What would Keith Richards do_ - Jessica Pallington West [23]
And while Keith has something in line with all of these luminaries, there are a few philosophers who seem to have a more pointed connection to Keith—even if that connection doesn’t, on first glance, present itself with glaring obviousness. But look a little closer and you’ll see that they’re speaking the same language.
It starts, of course, with the Greeks: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. The three-sided think tank. Looking at the Greeks in everything–Keith Richards terms, they were the model of a perfectly working band: Plato on drums, Aristotle on guitar, and Socrates doing lead vocals. Working in tandem, they created something bigger than themselves.
Alfred North Whitehead wrote that all later philosophical writings—Keith’s included—are but footnotes to what was laid out by the Greeks. There are certain subjects where Keith is specifically footnoting Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle: the mystical nature of music, the essence of friendship, and self-understanding.
“Knowing yourself” was first attributed to Plato and Socrates, as illustrated by the well-worn line, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” By the time it gets to Keith, the maxim is illuminated by the man who has faced death more times than is deemed normal yet keeps going, knowing that nobody can tell him who he is and what he should or shouldn’t be doing. He knows himself and his limits.
The Keith idea of “passing it on” was also set down by the Greeks. Socrates passed it on to Plato. Then Plato passed it on to Aristotle, then Aristotle wandered the globe and passed it on to Alexander the Great … and onward and onward again, passing on riffs and knowledge. Aristotle even painted a picture of Socrates as “that wise old man” who dispensed advice and imparted down-to-earth, easy-to-understand moral teachings—just as Keith has noted about the wise bluesman.
Keith Illuminates the
Greeks and the Greeks
Illuminate Him Back
“The hardest victory is over self.”—Aristotle
“For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories. ”
—Plato
Keith: “I’m here today because I have taken the trouble to find out who I am.”
“A true friend is one soul in two bodies … a friend is a second self.”—Aristotle
Keith: “Mick’s rock. I’m roll.”
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. ”
—Aristotle
Keith: “I play the guitar a couple of hours a day, and something will come.”
“There is no harm in repeating a good thing.”—Plato
Keith: “Look at Jimmy Reed: For twenty-five years he did the same song, and every one of them is different.”
And: “There’s really only one song … and Adam and Eve probably sung it … and everything else is a variation on it.”
“Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination … Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue.”—Plato
Keith: “Music is a language that doesn’t speak in particular words. It speaks in emotions, and if it’s in the bones, it’s in the bones.”
“It is not wisdom that enabled [poets] to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration such as you find in seers and prophets who delivered all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they meant.”—Socrates
Keith: “Songs are running around—they’re all there, ready to grab. You play an instrument and pick it up.”
“The introduction of a new kind of music must be shunned as imperiling the whole state; since styles of music are never disturbed without affecting the most important political institutions.