque jangly guitar riffs are absent, with the Roses leaning more into their dance-rock influences to produce a funkier and more club friendly tune.
“Fool’s Gold” wastes no time jumping straight into its funky instrumental. There is a one second long percussion intro that transitions straight into the main portion of the song. The Roses’ rhythm section dominates “Fool’s Gold”. Mani plays the song’s famous trembling bassline while Reni provides a drumbeat sampled from James Brown’s “The Funky Drummer”. The guitar parts in the main portion of “Fool’s Gold” are relatively sparse. The song’s guitar is like the icing on the cake that is the drums and bass, with John Squire coming in at the end of the verses and during the choruses to provide some wah-wah soaked licks. The song’s vocals are also different from previous Roses singles. While he was never known as a belter, Ian Brown takes his subdued style of singing to a new level in “Fool’s Gold”. He practically whispers the song’s lyrics. It may sound odd, but it works for this groovy number.
While I do love “Fool’s Gold”, I have to say that it overstays its welcome being nine minutes and 53 seconds long. The main portion of the song lasts about five minutes and concludes with an extended instrumental that could really stand to be shortened by a few minutes.
Before writing this post, I had never really thought about the lyrics of “Fool’s Gold” and after thinking about it, I don’t think that they matter much. I don’t understand them completely, but they seem to describe a group of men on a journey to find gold. They provide a nice backdrop for the song, but “Fool’s Gold” is a dance track that is purely about having fun and losing yourself in the music. Any meaningful analysis of the terribly vague lyrics is unnecessary.
After the release of “Fool’s Gold”, the Roses would release one more single the following year before a four year drought began in which the Roses did not release any new material until 1994. After the success of their debut album and the subsequent singles, the Roses wished to get out of their contract with their independent label, Silvertone, and sign a lucrative deal with a major label. Silvertone, however, took out an injunction against the Roses in 1990 that prevented them from recording any new material with another label. The matter was finally settled in May of 1991 when a British court ruled in favor of the Roses, releasing them from Silvertone. Unfortunately, the whole ordeal proved to be draining for the Roses, and their subsequent recording sessions were very unproductive.
Next week I will be breaking from my format of only discussing singles and talk about the Roses second album, Second Coming, as a whole.
