Top singles from the past

18 December 2025

THE ROLLING STONES released their hit single AS TEARS GO BY
in the US, today 60 years ago, on 18 December 1965. A year later
it came out in the UK.

The ballad was written by Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and their manager
Andrew Oldham. It was one of their first self-written songs. It was given
to MARIANNE FAITHFULL in 1964, and went to #7 in the UK.

Faithfull: “I was never that crazy about ‘As Tears Go By’. God knows
how Mick and Keith wrote it or where it came from. In any case, it is
an absolutely astonishing thing for a boy of 20 to have written a song
about a woman looking back nostalgically on her life.”

A year later, The Stones put their version on their longplayer
December’s Children (And Everybody’s) that came out early
December. It was their North American record label that decided
to release it as a single on 18 December 1965.

THE ROLLING STONES

MARIANNE FAITHFULL