[2]In 1981, with the band looking to tour, engineer Chris Kimsey proposed to lead singer Mick Jagger that archived songs could comprise the set.

While searching through the vaults, Kimsey found the two takes of the song with a more rock vibe among some fifty reggae versions.

[1]The "thump" to the song was achieved using mixer Bob Clearmountain's "bathroom reverb", a process involving the recording of some of the song's vocal and drum tracks with a miked speaker in the bathroom of the Power Station recording studio in New York City.

It is this, coupled with Charlie Watts' steady backbeat and Bill Wyman's echoing bass, that comprises most of the song.

Lead guitarist Ronnie Wood can clearly be heard playing a layered variation of Richards' main riff (often live versions of the song are lengthened by giving Wood a solo near the middle of the song, pieces of which can be heard throughout the original recording).

Throughout the song Jagger breaks in with a repeated bridge of "You make a grown man cry", followed by various pronouncements of sexual innuendo with automobile terminology.

Percussion (cowbell and guiro) by Mike Carabello and handclaps by Jagger, Chris Kimsey and Barry Sage were added during overdub sessions in April and June 1981.

"[3] Record World said that the song is highlighted by "biting, raunchy guitars and a rhythm kick that spanks hard.

In the US, "Start Me Up" spent three weeks at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in October and November 1981, only behind Christopher Cross' "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)"[6], becoming the Stones' biggest hit of the 1980s in the United States.

[37] In 2012, a remixed version of the song was used as the soundtrack to an Omega advertising campaign for their role as official timekeepers of the 2012 Summer Olympics.