Thinking the Unthinkable: Sympathy For Mick Jagger
Slate has published one of the best pieces of music writing I've stumbled across in years: A review of Rolling Stone Keith Richards' new memoir "found" by the great music journalist Bill Wyman (NOT the Stones' bassist!) and ascribed to Sir Mick Jagger. It's a great literary conceit but mostly it's an awesome meditation on one of the mega-fixtures in pop culture of the past 45 years, the Rolling Stones. Hate 'em or love 'em, the Stones are part of the landscape we drive through every day.
The piece actually manages to make the extremely unlikable Jagger, accused by Richards of having a small penis among many other failings genetic and cultural, sympathetic. But more than anything, it's a rich reflection on something that all real rock and roll fans feel in their bones but never see addressed in print: What explains the inarguable creative decline of so many bands and performers who have just totally sucked for two or three or even four times as long as they were ever great? Think of Elton John, or U2, or Bruce Springsteen, or Paul McCartney, or Neil Young, Metallica, Patti Smith, or whoever. Regardless of whether you ever liked them or not, it's clear that the trajectory of pop musicdom is a grim one, and typically featuring a quick ramp upwards and a long-lived decline that's essentially a vertical line straight down.
So I recommend this piece to folks who like the great art of literary impersonation, who care about rawk!, who are Mick Taylor enthusiasts, who want to read about heavy drug use and its effects on creativity (bad and good), or who are interested in discussions of money and music.
A snippet:
It is said of me that I act above the rest of the band and prefer the company of society swells. Would you rather have had a conversation with Warren Beatty, Andy Warhol, and Ahmet Ertegun … or Keith, his drug mule Tony, and the other surly nonverbal members of his merry junkie entourage? Keith actually seems not to understand why I would want my dressing room as far away as possible from that of someone who travels with a loaded gun. And for heaven's sake. No sooner did Keith kick heroin than Charlie took it up. In the book Keith blames me for not touring during the 1980s. I was quoted, unfortunately, saying words to the effect of "the Rolling Stones are a millstone around my neck." This hurt Keith's feelings. He thinks it was a canard flung from a fleeting position of advantage in my solo career, the failing of which he delights in. He's not appreciating the cause and effect. Can you imagine going on tour with an alcoholic, a junkie, and a crackhead? Millstone wasn't even the word. I spent much of the 1980s looking for a new career, and it didn't work. If I had it to do over again I would only try harder.
When I came back I resolved to do at least something well. Which brings us to money….
Hoo-larious update: Never understimate the gullibility of the press! Read the report at myfoxphilly.com titled "Jagger Response to Richards Leaked Online." I look forward to Allen Klein – the jollytologist, not the late criminal former manager of the Stones—weighing in.