My Life as a Rolling Stone (2022) s01e01 Episode Script

Is it hard trying to live up
to this image that people have
of Mick Jagger?
No, because I don't try to.
But your own image,
Mick Jagger's image?
I don't believe in images.
It's only press and media that like
to have images because it's useful
to put people into categories.
Well, how do you see yourself, then?
Oh, that's the most difficult thing
of all.
I mean, that's what it takes
your whole life to find out.
This programme contains
some strong language
What most documentaries do
is just repeat the same thing
over and over that you've heard,
all the mythologies repeated
until it becomes true.
People want to put things in boxes,
and then it all becomes
this sort of cliche box.
And then the easiest thing
is just to keep repeating that.
So I guess we'll try,
when we're chatting,
to expand those boxes.
I think people
probably like that idea.
CHEERING
The Rolling Stones are the ultimate
rock and roll band.
It was just magic.
They created this magic,
and they've been doing it
for how long now?
A product of their times,
they've helped to define ours.
They have a chemistry together,
a creative inspiration
that is magic.
And Mick Jagger has been out front
for 60 years.
And he will sing and dance for us
to illustrate his early moves.
They look like Rolling Stones,
they act like Rolling Stones,
and they sound like Rolling Stones.
They set the benchmark for what
a rock band should sound like,
look like,
feel like.
If I start looking too mournful
and boring,
light me up a bit, yeah?
The Rolling Stones
recreated music, fashion.
It is a fact.
The supreme pop music brand,
they're a link
between the counterculture
of the 1960s
and the commercial modern world.
Across seven decades,
they've written the playbook
for modern rock and roll.
I got it.
And we'll try and keep it light.
So this is the story
of the key ingredients
of the special
Rolling Stones recipe.
Chemistry is something
that you can't buy.
That's the magic of a band.
Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood,
and the much-missed Charlie Watts.
We thought they were gods.
We really did.
And on vocals,
Sir Michael Philip Jagger,
better known as
Mick Jagger. Slate three.
Let's start with a cliche.
No! No cliches.
I thought we weren't doing
cliches today.
Mick Jagger's Mick Jagger.
He's the best frontman
in the business.
I mean, he'll get up there
and do his stuff
and lay it on you, and he means it.
What you see is what you get.
You know? I mean, there's loads
of facets and variations on him,
but he's really
a very honourable man, you know.
I mean, under all that crap.
HE LAUGHS
One of my big jobs
is to be a big show-off, really.
I mean, that's really what it is.
I suppose that's my job.
For two hours,
to make people feel good,
to bring people a joyous experience,
that they have a great evening.
And that's what I think my role is.
# And I saw her today
at the reception
# A glass of wine in her hand
# I knew she was gonna meet
her connection #
I always loved the idea
of being Mick,
one of the greatest front guy,
the greatest rock star of all time.
# Now, you can't always get
what you want #
And how incredible that would be.
# You can't always get
what you want. #
It's truly inspirational.
They are the pioneers.
They were the ones
writing the story.
# But if you try sometime
# You just might find
you get what you need. #
That's something that requires
attention to a lot of detail.
Mick Jagger does it incredibly well.
Mick's not going to let
anything go wrong
cos he's in control.
# I went down to
the demonstration #
And you just can rely on him.
# To get my fair share of abuse
# Singing, we're gonna vent
our temptation
# And if we don't,
we gonna blow a 50-amp fuse. #
Y'all sing it now.
He's more of a controller
and an organiser than he knows.
It's just what he is built to do.
He wants to see this ship sail.
You know?
# You can't always get
what you want. #
I'm not a control freak.
That is really
That must be really boring.
# You get what you need. #
Someone has to be in control
of an enterprise like this.
It's not only about music.
I'm representing the band
in a way to make sure
that they don't get fucked.
Mick Jagger has fronted
The Rolling Stones
for more than half a century.
I had several neighbours
in my little suburban community
who played guitar
and played together.
And I used to go to these kind of
..dances, I suppose they were,
and there'd be
rather greasy bands playing.
And I'd ask, could I come and
I was probably 15, 16.
"Can Ican I sing a song?"
And they were
Yeah, they were nice.
And they'd said,
"Yeah, go on, then."
# Well, you got me runnin', baby
# You got me hidin' too
# Tell me, tell me, baby
# What we gonna do #
And it used to go down quite well.
So, you know, I'd think,
"Yeah, I can do this.
"And people seem to like me."
I mean, I didn't have a band.
The Stones form in 1962,
and their first classic line-up
soon takes shape.
Mick Jagger, Keith Richards,
Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman,
and the band's founder, Brian Jones.
And this song, Honey What's Wrong,
is from their first-ever demo.
# Now, don't treat me, baby
# Like you used to do. #
A lot of stuff
with this Rolling Stones mythology
is it's, like, The Rolling Stones,
this blues band
And, you know, it started off
It's all true.
But really, The Rolling Stones
are a rock band.
It's all bullshit, the mythology.
Rock music was the thing.
We loved rock music
from the '50s.
Crackers like Sweet 16, Chuck Berry.
We were kids
and we were high energy.
What we were popular for was playing
this rock music.
That's what we did.
But you had to label yourself
as a blues band to get a gig.
We weren't really
ONLY just a blues band.
We're an everything band.
It takes the Stones just a few
months to blow up in the UK,
with a sound and image ready
for almost instant fame.
What's it like being a Stone
and having this 24 hours a day?
Well, it's something that you get
used to, especially
We've been doing it for, well,
the sort of screaming thing,
for about two years now.
And after two years of it,
it just becomes part of your life.
I remember talking to
Mick once and I said,
"What's it like to be famous?"
And he said, "You're not
really asking the right person
"because I've been famous
ever since I was 17."
From their very first UK number one
and its follow-up,
this cover of Willie Dixon's
Little Red Rooster,
the rise of the Stones is rapid,
part of a revolution in British pop
that takes place on screen.
# I am the little red rooster
# Too lazy to crow for day
# I am the little red rooster
# To lazy to crow for day. #
Television is hugely important.
Millions of people would watch
these shows.
When I was a teenager,
there was a couple of rock shows,
but you would never miss that show
cos it's the only rock show a week.
It is a fact -
the streets in this country
would be empty
on a Friday night
because everyone was watching
"Ready Steady Go!"
I could see how important this was.
Everyone's watching this.
# Hounds begin to howl. #
That's going to stand you out
from all the other people.
So you've got to learn
to work that medium.
You've got to figure out how
you're going to make an impression.
# If you see my little red rooster
# Please drive him home. #
I used to go to "Ready Steady Go!"
when we weren't even on.
I would work out
how the camera angles worked.
I would work out
what we were going to do.
# Ain't had no peace
in the farmyard
# Since my little red rooster's
been gone. #
And I practised my moves, you know,
at home, and I would be rehearsed.
But to really make it big
in the UK and in America,
the Stones need more songs,
hit songs,
and preferably written by them.
Andrew Oldham, who was our manager
at the time, said, you know,
"You've got to start writing songs
like The Beatles,
"because we can't
just keep doing cover songs."
We knew we had to be a pop band.
We wanted to write pop songs.
I mean, Andrew wasn't
particularly talented
in any direction.
Andrew was just Andrew,
and what Andrew did was saw
our possibilities.
It's songwriting that turns
the Stones into global superstars.
And the writers of the hits
are Keith and Mick, not Brian.
Good. Let me get up here
and say hi to Brian.
Brian is one of the writers
of most of the things, right?
No, I'm not, actually.
Well, I'm not really a writer.
He was very musical, so he was
He could pick up
different instruments
and he was quite innovative.
A lot of his contributions
were perhaps not from melodies
or lyrics or anything,
but from licks that he played
as a musician.
Mick and Keith write
moremany of our
These are the two that are supposed
to be all the writing talent.
You fellows get together
and do most of the writing, right?
Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
I mean, yeah, he liked
to tell people it was his band,
but we was always like, "Really?
"Really, it's your band?"
We thought it was OUR band.
The future as a Rolling Stone
is very uncertain.
It's Jagger and Richards
who will soon give their friends,
Lennon and McCartney,
a run for their money.
If you listen to all
the popular songs ten years ago,
very few of them
actually mean anything
or have any relation
to what people are doing.
They don't Songs didn't have
any relation to what people actually
spend their lives doing,
like getting up, washing,
going to work, coming back
and feeling very screwed up
about certain things.
Life for the working guy
never changed.
You still live
in a council house.
You still had to pay your rent.
And then you hear
"dam-dam, da-da-da."
All right!
MUSIC: Satisfaction
by The Rolling Stones plays
I remember the first time
I heard it,
and I just went,
"What the hell is that?"
# I can't get no
# Satisfaction
# I can't get no
# Satisfaction
# And I try, and I try
# And I try, and I try
# I can't get no
# I can't get no #
There's this pool,
and there's this motel
in Clearwater, Florida.
And I remember sitting with Keith
and writing the song Satisfaction.
Andrew Oldham said,
"This is like a number one single,
"This is great."
Keith was like,
"I don't really like it.
"It can't come out as a single."
And it went to number one,
like, instantly.
# Oh, no, no
# Hey, hey, hey. #
It was like a big moment.
You know, it became
your signature tune,
your cri de coeur,
your sexuality, your controversy.
You need to have that song
that everyone remembers.
# I can't get no
# Satisfaction
# And I try #
It turned everybody on.
It was just a brilliant song.
Those boys were building
a new road to the future.
It makes a huge change,
and it also brings you
into a much more confident era
of writing, production,
all that stuff.
Wait a minute.
There's at least 15
huge hit songs here.
Paint It Black, Ruby Tuesday,
Get Off My Cloud, Under My Thumb
Christ.
Most bands would be happy
to get one of those.
# I can't get no
# I can't get no #
All right.
Behind it is this sort of cynicism
and reality of all the blues things
that I'd been listening to
since I was very young,
very, very young.
And there's a way of speaking
and a way of talking about life
and a way of being sexually
roundabout but sexually
kind of provocative.
Mick is sexy.
And he knew he was sexy,
confident,
and he was so cool.
He's got those lips.
And for me, I love to kiss,
so I was a kisser.
You know what I mean?
I do remember meeting him.
I'm 15.
I was slightly wary,
and Mick went, "Hello, Lulu."
And I tried to string a few words
together,
and I believe I spoke to him.
I don't really know that I said
very much, or could even engage
properly in a conversation.
I was frightened.
I was afraid of him.
All that sexual image
that sort of oozed.
It was scary.
SHE LAUGHS
Exciting and scary.
For some reason,
Mick Jagger's got
this thing
where he can project
that wild animal
that's in all of us.
It's like, "Yeah, that's
That's who we are."
You celebrate the true nature
of the human being
when you look at Mick Jagger.
All right! CROWD: All right!
Well, all right! All right!
When it came to how to present
myself on stage and everything,
I really didn't know how to do that.
And when I sing this song, I want
everybody to raise your hands.
Everybody, raise your hand.
Come on.
Little Richard literally
taught me how to do this stuff.
He would say, "Oh, you've got
to get them involved.
"You've got to get them standing up.
"If they're not standing up,
tell them,
"you've got to tell them
to stand up, you know?"
Everybody say, "Well, all right!"
ALL: All right!
You know, and they would.
You!
You!
# You! #
When I was on stage,
you'd feel it very strongly
these people giving you this energy.
And you don't really understand,
you just feel it.
You don't understand really
what they're trying to say,
what they want, what they need
from you, what they need from life.
But you just feel that they need
something, and they're giving
..giving it to you.
He knows what he wants.
And you know when he knows,
cos he starts to respond
and he starts to sing and he starts
to move
And voom, voom, voom
And it starts.
Yeah, really enjoy life.
I've heard Keith saying
on more than one occasion
about what a great
performer Mick is.
"He could perform
on a coffee table."
He's really proud of his guy,
and he knows the responsibility
that Mick takes on.
It takes a lot of balls to stand up
and command an audience
of 100,000 people.
You're not the same person
on stage as you are
the rest of the time.
You have to be very, very,
very egotistical.
Cos that's I mean, you're acting,
you're doing an act for them.
It's not really you.
What do you set out to do
in your act?
Entertain people.
Most successful entertainers
have always been
the most egotistical ones.
All that ego is got rid of onstage.
What sort of person do you think
you are off the stage?
About half as egotistical.
HE VOCALISES
I think Mick Jagger
has this wonderful gift.
He can make
a huge stadium,
seem like a small room
and make everybody feel involved.
And that's the secret.
# Everywhere I hear the sound
# Of marching, changing feet, boy
# Cos summer's here
and the time is right #
They always find a way to make
even the biggest of the shows
as intimate as possible.
And, obviously, Mick Jagger
does it incredibly well.
# Except to sing
for a rock and roll band
# Cos in sleepy London town
# There's just no place
for a street fighting man. #
He works at it.
He works hard at it.
And he gets them hips going.
And he gets them legs going.
He's got his thing.
He dances his ass off.
It ain't the latest dance move
that everybody is trying to do.
No, it's HIS dance.
And he dances the shit
out of his dance.
# Compromise solution
# But what can a poor boy do
# Except to sing
for a rock and roll band
# Cos in sleepy London town
# There's just no place
for a street fighting man. #
And Mick is taught
by some of the all-time greats,
many of whom share a stage
with the Stones on tour.
He was watching me,
just watching every move,
this white-faced person
behind the speakers,
just watching me
while I was doing my thing.
Mick would always
come backstage
to the dressing room
and we would, like,
show him moves
and steps and things.
He was OK, but I didn't think
he was going to amount to anything.
Sorry, Mick!
SHE LAUGHS
# Except to sing
for a rock n' roll band
# Cos in sleepy London town
# There's just no place
for a street fighting man. #
Really, in rock music,
it's about personality
more than virtuosity.
It's not what's best
and it's not even what's good.
If you want good, go see a musical,
where they've all been trained
to sing.
I don't think people even think
that Mick has a beautiful voice.
It's just Mick Jagger.
I think he is
a great dancer
in the way that
he expresses himself.
It's like when you see a young child
learning how to dance,
but they do it with so much heart,
you can't help but embrace it.
SHE LAUGHS
The way that he dances,
it is total belief and freedom
of expression and individuality.
The transformation is complete.
This is Mick Jagger,
the charismatic frontman.
Here's Michael wearing
a pair of ordinary gym shoes,
which should you'd wear
when you were playing tennis.
And this is Mike Jagger,
just a few years earlier.
A swotty, sporty schoolboy
with academic ambitions
and his sights set on higher things.
I'm working hard at my schoolwork.
I'm quite academic.
I want to go to university,
so I can't just fuck about.
You spent, I think, two years
at the London School of Economics.
Yeah. So I've been trying to unlearn
everything I learnt ever since.
But I've, I think, almost succeeded.
Would you ever think
of going back there? No.
No, I don't think so.
I didn't like it there very much.
What didn't you like about
that sort of academic learning?
I wasn't given any freedom.
But Mick is about to discover
that freedom can have consequences
he can't always control.
He's on his way to Redlands,
the new country residence
of Mr Keith Richards.
"Dear Mick, do come to lovely party
in Redlands. Acid provided."
I don't think that was on the
invitation, but I can't remember.
Keith might remember
because he had to buy the acid.
He'd just got Redlands
and he'd done it up
and he wanted everyone to see, like,
as you do, you know what I mean?
As you do up a nice house
in the country and you want everyone
to come for a weekend.
It was quite a kind of
bohemian weekend, really.
We went for a nice walk.
# She comes in colours everywhere. #
And there was a lot of drugs there.
LSD, hash
We were just having fun.
And then the fuzz bust in, man.
When you're on acid, being busted,
it's very odd.
It's not fun being busted at all.
But being busted on acid
is really weird.
KEITH RICHARDS: They were breaking
in my house.
JOKINGLY: The police
were against you!
Unnecessary authority.
The establishment was against you!
I always felt that
they were picking on me.
Man, they're all against us.
They want to shut us down!
Of course, that only reinforced
my wariness of authority.
What they're trying to do is,
like, close the Stones down!
I still carry a chip.
Yeah. I could use a joint right now.
You know?
HE LAUGHS
But it's no laughing matter.
The arrests steer the Stones
into a storm of controversy.
Drugs raid. Jagger arrest.
Keith Richards being arrested.
It was all adding
to this whole idea
of this rebel outfit.
The first reaction is, "Oh, my God,
what am I going to do?"
You know, and,
"What does my mum think?"
Because they say you could go
to prison for five years.
You've now been derailed
from your amazing life
of a pop singer.
It takes the emphasis
off your career and achievements.
It makes you a group of drug addicts
rather than a talented group
of musicians.
But the band have always risked
falling victim
to their bad-boy image,
the invention of their manager,
Andrew Loog Oldham.
I think that Andrew very much
like to contrive the danger,
cos he saw that very cleverly
as a foil for The Beatles.
They got cleaned up
by their manager,
to make them more palatable
to the public.
Otherwise, they were
exactly the same as we were.
Filthy swine.
But Brian Epstein
didn't want to sell them as such.
He sold them as these lovable scamps
and funny,
and could be sarcastic,
but nevertheless lovable.
So Andrew wanted us to be more nasty
and more dirty, more of an edge.
Which is a very good sell.
And it wasn't difficult
for us to do
because, you know,
you're that age,
it's quite easy to have that edge.
The gentlemen of the press
have been kept waiting.
Mick Jagger is half an hour late
for his press conference.
His fine contempt for convention
seems to irritate journalists.
So you think he'll be coming
into a hostile audience?
I would imagine so, yes.
Journalists would be
very patronising.
Morning! Good morning.
Good afternoon!
What do you think of him?
Oh, he does a damn good job
of what he wants to do,
which is to be a paid exhibitionist.
He makes a lot of money.
He laughs all the way to the bank,
as Liberace said.
Do you like press conferences? No.
LAUGHTER
Why not?
Oh, I just like I really
like to keep myself to myself.
I always remember one point
where Brian used the word
in a stupid press conference -
"esoteric."
IMITATING BRIAN: It's
a bit esoteric, really.
And he'd used the word eclectic
quite a lot as well.
They were so shocked, and
we would obviously tease him
and behave like yobs as well,
so they didn't know what to expect.
If you want to follow up
in TV journalism
what rubbish they dish out
in the press,
then you're pretty low.
So watch out, boy.
One half of you is sort of the yob,
and the other half is saying,
"Well, yeah, we also know
what we're talking about."
Mick Jagger needs the reporters,
and the reporters need him.
A sort of love/hate relationship.
The press can be savage,
so you have to be very careful.
In fact, the News Of The World
helped them get busted
in the first place.
But in a famous editorial,
that bastion of the establishment,
The Times, actually sticks up
for them, arguing that artists
should not be crushed by the law,
and the law listens.
There was obviously a collusion
between the police
and the newspaper.
I mean, that's not questioned.
But I was freed from jail
by the establishment.
It's years since such crowds
gathered to await an appeal verdict.
But this was a Rolling Stones case,
with the fans out in force.
When Mick Jagger was conditionally
discharged and Keith Richards's
sentence quashed, the pop idols
drove off,
the shadow of jail
no longer over them.
Earlier today, Mick Jagger talked
briefly to a press conference
after the Lord Chief Justice
Lord Parker had quashed
his three months' prison sentence
for possessing amphetamine tablets.
It was a complete waste
of everybody's time.
Bollocks, basically.
Publicity since the case has shown
up a split between the society
which resents the anarchy
of people like the Stones
and that which favours
greater individual freedom.
It had ramifications
far beyond just a drug bust.
It had a lot of social implications.
What's wrong
with people smoking drugs?
This is when this first came up.
This became a big discussion.
You're often taken as a sort
of symbol of rebellion.
Do you think that the society
that you live in
is one you ought to rebel against?
Or do you think you're rebelling
against it?
Yes, definitely
rebelling against it.
# I was born
in a cross-fire hurricane
# And I howled at my ma
in the driving rain
# But it's all right now
# In fact, it's a gas
# But it's all right
# I'm Jumpin' Jack Flash
# It's a gas, gas, gas#
Kids are looking for something else
or some different moral value.
The whole sort of basis of society
and values which were accepted
could be changed, but it's up to
them to carry on those ideals
that they have, instead of just
falling into the same old routine
that their parents have fallen into.
# But it's all right now
# In fact, it's a gas
# But it's all right
# I'm Jumping Jack Flash,
it's a gas, gas, gas #.
The violence of the Vietnam War
is what's causing the blowback
of the violence
in the street. Right?
Because the violence in the street
is a direct consequence
of the Vietnam War, and that gives
causes a right to violence,
because the state
is perpetrating the violence
on other people, big time.
At Grosvenor Square, police waited
for the marchers to arrive.
They'd been told
there'd be no violence.
Sincerely they hope so.
1968 is a turbulent year.
And Mick is in the thick of it.
If you want to demonstrate, we have
to meet them on their own ground.
If they want to use horses,
we'll have 10,000 people on a horse.
That I love.
And that's that I thought
when I was there.
That's what it should have been.
I couldn't believe how vicious
the police were.
That was the scary thing.
The mounted police just chasing
at people with their horses
in the middle of Grosvenor Square.
Really scary.
There was nothing going on violent
from the crowd at all.
It was pretty peaceful,
and the police made it not peaceful.
That's what I remember.
As 1968 thunders on,
Mick writes a song that peers
into the Heart of Darkness.
# Please let me introduce myself
# I'm a man with wealth and taste
# I've been around for many
a long, long year
# Stole many a man's soul and faith
# Yes, I was 'round
when Jesus Christ
# Had his moment of doubt
and pain#
When you involve religion,
it always gives it an extra frisson.
So, it's obviously got
religious overtones.
When I wrote it, I wasn't thinking
of how provocative that was.
I had read all these things
about you,
and some people call you
the Devil incarnate.
I don't know who started that.
I don't know.
British journalists and all.
# Pleased to meet y'all
# Hope you guess my name
# But what's puzzling you
is the nature of my game#
You're not this image
that people have of you.
I don't know what that is.
Well, it's a sort of sexy,
evil, satanic
You can be nice, nasty,
masculine, feminine.
You know, all those things.
And everyone is all those things.
Try and make it a bit more life.
Not clipped
Reluctantly, Mick becomes
the poster boy for a troubled era,
with trouble followed by tragedy.
OK, now, listen
I really don't know how to do
this sort of thing,
but I'm going to try.
..just say a few words
that I think I feel about Brian,
and I'm sure you do,
and what we feel about him just
going when we didn't expect him to.
OK, are you going to be quiet
or not?
Peace. Peace.
He is not dead. He does not sleep.
He has awakened
from the dreams of life.
It's we that are lost
in stormy visions
and keep with phantoms
and unprofitable strife.
And in a mad trance,
we strike with a spirit's knife.
APPLAUSE
All right.
Six months after Brian's death,
another tragedy,
as a chaotic free concert in America
ends in murder.
OK, it's definitely on.
Well, they've decided now
they're going to hold the concert
at Altamont Speedway.
So, in the '60s, I was only
interested in being, you know,
a good musician and
a good performer and so on.
I let other people do the control
part of it, which was a mistake.
Our tour manager said, we're going
to do it in this place called
Altamont, which I'd never heard of,
and I don't think anyone else had.
He said, "It's all going to be fine.
"It's San Francisco, you know,
you don't have to worry about it.
"It's peace and love."
When we got there, it was
the antithesis of peace and love.
It was a disastrous mess.
The Hells Angels were
the people doing the security.
You had no control over anything.
And we were We were scared.
We felt something bad was going on
and these people were crazy
and they were, like,
standing next to you.
And it was scary.
The whole thing was out of control.
Altamont, California.
Four people in the audience of
a free and unscheduled concert died,
one of them from stab wounds.
All we could do was get out without
getting in trouble ourselves.
It was just a nightmare.
Life as a Rolling Stone
is spiralling into chaos.
After that, the '60s period,
then we had to take more control,
so that's when I had to take
that role on a bit more,
not that I particularly wanted to.
The ideal, in this situation,
is to have someone that will do
all that for you.
But I never really found
anyone like that.
LAUGHTER
The Rolling Stones
are about to find out
that their taxes
have not been paid for years
and they're not as rich as they
or the British government
thinks they are.
There was nobody actively
managing The Rolling Stones' money.
Rolling Stones had no money
in the bank.
So now I had to try and put my head
down and try and solve this puzzle.
To create income,
we decided that the best way
of doing that was to leave the UK,
because we'd have to pay less tax.
At the time, it looked
as if it was a total curse.
By the time we dealt with it,
I think that it was a blessing.
Quite honestly, we'd grown
too big for England's boots.
Keith always says that he was chased
out of England by the cops.
He may believe that, but the real
reason the band left was money.
Mick is forced
to take on the main responsibility
for the band's fortunes.
The band would certainly
have their say in everything
and, if they weren't particularly
interested in having a say
about a certain detail,
then I'd have my say
and I would tell them,
"This is what we'll do. Do you
agree?" And they would say, "Yes."
Now we work a bit that way now.
The word democracy is used to keep
everyone, you know, pacified
but you really have to have a strong
leader in any organisation.
You have to trust someone, trust
that they know better than you do.
Mick's not going to let anything
go wrong because he's in control.
He was armed with the playbook
of the London School of Economics
and, my heavens, he was well armed!
I think he brings rigour,
discipline,
a 360 vision on everything.
He's across all the detail.
He tests every proposition.
And to interact with him, you've
got to stay at the top of your game.
You've got to be in the A-stream
really to try and keep up with him.
Someone has to be the person
that says, "Look, this is
what we should be doing."
People can disagree with you,
say, "We're not doing that" or
"We want to do something different."
But I don't mind to be in control
of certain situations
that I feel that I'm confident,
that I know what I'm talking about.
Step one for Stones 2.0 is a
brand-new deal, brokered by Mick,
with Atlantic Records agreeing
to warehouse their own label.
The band is about to become a brand.
We were doing
the Sticky Fingers cover.
I don't know why
I thought it should have a logo.
I remember stopping
at a Shell Oil gas station
and the big picture of
a yellow shell, no letters.
Wow!
Everyone knows it's Shell.
We need a logo
that stands by itself.
And so I think I'd gone
to John Pasche and said,
"Let's try and get some funky
idea," and I gave him this idea.
I was at the Royal
College of Art,
studying graphic design.
The college got a call
from the Stones' office,
asking for them
to put forward a student
to come and see Mick Jagger.
What a break!
I think a lot of people believe
the lips are sort of based on Mick,
but that's not really true.
I gave him this idea of
this disembodied tongue of Kali,
and so then he modernised that.
I saw it as maybe a symbol
of protest, of anti-establishment.
It was like kids
sticking their tongue out.
It had to work as a stand-alone
symbol, if you like, for the band,
which was unusual.
I mean, there were brandings
for companies and so on
but not so much
in the rock-and-roll world, really.
It related to the band.
It had a connection.
Colour, fuck you,
funkiness, originality,
and so that's why it stuck, I think.
I think that tongue
is as important
as any fashion logo
in the world
and probably resonates
in every country, every city,
with people knowing
exactly what it is.
JOHN: It's a logo that's sort of
really gone round the world now.
It's a Rolling Stones weekend
on Radio 1,
and their record
has gone up seven places
to number seven
in the chart this week -
The Stones, Fool To Cry.
MUSIC: Fool To Cry
by The Rolling Stones
But Mick Jagger is more
than just a brand manager.
He's a band member
and a musician as essential
as a Keith Richards riff
to the signature Stones sound.
# When I come home, baby
# And I've been working
all night long
# I put my daughter on my knee
# She says #
I think if you have an
individual timbre of your voice,
which is recognisable just by luck,
if you want, that's really helpful.
You know, the minute he parts
those lips, you know it's him.
When somebody meets him
and they talk to him,
he speaks like
an English gentleman.
One perhaps doesn't ask
for responsibilities.
Perhaps one
is given responsibilities
when one is pushed
into the limelight
in this particular sphere.
# I go see her sometimes
and make love #
When he starts to sing,
he turns into a black man
from the south -
the Mick Jagger voice.
# I put my head on her shoulder
and she says
# Tell me all your troubles
# You know what she say to me?
# She say, ooh #
He's, like, listened to
those voices, you know,
to, like, all those
blues singers,
and he had it down.
# And it makes me wonder why #
Loads of people have great voices
but, er,
er, like, lots of people
are great guitarists,
but that doesn't necessarily mean
you're going to be successful.
Have you got a good voice? No.
Technically? No, not really.
I mean, I'm lucky
I still can sing
more or less, like, the same notes
as when I was 19.
But, no, I haven't got
a great voice.
But it's OK, it does its job.
Mick Jagger, the singer
with the group, a fascinating man.
He's been described variously as
"the supreme sexual object
"in modern Western culture."
That's a quote. "A compound of
menace and energy," is another one.
"A sadomasochistic freak,"
is another one,
and it's fascinating.
Mick was not the same
person that I met in London
when he was standing
behind the speakers.
He had come out of his shell
because he had found what could make
him perform the way he wanted to.
He became a great performer.
He became Mick Jagger.
Mick decided what he wanted
to look like on stage,
whether it was something
very bohemian,
something maybe glittery,
wearing eye make-up
and becoming very androgynous.
He was as chameleon-like as
you could possibly imagine,
but Mick really didn't give a shit.
He did his thing anyway.
So that influenced me to really
go into the fashion business.
The Stones really innovated
that whole androgynous look.
It was a feminised way of dressing,
wearing their girlfriends' clothes,
mixing it in with their wardrobe
when they had to, like, you know,
attract 50,000 people
to look at them on stage.
They adapted their look.
How did you manage to make androgyny
look so butch?
I didn't even know I was doing
androgyny. I was so naive.
But I was. I was doing androgyny,
but obviously that was just the way
I was naturally, you know,
I was a bit fey.
I remember Brian being
rather critical of me once
because he thought
I was too feminine.
I mean, I had my moments of that.
Every, every outfit,
he just steals the screen.
There's a lot of camp background
to theatre,
and rock and roll is still part
theatre in a way.
I had a great make-up artist called
Pierre
who would dress me up, like, wildly,
and I'd have to take some of
the layers off!
And, you know, I loved it.
I loved dressing up.
Of course, you dress up
very effeminately,
but you don't act necessarily
feminine.
By 1972, Mick has
never been more famous
or infamous.
More than just a rock star,
he's an instantly recognisable
global celebrity.
It can be really annoying
because people make
all these assumptions about you
but there's ways of dealing with it.
And some people can take it
and some people can't.
It's a bit of a pact with the devil,
really.
Cut.
I suddenly got an invite to go
to his wedding to Bianca.
I thought, "Oh, this will be fun."
I realised that it's
in the south of France.
He'd laid on a plane.
The plane's filling up with
all these artists
and famous people of the day.
We had such a great weekend.
Everyone was stoned.
And so it was a great atmosphere.
At probably the most chaotic
wedding of the year,
Mick Jagger arriving at
the Saint-Tropez town hall
with his bride, Bianca de Macias.
When Jagger found that there
were scores of photographers there,
he said he refused to be married
in a goldfish bowl.
However, in spite of all
the confusion,
scuffling and shouting,
one Rolling Stone at least
finally came to rest.
As Mick's fame grows, so does
his ambition for the band.
From the 1970s on, the sheer scale
of their live performances
grows ever larger.
I've been getting into lights and
things, which has been nice, but
I don't think anyone's really done
lights properly in this country.
Last week, New York City finally got
to see and hear the Rolling Stones.
We were the last stop on
a tour that I'm sure most
of you have heard about.
And the tour was amazingly
complicated, logistically,
in terms of moving them
and more than 100 people
that travel with them
and all the equipment
from city to city.
The Stones were
the first band
to have their own
stages built
and their own
stage designs,
which were pretty extraordinary.
That was Mick. That wasn't
anyone else. That was Mick.
The next two decades see the Stones
create a travelling carnival
that only they control.
I felt something like
I'd never felt in my life.
I felt like 20,000 people's
energy looking at Mick.
And I couldn't believe the sensation
of their focused energy.
It's undescribable.
When all these lights
come on in red,
I'd like the whole stage
to be red
and not to have just
the front area.
We've gone back to the crane.
I mean, I know we talked about
just losing the crane.
Steel Wheels in '89 was the
ground-breaking stadium tour.
It was the Stones who did
the first tours of stadia.
As they got bigger and bigger,
you know,
three or four nights at
Madison Square Garden wasn't enough.
They did create
the stadium rock show.
That generations of people
go to see the Rolling Stones
because it's a bucket list item,
it's a life experience,
it's a rite of passage.
That stadium experience
was mind-blowing.
I was just designing a playroom
for myself that was huge.
And I used to climb up the back
of this stage that was 90-foot high.
No-one had seen anything like it.
It's like in the old days
when the circus would come.
Rock music got
to that level.
It became this giant thing.
Mick was running the show,
and I think he's always run
the show,
and I think they're all happy
that he did.
Are you ready for a little bit more?
We would go through the ideas
for these big stadium tours
with the massive stages,
very expensive,
some of them just crazy and
wonderful.
There were so many ideas
and not all of them practical.
Mick wanted to have
an elephant come out
at the end of a performance
and present him with a rose
in the end of his trunk.
What was he thinking?
What was he thinking?
Mick will always
push the envelope a bit.
Keith is the person
who might stop that.
He famously stopped the elephant
on the stage.
Heh-heh! Everybody
The sigh of relief
almost blew the building down.
I think at times Mick
might push further than the band
would like to go.
When that happens, I guess
there's a little discussion
or there's no discussion.
There's just, you know,
"No. No, I'm not doing it
and you can't make me."
Would you tell me
about your relationship with Keith?
No. You know, we have
a pretty good relationship.
We have our ups and downs.
I mean, after 30 something years,
I mean, if you don't have any ups
and downs, there's something wrong
with your relationship.
There was a time
you would never see
Mick and Keith
put their arm
around each other
because for a lot of years they
weren't laughing so much together.
The band isn't really meant
to be touchy-feely.
That's what's great about them.
You've been playing a bit
of guitar, haven't you?
Yeah, on stage, yeah.
I haven't played so much. I enjoyed
it very much, playing guitar.
Keith keeps adjusting my settings
when I'm singing, of course.
If I did that with him,
he'd probably go bananas.
That anger created a type of spark.
Anger, you know,
makes for good songwriting.
Mick has always been
the captain of the ship.
Keith won't like to hear that,
but, you know, in the early '70s,
I thought,
like we all felt at the time,
you don't know how lucky you are,
mate.
After a while, I'm now seeing
the love and respect
..that they have each other.
It warms the shit out of me.
# I'm the man on the mountain
# Come on up
# I'm the ploughman in the valley
# With a face full of mud
# Well, I'm fumbling
and I know my car don't start
# Yes, I'm stumbling
# And I know I play a bad guitar
# But I just want a drink
# From your loving cup
# I just want #
The thing about bands is that
..that's it's a band.
It's a collection of individuals,
a band.
They say, "You're just like
brothers. It's like a family."
It's not like a family at all.
I actually have a brother and I know
what it's like to have a brother.
It's not like being with Keith
at all.
It's friendship and it
And it's friendship
and working together.
# Give me a drink
from your loving cup #
As in friendships or love affairs,
people have roles to play,
but those roles change.
And so it's in a state of flux,
so it's never the same.
So if you're talking about a band
like the Rolling Stones,
who've been around such a long time,
then all of these things apply.
Jagger and Richards
depend on each other
more than
they'll ever know.
# What a beautiful buzz
# What a beautiful buzz.. #
Oh, you know, "They've had a,
they've had an argument.
"Oh, my God!"
You know, I mean,
and it's so, you know,
talk about storms in teacups,
you know what I mean?
It's like And so before
I know it, you know, Mick and I
are actually sort of
making up fights
just to keep everybody happy,
you know?
And so it gets ridiculous.
No, we're tight.
# Give me that drink
from your loving cup
# Just one drink
and I'll fall down drunk #
Have you got any idea
why your group particularly
has lasted as long as it has?
Because we stay together,
I suppose, and we enjoy it.
We all have little sort of
disagreements. We haven't had
We haven't had any violence
since 1965, I don't think.
What happened in 1965?
Was that the chicken?
Someone stole someone's
chicken sandwich.
That was the last fight we had.
Can you picture yourself at the age
60 doing what you do now?
Yeah, easily, yeah.
What happens to someone like
yourself, Mick Jagger,
when you get old?
When you get old?
Same as what happens to you, love.
The Stones have now played live in
front of more than 15 million people
on every continent on Earth,
drawing record-breaking crowds
in Rio in 2006
and Havana ten years later,
in a country that banned their music
for decades.
But I try to do things
that haven't been done before
or difficult to do.
But I don't honestly enjoy doing
business per se very much.
I'd much rather be a performer,
and I wish I didn't have to do
any of the business bit.
But I am interested
in creating shows.
The whole thing of trying to go
to Cuba was, like, impossible.
Let's see if we can do it, and the
answer is, "Not really, we can't."
And you push and you push and you
push, and you keep pushing
and you keep pushing. We'll find
a way of just getting around this.
# You can't always
get what you want #
I like to hear on the radio,
five past eight,
you hear the tour manager
to the production manager
and he just says,
"We're walking, we're walking."
We know that it's three minutes
to the stage and then they start
the intro music
and then the show starts,
and you still get butterflies
and excitement when you do that.
# You get what you need
# You get what you need #
Sometimes, I think the Stones
would go on without Mick or me.
It'd still carry on somehow.
If you look at musical history,
pop music history,
nothing lasts forever.
You have to go, how did this
rebel rock and roll band
stand the test of time
and still stay together?
Mick is the answer to that.
He doesn't beat his own butt about,
"I'm not who I was 40 years ago."
It's like, "I know
who I was 40 years ago.
"I knew who I was 50, 60 years ago."
They're not going to end.
They've been doing this
since I was in sixth grade,
and they're going to keep
doing it till they drop.
The hardest thing in rock and roll
is to keep a band together.
Got to keep the band together.
Got to keep the band together.
And Mick Jagger did.