“Time can tear down a building or destroy a woman’s face
Hours are like diamonds, don’t let them waste
Time waits for no one, no favours has he
Time waits for no one, and he won’t wait for me”

— Time Waits for No One - Rolling Stones 1974

In the late 80's I wrote a song called 'It's Raining Again'. I used to play it loudly in my rented flat on Montpelier Road, Brighton. It was shit. The only good thing about the song was in the instrumental break where I grafted a sausage fingered version of Mick Taylor’s solo from Time Waits for No One.

Ah, Time Waits for No One. This is the Stones, timeless, standing out of time, looking back at us and beckoning us mere mortals forward. Yes, this is the best track Mick Taylor and the Stones ever recorded. So beautiful. So wistful. And that solo at the end! It was Mick Taylor’s swan song with the band, at once both a calling card and an elongated - but elegant - adieu.

The song’s brilliance however comes from all the players in the group - it’s not just an excuse for Taylor to let rip. That’s the beauty of MT’s time in the Stones, he took them to another level but, without him, the starting point was pretty damn high anyway.

So, credits? Jagger's thoughtful lyrics echo Chaucer (time and tide wait for no man) as the singer muses about the transitory nature of life. Keef's adds the recurring spine tingling riff. Wyman, Watts, the ever ready, ever steady back line, all present and correct. Nicky Hopkins adds his characteristically dramatic piano flourishes whereas Ray Cooper contributes the pervasive metronomic backing that tick-tocks the track into immortality.

And then Mick Taylor solos like a bastard for two / three full minutes of magic. He employs Latin influenced runs up and down the fretboard (influenced by a recent trip down the Amazon). Like all the best Mick Taylor solos, this one is fluid and melodic and probably pretty spontaneous. You get the impression that if he were to play it again, do another a take, he’d do it in a completely different - but equally good - fashion.

Each crescendo on the guitar, proceeded by the supporting buttresses of melodic scales, is a highlight. As Mick works his way up the fretboard (though delightfully at one point he reverses) he carries the listener effortlessly to the stars. I believe many die-hard Stones fans request this track to be played at their funeral. It certainly has an ethereal beauty, at once balancing the beauty of life, music, art, nature, love with the fragility of those very qualities.

Listen below if you’ve never heard this track. The Stones could have gone this way. Mick Taylor though was not destined to be with them for long. In Time Waits for No One he’s playing his own exit music and damn fine it is too.

Want to know more? The five greatest Mick Taylor Stones studio recordings?