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There was an extraordinary flow of players and talent concentrated in that time and place, gathered around Woody’s record. George Harrison walked in one night. Rod Stewart would pop in occasionally. Mick came and sang on the record, and Mick Taylor played. After not hanging about much on the London rock-and-roll scene for a couple of years, it was nice to see everybody and not have to move. They’d come to you. There was always jamming. Ronnie and I hit it off straightaway, day in, day out, we had a load of good laughs. He said, I’m running short of songs, so I knocked up a couple of songs for him, “Sure the One You Need” and “We Got to Get Our Shit Together.” That’s where I first heard “It’s Only Rock ’n’ Roll,” in Ronnie’s studio. It’s Mick’s song and he’d cut it with Bowie as a dub. Mick had gotten this idea and they started to rock on it. It was damn good. Shit, Mick, what are you doing it with Bowie for? Come on, we’ve got to steal that motherfucker back. And we did, without too much difficulty. Just the title by itself was so beautifully simple, even if it hadn’t been a great song in its own right. I mean, come on. “It’s only rock and roll but I like
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