Tragic New York Shooting Inspired Catchy Rolling Stones Classic

The Rolling Stones were never ones to shy away from a controversy. Or a song filled with non verbal vocal parts.

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Think "Paint It, Black". Think "Shattered". Think "Hang Fire".

All these classics find vocal lines that are "doos" and "Shidobees".

And there is the song that carries these cues in the title. "Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)".

As Billy Preston's Hohner Clavinet opens the song, the listener is keenly aware, this is not your typical "Jumpin Jack Flash" Stones rocker. This song is going somewhere. When Mick Taylor joins in on lead guitar, leaving Keith Richards to play bass, we are treated to a band stretching their legs.

Enter Mick Jagger.

The police in New York City
They chased a boy right through the park
And in a case of mistaken identity
They put a bullet through his heart

Well, that's not what we thought a song called "Heartbreaker" would be about. No one getting dumped or leaving someone for another lover.

Heartbreakers with your forty-four
I want to tear your world apart
You heart breaker with your forty-four
I want to tear your world apart

Wow, they mean someone who literally broke a heart with a bullet. Why are the Stones out for blood?

Clifford Glover.

Clifford Glover was, as the song says, a boy of ten years on April 28, 1973 when he was incorrectly identified as a robbery suspected and killed by a police officer. He was with his stepfather when two undercover officers stopped them as looking like the robbery suspects they were looking for, even though one of the suspects was alleged to have been a foot taller than Clifford. Fearing they were about to be robbed by the undercover officers, they ran.

Officer Thomas Shea would claim that he saw the boy pull a weapon and fired at him. Clifford was struck twice and died. Shea would say that the stepfather took the alleged weapon, thus it was never recovered.

Thomas Shea would go on to become the first New York City officer to be tried for a shooting while on duty. He would be acquitted by a jury.

Much like the people of the South Jamaica section of Queens, New York, this didn't sit well with the Rolling Stones. It was immortalized in rock n roll history in a deceptively catchy song 8 months later on a single from their Goat's Head Soup release.