The band, The Rolling Stones, has never been known for its modesty. Enough years ago to see one's offspring transform from infant to college baccalaureate the band declared itself "The World's Greatest Rock 'n Roll Band." There's nothing wrong with self-promotion, per se, but hyperbole regarding one's self is just outre'. But the Stones (I'll just use the plural for simplicity's sake) have never been known for good taste. Mick Jagger and his associates have made a career of pushing what they perceived to be the envelope. Songs about premarital sex, shagging one's friend's wife, allusions to drug use and a constant reaching for eternal teen-ager-hood have been their staple fare. Their style has been a rook's nest from blues, real rock 'n roll, Beatles inspired material, country-western and anything else they could lay their mitts on. They've portrayed themselves the bad boy Cockneys of rock despite the fact that Mr. Jagger grew up quite middle class, as did Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman (now no longer with the band) and Brian Jones (now dead).
Needless to say, your faithful correspondent has never been a big Rolling Stones fan. They always seemed a bit too posed, a bit too self-manufactured for my taste. They weren't real rock 'n roll, they weren't real blues. They just didn't seem real. But I must be wrong because so many of my generation fell, have fallen and are still falling for their stuff. And they, the Stones, seem to never have grown. They sing of a fantasy life that is stuck between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five. What originality they have had is the same as that as shown by Dan Brown in his novels The DaVinci Code and Angels and Demons; other people have done the grunt work and they put the beads on a not very strong string.
This week, I think, it was announced that the Rolling Stones will go on yet another tour. That means that it is time for numerous middle aged men and women will pull their Rolling Stones tour t-shirts and try to stretch them once again over expanding bellies and waistlines, pay out exorbitant prices for tickets and try to score some boo from their kids' friends in order to get that "Sixties Feeling" again while standing cheek by jowl in a stadium watching a group of men ranging from the sixties to the late fifties acting like, and playing songs about being, teenagers.
Mick Jagger, it must be admitted, is surprisingly spry for a man of his age. And Keith Richard seems to reflect the life preserving properties of heroin addiction. But it is just all too much. They are, in reality, old men playing teenagers' music that is thirty years old to a bunch of other old or middle aged men and women with fond memories of flat bellies and firm breasts. The music the Stones have produced has not been particularly sophisticated, touching, melodic, original or complicated. They are almost like extended commercial jingles that bounce off the inside of one's skull like the old Alka-Seltzer jingle, "Plop plop fizz fizz. Oh what a relief it is." It is almost embarrassing for your's to hear that the Stones will tour yet once again. It would be like seeing Bridgitte Bardot (as lovely as she is, she's in her seventies) show up at Cannes wearing high heels and a string bikini as if she were the nubile young thing she was in "And God Created Woman." Mme. Bardot has grown up and grown, as have Eric Clapton, Rod Stewart (imagine that!) and Roger Daltry, and as did Sinatra (although Sinatra hung on for ten years too long), Clooney, Como and Bennett. Seeing the Stones tour once again is almost as painful as it was to see Johnny Ray sing "Cry" near the end of his life.
The Stones have been in the habit of naming their tours. And modern music touring usually involves a corporate sponsor such as Coca Cola. I suggest that this tour be called the Viagra Tour to reflect the reality of the needs of the band and their fan base, and that the sponsor be named as Depends. The moment's coming.
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