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IV

Politics: Sexual and the Other Kind

13

You Can’t Always Get What You Want

LUKE DICK

There are the thousand taboos which proscribe love outside of marriage—and there is the litter of used contraceptives in the back yards of coeducational colleges.

—Jean-Paul Sartre (“Americans and Their Myths,” 1947)

Romantic relationships are the most curious and precious of things. I’d bet five bucks that at least seventy-five percent of all popular songs written are about love or a variation on that fine theme. As westerners, we’re born into the notion that monogamy is the benchmark for romantic relationships. All of our political and economic institutions have been tailored to support and reward a lasting, contractual relationship between one woman and one man. By some stroke of cultural history, and many strokes of the church’s moral sword, we’ve inherited this tradition. Thanks to Henry VIII, we’ve also inherited divorce.

The Stones are a touchstone in this tradition of contractual love, because their songs and actions create an image of womanizing and tension that calls into question the very legitimacy of monogamy as “normal” or “natural.” A song like “Some Girls” certainly isn’t propaganda for monogamy. Given the perverse logic in this tune, you can’t help but question whether or not we humans are even cut out for the task of monogamy. What, then (if anything), are we cut out for? Let’s watch the tales of these lovers unfold and see what we may learn:

• OCTOBER 1927—Over smoke and clinking glasses, two young French philosophers, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, make an infamous pact of open love, an open relationship: We are soul mates. And we want freedom. Pure freedom. Personal freedom. Intellectual freedom. Sexual freedom.

• JULY 26TH, 1943—Sir Mick is born. Fashions himself into Don Juan incarnate. Notches on his bedpost from famous women alone are too numerous to count, let alone the unknowns who made their mark there. Asked in a 1965 press conference if he’s “satisfied,” Jagger responds, “Sexually, yes. Financially, no. Philosophically, trying.”

• OCTOBER 14TH, 1964—The dandy drummer, Charlie Watts, marries Shirley Ann Shepherd. Maintains his marriage to this day. Watts has been known to look “bored” while providing beats for The Stones.

• 1967—Uncle Keef finally steals Anita from Brian Jones: “Anita, sexy fucking bitch. One of the prime women in the world” (Life, p. 197). After a predictably tumultuous end to this stolen affair, Richards and Patti Hansen marry and persevere.

Saw Her Today at the Reception

With rock songs, it’s difficult to know whether the lyrics are actually based on a particular event. Was there really a reception or a glass of wine? It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that Mick is as good as any other songwriter at getting to the heart of his own tension, particularly in this song. “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” portrays the peculiar feeling of wanting to keep something and letting it go at the same time. It is a perfect expression of the limitations and frustrations of the quest for sustainable romantic happiness. In my mind, you could lose every verse except the one about the woman, and the song loses none of its potency. The scene of the reception is what really matters here. Forget Mr. Jimmy and the demonstration. It’s the reception where Mick really confronts his revelation that love won’t ever fulfill his expectations—for one reason or another.

Perhaps a rock star isn’t the best place to look for revelation in matters of love. After all, Mick has problems that normal folk don’t—he has many, many more options for mates by virtue of his fame. But Mick is still human. He may be archetypal, but human experiences aren’t that different. Even under the more normal circumstances of regular folk, monogamous relationships are difficult to maintain. Get up, get the kids up, read the paper, make the coffee, go to work, pick up the kids, dinner, shower, bed. Mix in some bills, some grill-outs, and sex