"Wild Horses" is a song written by the British rock band the Rolling Stones. It was first released in 1970 by The Flying Burrito Brothers as the Stones didn't think the demo was worth recording fully. It was subsequently recorded by the Stones for their 1971 album Sticky Fingers when they felt it was worth reconsideration. It was also released on 12 June 1971 as a single, with "Sway" as its B-side. Rolling Stone ranked the song number 334 in its "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" list in 2004 and number 193 in its 2021 update. Inspiration and recording In the liner notes to the 1993 Rolling Stones compilation album Jump Back, Jagger states, "I remember we sat around originally doing this with Gram Parsons, and I think his version came out slightly before ours. Everyone always says this was written about Marianne but I don't think it was; that was all well over by then. But I was definitely very inside this piece emotionally." Richards says, "If there is a classic way of Mick and me working together this is it. I had the riff and chorus line, Mick got stuck into the verses. Just like "Satisfaction", "Wild Horses" was about the usual thing of not wanting to be on the road, being a million miles from where you want to be." Originally recorded over a three-day period at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama during 2–4 December 1969 while Albert and David Maysles were shooting for the film that was titled Gimme Shelter, the song was not released until over a year later due to legal wranglings with the band's former label. Along with "Brown Sugar", it is one of the two Rolling Stones compositions from Sticky Fingers (1971) over which ABKCO Records co-owns the rights along with the Stones. It features session player Jim Dickinson on piano, Richards on electric guitar and 12-string acoustic guitar, and Mick Taylor on acoustic guitar. Taylor uses Nashville tuning, in which the EADG strings of the acoustic guitar are strung one octave higher than in standard tuning. Ian Stewart was present at the session, but refused to perform the piano part on the track due to the prevalence of minor chords, which he disliked playing. Music video A music video, filmed in black and white, was produced to promote an acoustic version in 1995. Release and legacy Released as the