Tattoo You
The Rolling Stones
- First released
- 18 August 1981
- Tracks on this edition
- 11
- Running time
- 42:58
The cover
Tattoo You puts painted designs over portraits of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. IORR’s cover history records Christian Piper’s paintings and Peter Corriston’s art direction, while preserving conflicting accounts of the photographs and concept.
The Recording Academy records Corriston’s package award for Tattoo You in 1982.
Paintings: Christian Piper (IORR archive account); Art direction: Peter Corriston (IORR archive account)
Image via Cover Art Archive / MusicBrainz source release
Artwork source and selected track edition are identified separately.
What critics said
Andy Cush’s 2019 Pitchfork retrospective hears “Start Me Up” as both a formidable rocker and a step towards the Stones’ stadium future. His greater enthusiasm goes to Tattoo You’s second side, where softer rhythms, airy guitars and Jagger’s falsetto turn the ballads into a sustained, intimate sequence.
Tracklist
US edition · 18 August 1981
Select a song for details
- A1Start Me Up3:33
- A2Hang Fire2:21
- A3Slave4:58
- A4Little T & A3:24
- A5Black Limousine3:34
- A6Neighbours3:34
- B1Worried About You5:18
- B2Tops3:48
- B3Heaven4:23
- B4No Use in Crying3:29
- B5Waiting on a Friend4:35
Sources & coverage
About these numbers
Concert figures describe 2,181 distinct archive record IDs from 1962-07-12 to 2024-07-21. Separate same-day record IDs remain separate; they have not all been reviewed as unique performed concerts.
1,506 records have stored song entries; 675 do not. Complete-setlist coverage is not established. Missing entries do not establish that a song was not played.
Song observations count distinct record IDs with a matching title after playback entries are excluded. These are documented appearances, not verified full-song performances. Tour groupings can include warm-up dates.
- MusicBrainz — album identities, editions and track programmes
The catalogue import contains core metadata only. Cover artwork and critical responses have separate sources in the sections above. Annotations, genre associations and database ratings remain excluded.
MusicBrainz data licence - setlist.fm — concert history and setlists
Concert dates, venues and setlists from the editor-supplied archive. Every concert page credits setlist.fm and links to its original record. Song observations are calculated by Glimmer Wire from those entries, with playback excluded.
Snapshot: 2026-10-03T21:42:51Z. Original database supplied and factually approved by the editor; normalized and calculated by Glimmer Wire. Counts can change when records or identities are corrected.
Calculation record
Concert records: distinct concert.setlist_id. Country groups: concert.country_code. Stored entries: records with non-playback setlist_song rows. Song appearances: distinct concert_song.setlist_id matched to setlist_song by record ID, position and exact raw title, excluding tape = 1. This does not use a complete-setlist percentage denominator.
Snapshot SHA-256: 7e86a3e2d0670574fd1e8bf42cd9e4dc99d3325db8db1b471707805387b00e5a
Explore the sources behind the numbers.