You know how Keith Richards got the cool guitar sound that famously opens this song? Let's look at his own quote:
"I used a Gibson Hummingbird acoustic tuned to open D, six string. ... there was a capo on it, to get that really tight sound. And there was another [acoustic] guitar over the top of that, but tuned to Nashville tuning. ... Both acoustics were put through a Philips cassette recorder. Just jam the mic right in the guitar and play it back through an extension speaker."
Not only was musical recording analog back then, but all attempts at experimentation had a charming stone age element to them as well. These primitive rock musicians were as slapdash with their recording techniques as Pollock was with paint, because careful consideration was antiseptic. Think of all the recording studios these days, setting up rooms with the delicacy of tea parties. And that is why no band today in any way approximates the danger of peak Stones.
The song itself is pure rock, with a whale of a main riff. The choruses feature a technique I believe the Stones pioneered in many songs, something the hair rock bands of the '80s tried to weaponize into an MTV-era assault of peer pressure. Let me explain the method: There is a powerful effect of tracking multiple singers into a song, especially a big chorus. It creates this strange feeling, like all these people are having so much fun singing these long, fun notes - you should like this song along with them and have fun too. It's all positive, right?
The '80s hair rockers knew their teen audience had a deep, dark need for belonging and self worth. They rode in providing a coked-up confidence to fill that void, lacing all their songs with raucous choruses where many, many voices joined in together - not in harmony, in unison. It was a sly maneuver to get the teens of America to buy into the hipness of the product, and by god it worked. (Subsequent grunge chorus vocals, by contrast, tended to feature a single singer wailing alone to the heavens, which appealed to a very different psychology.)
The technique as it appears in "Jumping' Jack Flash" is actually very modest in comparison to later evolutions. Again, the song is wonderfully slapdash, leaving later generations to put on the rubber gloves and get scientific about cloning the magic.
My best memory of this song is its appearance on the closing credits of the film version of Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas. It's such a release, this driving song, so ultimately cool and confident, as these goons drive off into the desert, having gotten away with the madness of their experiment in the American Dream.
The meaning of the song itself? It's about Keith Richards's gardener. That's it.
There is an old SNL skit from back in the day, where Mike Meyers plays Mick Jagger, Mick Jagger plays Keith Richards, and they briefly debate Ice-T's "Cop Killer." In the end, they inadvertently start writing a new song together. The song is utter nonsense but seems to be developing into something quite catchy nonetheless.
Here's a clip featuring that moment: https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-li…/video/update/2868139…
This is exactly the way "Jumpin' Jack Flash" was written. How ultimately slapdash.