Rolling Stones fronter Mick Jagger says that the Sticky Fingers cut "Moonlight Mile" almost didn't make the record.

Speaking with the Wall Street Journal, Mick says he wrote the lyrics months before it was recorded, prompting the band to record it on the fly.

"What makes 'Moonlight Mile' special is that it's a song and a recording at once," observed Jagger.

"All these things--the strange plinking piano, the tom-tommy mallets on the drums, the different guitars--they all came together to produce a feeling of vulnerability and loneliness, you know what I mean? I think the three of us finished recording the basic track around 6 a.m. The sun was coming up."

Jagger also dished on the meaning behind the lyrics.

"I wrote some of the early lyrics in a songbook I carried around when we were on tour in the summer of 1970.

I was growing road-weary and homesick then. I'm sure the idea for the song first came to me one night while we were on a train and the moon was out."