Dear Doctor (song)

"Dear Doctor" is a song by English rock and roll band the Rolling Stones featured on their 1968 album Beggars Banquet.

Written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, "Dear Doctor" is a country song with blues inflections. It is a good example of the acoustic guitar-based compositions that has earned Beggars Banquet its reputation as the Rolling Stones' "return to form". Bill Janovitz says in his review of the song, "With all acoustic instruments — guitar, tack piano, 12-string, harmonica, tambourine, and upright bass — ...the band manages to sound authentically old-time and primitive, with Mick Jagger employing the fake-American hick accent that he would continue to mine in future blues and country numbers throughout the Stones' career."[1]

On the Rolling Stones' experiments with country, Jagger said in 2003, "The country songs, like 'Factory Girl' or 'Dear Doctor', on Beggars Banquet were really pastiche. There's a sense of humour in country music anyway, a way of looking at life in a humorous kind of way - and I think we were just acknowledging that element of the music."

The song tells the story of a young man discovering his fiancée has abandoned him on the day they are to be wed, to his relief:

I was tremblin', as I put on my jacket
 It had creases as sharp as a knife
I put the ring in my pocket, but there was a note
And my heart it jumped into my mouth

It read, "Darlin', I'm sorry to hurt you
But I have no courage to speak to your face
But I'm down in Virginia with your cousin Lou
There'll be no wedding today"

Janovitz concludes, "Jagger may be poking fun a little, but he could not nail the parlance of the characters so precisely if he had not studied it closely as a fan of the music... In a sense, they have been musicologists, interpreting musical forms that were in danger of dying out. The raw quality of 'Dear Doctor' and the rest of the album was a welcoming sound to the ears of most Stones fans losing patience with their experimentation on Their Satanic Majesties Request."[1]

"Dear Doctor" was recorded at London's Olympic Sound Studios between 13 and 21 May 1968. Despite its appearance on one of the Rolling Stones' more well-known albums, "Dear Doctor" has never been performed live by the band. It appears on the compilation album Slow Rollers.[2]