Not all stand out Stones covers have to come from already big bands trying to fill the biggest of shoes. Miss Amanda Jones from Between the Buttons is a bit of a deep cut.
That album got a little latter day limelight shone it’s way around a turn of the millennium when Wes Anderson used it as a key plot device in The Royal Tenenbaums.
* Footnote for the Nerdz!: Gwyneth Paltrow’s character Margot plays She Smiled Sweetly on a record player during the movie, it is followed by Ruby Tuesday as the scene unfolds. That is not the sequence the songs go on the record* Neeeerdz!
Besides being one of The Stones most definitive records (their popular beat tipping point into psychedelic) BTB features an all killer no filler approach. There’s not a bad song on Between The Buttons but hardly a major hit either (Ruby Tuesday aside, and that’s only on the American release)
Miss Amanda Jones comes right near the end of side two on the original album. It’s a rollicking number that really kicks out some preserve.
So who were The March Violets? They were a bit of an 80’s scene band with Goth leanings. They had a new wave style and sound and hailed from Leeds in the UK. In their early days they cross paths with Andrew Eldritch of The Sisters Of Mercy. Their high water mark as far as profile goes is getting their cover of this song onto the sound track album for 80’s teen romance Some Kind Of Wonderful.
But you know Goths right? They love the detail. For this The March Violets (And strangely Some Kind Of Wonderful itself) are remembered fondly in the corsets and kohl heavy circles of Gothic England.
It’s a sort of tight synthetic cover. The smooth female vocal takes Mick’s words and turns them into something you’d have seen on Top Of The Pops for just one week some time between Strawberry Switchblade and We’ve Got A Fuzzbox And We’re Gonna Use It (look ’em up, you’ll thank me).
Some how this has stuck with me all these years. I think it’s the 80’s Keytar-esque guitar solo and boppy nature. These Children Of The Night own this version with an abandon and a plasticity we wont see again.
“Round and round she goes the world of Amanda Jones I said round and round and round and round the balls and the dinners and shows, the little girl she just wanders about ’til it’s time for her coming out, miss Amanda Jones”
Steve For The Deaf 
Well, I have goth leanings, so I do know the March Violets from Some Kind of Wonderful,one of my favourite films from the era. Great write-up!
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We all have Goth leanings at 🖤
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