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By Root 736 0

writes about the opening riffs of “Brown Sugar” and “Satisfaction” with the enthusiasm of a proud father, with the same joy he had in 1970 or 1965. About those moments on stage when his and Ronnie’s guitars start to weave and flow so perfectly that he’s not sure who’s playing what, Keith writes like a mystic struggling to find words for something that is magical, indescribable, and life-sustaining. It seems me that as long as Keith can still sing, play, and perform, even if sex and cigarettes and drinks were no longer available, he’d keep rolling ahead in search of union with his musical divine. For him it towers over whatever it is he and Mick are not talking about, whatever financial and legal problems the band faced in the 1970s and 1980s, and it probably glowed at the end of the tunnels he crawled out of during his detoxes.

Talk about shining a light—The Stones and their music have been a beacon in the life of anyone old enough to appreciate their longevity. Not a beacon that you should necessarily go toward or follow (most of us don’t have the talent or the guts). But a beacon that shines valuable light in this crazy world. You don’t have to have kicked heroin, after all, or have been a not-from-these-parts kind of guy with long hair arrested in the deep South to see the ongoing career of The Rolling Stones as a reassuring fixture—especially as time goes by and new wrinkles, new aches and pains, and which-concert-was-that? moments come more and more often. As time and The Stones keep rolling on, they become less a rock band, regardless of how popular and influential, and more something else like an institution, a cherished piece of furniture, or a rock that we all need to lean on. If not for music, coke, or sympathy, just to stay upright and above the fray.

As I write, it’s been almost fifty years since The Stones first played together as The Rolling Stones. That puts us, as well as them, in new territory for rock’n’roll. No other band, not even The Who and their generation, so effectively pegged the new sound to youth. With their clothes, their attitudes, and the frightening energy of their amped-up rhythm and blues, adults of the early Sixties can be forgiven for wondering if these five hooligans really were the harbinger of civilization’s demise. Even The Beatles, after all, respectfully adapted the eternal verities of melody, harmony, arrangement, and classical instruments in some of their songs. But while The Beatles were winning over their fans and their fans’ grandparents with “Yesterday” or “Eleanor Rigby,” Mick, Keith, and Brian laughed at the very idea of common ground between generations by releasing “Lady Jane”—a song that, despite the courtly sounds of Brian’s dulcimer and Mick’s schoolboy rhymes about the wives of Henry the Eighth, is nonetheless an ode to female genitalia. Long before the Sex Pistols impolitely poked their guitars at the Queen and her “fascist regime,” The Stones had punked not only their elders but Britannia’s royal history.

So it’s hard to imagine watching The Stones in the Sixties and Seventies and thinking that they would still be at it forty years later when the youth that seemed so much a part of their presence and their spirit had left them. But The Stones, and Keith in particular, have proven us wrong time and again—a fact that, all by itself, should make the philosopher in Keith and in all of us sit up and take notice.

Trying, Philosophically

In an interview during their 1969 American tour, Mick was asked if he’s yet found satisfaction. In reply, he distinguished between different kinds of satisfaction, just like a young philosopher should. He replied, “financially dissatisfied, sexually satisfied, and philosophically trying.” The New York Times reporter who quoted Jagger ended his report there, adding that “some of his fellow performers grinned.” (November 28th, 1969). Apparently, no one was expecting such a precise, thoughtful answer, much less Mick’s agreement with the interviewer’s suggestion that from “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” onward, the work of The Stones