The 1970s File Feature
Out Of Time
Out of Time: The Rolling Stones' Resurgent 1975 Chart Entry "Out of Time" presents an unusual case in the Rolling Stones' commercial history, a song that was…
01 The Story
Out of Time: The Rolling Stones' Resurgent 1975 Chart Entry
"Out of Time" presents an unusual case in the Rolling Stones' commercial history, a song that was recorded in 1966 during the extraordinarily productive sessions that produced the Aftermath album, but which found its most notable Billboard success in 1975 when it was included on the Metamorphosis compilation, released through ABKCO Records. This release on ABKCO reflected the complicated ownership history of the Rolling Stones' early catalog, which had been acquired by Allen Klein's company through a deal that the Stones themselves later contested bitterly in legal proceedings. The song's chart life was therefore tied to both its artistic origins in the mid-1960s and the commercial and legal circumstances of the mid-1970s.
The original recording of "Out of Time" was made during the Aftermath sessions of late 1965 and early 1966, produced by Andrew Loog Oldham, the Stones' original manager and producer, who had been a significant force in shaping their public image and sound during the first years of their career. The Aftermath album itself was a landmark in the band's development, being the first Stones album to consist entirely of original compositions by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, marking a decisive turn away from the covers and blues standards that had characterized their early releases. "Out of Time" was among the tracks on the British version of the album, though configurations differed between the UK and US editions.
The song was also famously covered by Chris Farlowe, whose version, produced by Mick Jagger, reached number one on the UK Singles Chart in 1966, while the Stones' own recording circulated more quietly at the time. This arrangement, in which Jagger produced a hit for another artist using Stones material, reflected the business practices and creative interconnections of the mid-1960s British music scene, in which songwriting, producing, and performing were more fluidly distributed than they sometimes appeared from the outside. The Farlowe version's success also demonstrated the strength of the underlying composition, which could carry significant commercial weight independently of the Stones' performance.
When ABKCO compiled Metamorphosis in 1975, the release drew on archival recordings from the Klein-owned portion of the Stones' catalog, presenting material that had either been previously unreleased or had appeared in different configurations. The commercial context of 1975 was notably different from 1966: the Stones were at the peak of their concert-drawing power following the enormous commercial and critical success of Exile on Main St. and subsequent tours, and any Stones release, however archival, could expect to find a substantial audience. The Metamorphosis album reached a reasonably strong chart position and "Out of Time" benefited from this renewed attention.
The Metamorphosis compilation reached number eight on the Billboard 200 in 1975, a strong performance for what was essentially a collection of outtakes and archival material. The album's commercial performance reflected the enormous sustained popularity of the Rolling Stones during the mid-1970s and the appetite of their fanbase for any additional insight into the band's history and creative process. For listeners encountering "Out of Time" for the first time through this compilation, the song offered a window into the Stones' 1966 sound at a moment when the band's output was very much in the public ear.
The London Records label history is also relevant to understanding the release context. The Stones' early recordings had been released through London Records in the United States, and the ABKCO control of these masters meant that their commercial exploitation in subsequent decades operated through different channels than the recordings made after the Stones established their own label structure. This complicated backstory has made the early Stones catalog a subject of ongoing legal and commercial interest.
The cultural footprint of "Out of Time" is therefore layered across different eras: its creation in the extraordinary creative environment of 1966 British rock, its simultaneous life as a number one hit in the hands of Chris Farlowe, and its resurgent commercial presence in 1975 through the Metamorphosis compilation. Each layer adds something to the song's historical significance, making it a more interesting document than its surface simplicity might suggest.
02 Song Meaning
The Themes Behind "Out of Time"
"Out of Time" is a song of dismissal and rejection, but of an unusual kind: the narrator is not the one being left but the one doing the leaving, addressing a former partner who has failed to keep pace with the narrator's emotional and social development. The song describes someone who once mattered but has now been superseded by changed circumstances, delivered not with cruelty but with a kind of impatient indifference that is in some ways harder than outright hostility. The narrator has moved on, and the subject of the song simply has not grasped this reality yet.
This lyrical stance reflects a more complex emotional position than simple romantic rejection. The narrator is not heartbroken or angry; the dominant tone is one of weary superiority, a sense that the relationship's end was inevitable given the divergence in the two parties' trajectories. Mick Jagger's lyrical approach in the mid-1960s frequently explored the power dynamics of relationships with this kind of detachment, presenting the Rolling Stones as figures who had transcended the ordinary emotional vulnerabilities of pop music's usual romantic subject matter.
In the context of 1966 British pop, "Out of Time" participated in a broader cultural shift in which the innocence of early 1960s pop romance was giving way to something more complicated and psychologically sophisticated. The mid-1960s saw songwriters across the British Invasion beginning to explore darker, more ambiguous emotional territories, and the Stones were consistently at the forefront of this shift, with their catalog during this period representing some of the sharpest social and emotional observation in rock.
The musical setting reinforces the lyrical content through its combination of orchestral elements with the band's characteristic rock energy, a production approach that suggests the narrator's emotional complexity: neither purely tender nor purely aggressive, but occupying an intermediate space that suits the song's ambiguous emotional stance. Andrew Loog Oldham's production on the Aftermath recordings frequently used orchestration to add emotional dimension to songs that might have been thinner in a purely rock arrangement, and "Out of Time" benefits from this approach.
The song's 1975 rediscovery through Metamorphosis gave it a second cultural life in a very different context. Listeners encountering it in the mid-1970s brought different frameworks to the material, hearing it as a historical document of the Stones' early creative period rather than as a contemporary statement. This temporal displacement, the gap between the song's creation and its renewed commercial presence, adds another layer to its thematic resonance. The song is literally about being out of time, about someone who has not kept pace with change, and its own publication history enacts a version of that theme, appearing and reappearing across decades in ways that reflect the complicated relationship between artistic creation and commercial distribution.
→ More from The Rolling Stones
View all The Rolling Stones hits →
→ More from the 1970s File
View all 1970s hits →
Keep digging