No. 969 – Paint It, Black

Performer: The Rolling Stones

Songwriters: Mick Jagger, Keith Richards

Original Release: Aftermath

Year: 1966

Definitive Version: None

IN the early days of MTV, there was a trifecta of ’60s tunes that featured “stories” that involved riding roller coasters: Fire by Hendrix, Livin’ in the USA by Steve Miller and this song. So naturally I think of amusement parks when I hear this song.

I was a big roller-coaster aficionado back in the day. Growing up in Columbus meant that you had equal access to King’s Island, near Cincinnati, and Cedar Point, on Lake Erie. I liked Cedar Point better, but my best roller-coaster story took place at King’s Island in April 1979.

King’s Island, not two weeks before, opened The Beast, which at that time was the tallest, fastest, longest, baddest ride in the world. So when my Dad proposed taking the family to King’s Island, I brought my buddy Jim with an eye on one thing: Ride The Beast.

We did, twice, but that was pretty much all we did that day. The line to ride The Beast was—and I’m not making this up—3 hours long. It wound through an incredible number of carousels, and King’s Island had markers that told the tale: “2 hours from this point,” “1 hour from this point” and so on. But when you’re 14, what else are you going to do, ride the merry-go-round?

To make matters worse, King’s Island played top 40, which meant Disco, the entire time we were in line. Actually, the song I hear the most when I think of the line, because we must have heard it played a thousand times, was Knock on Wood, but Paint It, Black is a much better song, wouldn’t you say? Oh well. It could have been worse: It could have been raining. The ride itself? It was fantastic, of course, although I’d be hard-pressed to say it was worth 3 hours’ wait twice.

To commemorate our successful jaunt, Jim and I bought baseball caps that had The Beast logo (unchained claws ready to tear up a roller-coaster track) on the crest, and the next thing we know, we’re being interviewed by a Columbus TV Show (PM Columbus?) that was doing a story on The Beast. I can’t remember the name of the guy, but his schtick was a goofy bowtie (a la Gene Shalit), which he had on that day. We even made the cut, so that was pretty cool.

Fortunately, no video showing my pimply 14-year-old face exists on YouTube.