Hear the Rolling Stones, Stevie Wonder, and Lady Gaga Summon ‘Sweet Sounds of Heaven’

The Rolling Stones summon a gospel vibe with a little help from Stevie Wonder and Lady Gaga on the latest single from their upcoming album, Hackney Diamonds, on “Sweet Sounds of Heaven.” The album comes out Oct. 20.

“I hear the sweet, sweet sounds of Heaven, fallin’ down, fallin’ down to this earth,” Mick Jagger sings in the first verse. Gaga joins him in the second verse, as Wonder plays piano, Fender Rhodes, and Moog bass with the band. The song’s horn line builds off of Wonder’s bass line on the song, which ebbs and flows for around seven minutes to create a free-flowing soul journey.

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The band and Wonder explained how the song came together in a recent Rolling Stone article. Producer Andrew Watt, who has a tattoo of Wonder on his finger, suggested bringing the singer-songwriter into the session. Wonder previously toured with the Stones in 1972. “How cool, as a fan, for Stevie Wonder to be playing on a Rolling Stones song?” Watt said.

“I felt that the song needed a place of celebration, a celebration of the spirit of the rhythms and the spirit of just everybody coming together for that event,” Wonder said, acknowledging that the song reminded him of the Stones’ late drummer, Charlie Watts. “It’s not saying, ‘Goodbye,’ to me, it’s saying, ‘Hello.'”

“It just was so moving to be in the studio with Stevie,” Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood said. “Watching Stevie play his array of keyboards: a little bit of synthesizer, a little bit of Moog here, and a bit of clavinet there, and a grand piano here, and the lovely moods that he invoked. It was lots of great inspiration in the whole band.”

“To get Stevie to play it with all those gospel chords, it makes it come alive and takes it to another level,” Jagger said. “And you feel, ‘Oh, wow.'”

Gaga, who previously joined the band on its 50 & Counting tour in 2012, was recording in an adjacent studio and asked Jagger if she could come by and say hello. Watt, the producer, let her in and she found Jagger singing, so, in his words, she “just curled up in a ball in front of me on the floor.” She started singing off the cuff, and the band liked what they heard so they did another session, the one on the Hackney Diamonds recording, to get the song right. “It just showed me how versatile she is,” Wonder said. “It was great to hear her sing [with] sort of a soulful feeling.”

In addition to Gaga and Wonder, the album includes appearances by a number of notable guests including Paul McCartney, Elton John, and former Stones member Bill Wyman. The latter added a bass line to a recording that featured Watts on drums, effectively reuniting the Some Girls lineup of the band.

The band previewed the album with its lead track, “Angry.” The music video featured actress Sydney Sweeney rocking out to the song in the back of a convertible driving down the Sunset Strip as billboards of the Stones sang the song. “This is the biggest thing ever,” Sweeney said about making the video.

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