Starbucker

For the U.S. release of GOATS HEAD SOUP in 1973, Atlantic Records used a "cleaned up" version of "Star Star", a song which had already had its title "cleaned up". In an attempt to obscure some of the potentially offensive lyrics, they put an extra vocal part on top of the "keep your pussy clean" line and added some noise over the "get John Wayne before he dies" line. Did they do anything with the Ali McGraw line? I guess not, it sounds pretty clear to me.

Eight years later, the lyrics were still a problem. In England in 1981, Omnibus Press/EMI Music Publishing put out a nice hardcover book called "Rolling Stones Complete", which included sheet music and lyric pages for "180 Stones songs". Take a look at this lyric page for "Star Star". And no mention of Ali McGraw! (No John Wayne, either!) (Click image to enlarge)

There are plenty of good live versions of "Star Star", and I always liked that alternate line that Mick often sings - "Jimmy Page / was quite a rage / I cannot see the reason why". Are there any other alternate live name-dropping lyrics?

So here is the "cleaned up" version, not available on CD, sourced from a vinyl US copy of GOATS HEAD SOUP:

STAR STAR (US VINYL)