The Story Behind Keith Richards' "Gambling" Solo Song, "Something for Nothing"

The Story Behind Keith Richards’ “Gambling” Solo Song, “Something for Nothing”

Posted by Admin December 26, 2024 Gambling

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Shortly after the Rolling Stones wrapped up their Bigger Bang Tour in 2007, Keith Richards went into a brief musical dormancy, working on his 2010 memoir Life, some 50th anniversary shows with the Stones in 2012, and enjoying family life and being a grandfather. A few years later, Stones drummer and longtime Richards collaborator Steve Jordan started pushing Richards to return somewhere he hadn’t been for more than a decade, the studio.

“I thought, that’s the craziest thing I ever heard,” said Jordan, who has worked with Richards since the mid-’80s with his side project X-pensive Winos. “He felt comfortable with where he was and what he had done and what he had achieved. But knowing Keith, to not have him pick up an instrument and play, it was weird. When you’re a musician, you don’t retire. You play up until you can’t breathe.”

Backed by Jordan, Richards started working on his first solo abum in 23 years, Crosseyed Heart, his third offering since Main Offender in 1992 and his ’88 debut Talk is Cheap. “I realized I hadn’t been in the studio since 2004 with the Stones,” said Richards. “I thought: ‘This is a bit strange. Something in my life is missing.’”

A “Gambling” Song

Along with “Illusion,” a collaboration with Norah Jones, and a cover of Lead Belly’s 1933 standard “Goodnight, Irene,” the 15-track album features songs written by Richards and Jordan, including “Something for Nothing,” a track Richards says was the first one recorded and the last to get finished.

“For some reason, Steve and I were just like, ‘Well, what’s it about?’ Finally I got it in the last few days … ‘It’s got to be about gambling, something for nothing,’” explained Richards in a video interview. “Then it became easy. So we piled that in.”

You can shuffle the deck until you’re a wreck … It’s just a roll of the dice that you put on ice sings Richards imparting the dicey encounters of a gambler. Framed around gambling, “Something for Nothing” also illlustrates some of the risks in life, and where the cards end up land—Gimme a break, I’m losing my stake.

We can figure the odds
We can pray to the gods
Something for nothing
You can shuffle the deck until you’re a wreck
Something for nothing
Money they don’t make anymore, at least not around me
Might as well beg from the poor, pitiful me, pitiful me yeah

This is the game, the rules never change
Something for nothing
It’s just a roll of the dice that you put on ice
Something for nothing
Money, they don’t make anymore, not around me
Might as well beg from the poor, poor poor pitiful me
Pitiful me, yeah, poor pitiful me

Gimme a break, I’m losing my stake
Something for nothing
Oh, leave me alone, I strip to the bone
Something for nothing
Money, they don’t make anymore, not around me

“Songs come in different ways,” said Richards. “There is no formula. If there was, it would be easy, right? But songs are something you that are around you, and you grab them.”

Photo: Keith Richards at Racket NYC on October 19, 2023. (Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for RS)