The Rolling Stones and Philosophy_ It's Just a Thought Away - Luke Dick [58]
For me, the clincher came when I went back over Phair’s lyrics a second and third time looking for additional clues. And there it is, in the very first song, “6’1””, Phair’s opening response to Main Street’s “Rocks Off.” Mick complains that his life has become a narcotized blur. He’s “zipping through the days at lightning speed,” and his sex life is on the rocks. He’s so frazzled and out of touch, he says, “I can only get my rocks off while I’m sleeping.”
In reply, Phair sings as an observer, perhaps even a therapist, who is trying to diagnose the underlying logic and emotion behind this over-the-top, rock-star lifestyle:
I bet you fall in bed too easily
with all the beautiful girls who are shyly brave
And you sell yourself as a man to save
But all the money in the world is not enough.
She’s looking at a guy who once knew a thing or two about satisfaction —and who might that be?—yet has “long since passed understanding what it takes to be satisfied.” Like “a vine that keeps climbing higher,” he’s got no goal, resting point, or hope for satisfaction in sight. Even the “yeah” she sings before the last chorus, seems to poke at Mick’s famous “yeah” in the opening bars of “Rocks Off.”
With You It’s Always Take, Take, Take
Now Phair has discussed the origins of “6’ 1”.” She says that the guy in her song is not Jagger. But that doesn’t disprove my interpretation. In fact, it’s about both Jagger and someone else:
LIZ PHAIR: I had this huge crush on this guy in the scene. He and I had like a couple interactions but nothing really serious, and I invented in my crazy-ass mind, the idea [that on] Exile on Main Street, Mick’s character was this guy. And so whenever I listened to Exile on Main Street, I felt like I was listening to what this guy… .
NPR: This guy who shall remain nameless …
LIZ PHAIR: Except if you buy the [anniversary] DVD. [I]t was totally a picture of his life. It was a perfect portrait of his life.
NPR: So you superimposed The Stones on your life.
LIZ PHAIR: On my crazy-ass crush. And then I sort of wrote back to him. Because if you think about the first song on Exile on Main Street, he’s coming home from this one-night stand and he runs into some girl he knows who’s sort of like “Where you been?” And he’s still fucked up from the night before staring at her like, “Look.” And he kind of alludes to this dancer chick he was just fucking before and he’s like, “Look man, I can’t deal with you right now,” and walks off. So I put myself in the shoes of that girl he meets on the street, and that’s how I write “6’1”.” … [I]t was my answer to this guy vis-à-vis The Stones.
NPR: Did he look like Mick Jagger in any way?
LIZ PHAIR: Yeah. He didn’t look like him, but he sure as hell acted like him.38
The guy in question, the Anniversary DVD reveals, is Nash Kato of Urge Overkill. And the reviewer’s question, “Did he look like Mick Jagger?” goes to the hermeneutic jugular. No, Phair says, “he didn’t look like him.” But, of course, in another way he did. Phair already said that Jagger’s performance was “a perfect portrait” of Kato.
These shifting grounds of interpretation—what do you mean by “look like”?—point to the layers of interpretations that surround any work of art. Martin Eger calls this the “cascade of interpretations” and in this case it begins with Mick who describes (and thus interprets) a character that’s probably a lot like himself at the time (or quite possibly Keith, who seems to be the inspiration for “Torn and Frayed”). Then Phair steps in, adds another layer by reading the song not only in terms of Mick’s character in the song and the song’s lyrics, but also her real-life fascination with Kato. By the time she describes her account to NPR, however, Phair’s obsession with Kato seems to have transformed the interpretation