In Another Land

Infobox Single
Name = In Another Land


Artist = Bill Wyman
from Album =
Their Satanic Majesties Request
B-side = "The Lantern"
(by the Rolling Stones)
Released = 2 December 1967
Format = 7"
Recorded = July 13, 1967
Genre = Psychedelic rock
Length = 2:48
Label = London 45.907
Writer = Bill Wyman
Producer = Bill Wyman
Chart position = * #87 (US)
Last single =
This single = "In Another Land"
(1967)
Next single = "(Si, Si) Je Suis Un Rock Star"
(1981)
Misc = Extra chronology 2
Artist = The Rolling Stones
Type = singles
Last single = "We Love You / Dandelion"
(1967)
This single = "In Another Land / The Lantern"
(1967)
Next single = "She's a Rainbow / 2000 Light Years from Home"
(1967)"In Another Land" is a song by the English rock and roll band The Rolling Stones, featured on their 1967 album "Their Satanic Majesties Request".

Written by bassist Bill Wyman, "In Another Land" is the only Rolling Stones song to feature Wyman on lead vocals, and one of only two Rolling Stones songs to be written by him (the other being "Downtown Suzie"). Released as a Bill Wyman single in December 1967 with the Stones' "The Lantern" as the B-side, the song peaked at #87 on the U.S. charts.

Background

"In Another Land" was recorded on a night when Wyman had shown up to the studio and found that the session had been canceled. Feeling frustrated that he had potentially wasted time in driving to the studio, engineer Glyn Johns asked him if he had anything that he'd like to record. "...I'd been messing with this song. It was a bit... what I thought was kind of spacy, you know... a bit kind of "Satanic Majesties"-like. And psychedelic in a way."cite web| last =| first =| title = In Another Land| work =| publisher = timeisonourside.com | url = http://timeisonourside.com/SOInAnother.html| accessdate = 2006-10-07]

Lyrically, Wyman stated that "The idea for the song is about this guy who wakes up from a dream and finds himself in another dream." The song describes events that transpire in a dreamlike state:

cquote|"We walked across the sand""And the sea and the sky and the castles were blue""I stood and held your hand""And the spray flew high and the feathers floated by""I stood and held your hand"

Johns showed the song to singer Mick Jagger, and guitarists Keith Richards and Brian Jones who all liked it and decided to include it on the record.

The musicians on the song are Wyman on lead vocals and bass, Small Faces vocalist Steve Marriott on acoustic guitar and backing vocals, Ronnie Lane of the Small Faces on backing vocals, Nicky Hopkins on harpsichord and piano, Charlie Watts on drums, Jones on Mellotron, with Jagger and Richards adding backing vocals at a later stage of the recording. At the conclusion of the track as heard on the album, Wyman himself can be heard snoring. He was unaware this had been tagged onto his song until he first played the completed album. He learned later that one night when he had fallen asleep in the studio, Jagger and Richards miked him up and recorded him snoring, and stuck it onto his track as a joke. This does not appear on the single.

References