Their Satanic Majesties Request album was the Stones’ trip down psychedelica.

Coming out about six month after the Beatles much lauded album Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Their Satanic Majesties Request naturally drew comparisons > mostly unfavourable > with the Beatles effort.

A rare writing credit > other than Jagger/Richards > went to bass player Bill Wyman for the song In Another Land, which was also released as a single.

The story goes that the song came about when Wyman, drummer Charlie Watts and session piano man Nicky Hopkins were the only ones to turn up to the recording studio that day. Recording engineer Glyn Johns asked if anyone had a song they could do and Wyman came up with Another Land, which he had been working on at home > and it went from there. Wyman even released it as a single.

In another land

Where the breeze and the trees

And flowers were blue

I stood and held your hand

And the grass grew high

And the feathers floated by

I stood and held your hand

And nobody else’s hand will ever do

Nobody else will do

> written by Bill Wyman

Have you seen her dressed in blue

See the sky in front of you

And her face is like a sail

Speck of white, so fair and pale

Have you seen a lady fairer

She comes in colors ev’rywhere

She combs her hair

She’s like a rainbow

Coming, colors in the air

Oh, everywhere

[ Sounds like a cosmic coming > lucky girl! ]

Sun turnin’ ’round with graceful motion

We’re setting off with soft explosion

Bound for a star with fiery oceans

It’s so very lonely, you’re a hundred light years from home

Energy here in every part

It’s so very lonely, you’re six hundred light years from home