Mick Jagger Knows He May Have Played His Last Rolling Stones Show

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[00:30] Subject to credit approval, AppleCard is issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA Salt Lake City Branch. Terms and more at com. [00:38] From the New York Times, this is The Interview. I'm David Marchese. [00:47] Mick Jagger truly needs no introduction. He's the legendary frontman of the Rolling Stones, who are releasing a new album called Foreign Tongues. I've been a fan of the Stones since 1994, when I saw them on their Voodoo Lounge tour. It was my first ever rock concert, and it left a huge impression. Since then, I've listened to just about every song the band has released, from undeniable classics like My Favorite, You Can't Always Get What You Want, [01:16] sway.

And I've always wondered, what's Mick Jagger really like? Here's my conversation with Mick Jagger. [01:31] Mick. Hi, David. Thank you for taking the time to speak with me today. That's all right. I have a bunch of questions about the new album, but I'd like to start with a question that comes from a place of pure personal curiosity. So one of my all-time favorite of your songs is Sway from Sticky Fingers. And I always wondered about the first line of that song, okay, the lyrics, which are, did you ever wake up to find a day that...

[01:58] A day that broke up your mind, destroyed your notion of circular time. [02:04] I have not. Have you? No. It's a question. [02:11] Do you remember where that line came from? No, I just made it up at the moment. We were waiting for Keith to turn up to the session. He was late. And then Mick Taylor and I were there, and Charlie and Bill. I said, oh, let me try this. And I was just making it up as I go along. So that's why it's a bit random. Yeah, but it makes sense that waiting for Keith Richards would destroy your notion of circular time.

[02:34] I thought maybe it was a more philosophical question. Maybe I went back afterwards and spruced it up a bit. Well, thank you for solving that mystery. I appreciate it. So the new album. Yeah. [02:48] So it's coming just maybe two and a half years after Hackney Diamonds. We recorded it last year now, and we did it this time last year. [02:58] more or less. But [03:00] The time span between Hackney Diamonds and the previous album of original material was 18 years. Yeah, 18 years, yeah. This is quick. Why did it come together so quickly?

Well, I think we realized that we could... [03:13] We had a different method of making records, really. I mean, we've been just not being very lackadaisical and we weren't really getting down to it. [03:24] And so when we got... [03:26] Andy Watt on board, you know, we decided that I said, I said, there's a deadline. You know, we used to always have deadlines because we had to go on tour with the record. The tour starts in March of the record hour, you know. I said, the Hackney Diamonds, I said, the deadline is Valentine's Day.

Are you all going to remember that? So, you know, there's no excuses. You thought it was March. It's Valentine's Day. And we almost made it over four weeks. We recorded probably, I don't know, 14, 15 songs. I mean, a lot of stuff is... [03:54] The way I do things... [03:57] some of the songs that I write. I mean, I demo a lot of them first. So I go in with... [04:02] A friend of mine plays with a band, Matt Clifford. We demo a lot of the songs that I write. [04:09] I demo them and I can see they could go here, they could go there, they could be this groove, they could be that groove.

So a lot of my version of what I think the song sounds like is already in my head. Everything else you layer on top of that and you might say that bass is great on it and I don't want to change anything. Or I just want to change just the chorus. Or I just want to change this. Or I want to keep the rhythm guitar. Or I don't want to keep the rhythm guitar. I'll do it again. [04:39] Thanks. [04:39] Some of the songs on the new album are, I hear them as relationship songs, songs of regret or insecurity.

And it's... [04:50] Interesting for me to hear Mick Jagger singing those songs at your age and think about how [04:57] How, you know, they they land differently than if you were singing them at at 42 or 32. And and I want to know from your perspective, like artistically and emotionally. [05:10] What are the ways that you can inhabit a song now that are different from how you used to inhabit songs? [05:18] I don't, well, first of all, I don't really think about it very much. So, you know, in... [05:23] it [05:24] Songwrites about imagination, and it's not all based on true experiences.

But you've got to play the character of the song, right? Yeah. But the character singing the song is... [05:37] It's a different character for me. So when I'm seeing Mr. Charm, it's obviously... [05:44] a joke character, you know, and it's supposed to be taken with a sense of humor. And of course, some of the incidents in the verses did happen. And I can draw my own experiences of talking to women in relationships. But I mean, the whole thing of it is not supposed to be taken seriously. You don't really think you're Mr.

Chalm, you know, not really. But then you might have another song which is more... [06:11] more heartfelt, you know, with more, not so much humour and, [06:16] back in your life which is a bit more of a kind of like it's a classic theme you know you meet a woman and then [06:26] And she never calls you back. You know, you have a great time and she never calls you back. Has that happened to you a lot? It's happened to me. Of course it's happened to me. So I can draw on that.

I'm not saying it happened yesterday, but you can draw on that on that on that experience when it did happen to you. When maybe it happened to me when I was 40, you know, but I can still write about it now. [06:44] Writing is about imagination. It's not only about personal experience. It's a mixture of personal experience and a mixture of imagination. I want to maybe put the question in slightly different terms. There's a movie performance of yours that I love, Man from Elysian Fields, where you play sort of like a middle-aged person.

[07:09] He runs an escort service for women. It's kind of like a – but that performance has a lot of real feelings of regret in it. And I assume that – [07:20] you wouldn't have been able to give a performance like that earlier in your life. In the same way that it would make no sense for you to sing some girls now. No, exactly. So are there things that you can do – [07:32] in a song or did on this album that you think oh i i wasn't capable of giving a [07:37] of inhabiting that lyric that's a good question i mean it requires a lot of thought to give a good answer that's okay that's why we're here yeah you know i can't really it's hard for me to think of i'm trying to think of actual concrete examples of the songs on the record you know um

[07:53] I mean, [07:54] You... [07:56] I mean... [07:58] I think quite a lot of it you could say that... [08:03] the [08:03] I wouldn't have done, I wouldn't have written any of these songs when I was 30, maybe. I mean, honestly, I probably wouldn't have done. [08:11] And then I've also got into this habit of doing songs that are about personal relationships, and then I throw a verse about politics in there. [08:21] I think that's a trick, you know, that I've learned from other songwriters or have listened to others because nobody wants to hear a whole song about politics or politics, social comment of any kind.

It can't be politics or something else. [08:39] Like a song like the blues song, like Rough and Twisted, is really just like... [08:45] just stream of consciousness honestly it's it's you are you talk about a woman and everything but it's and then you throw in this stuff it's obviously about political and it's obviously you know the club was called conspiracy all they wanted was tyranny so you find yourself using these tricks did you ever see the john mulaney special where the comedian john mulaney where he does a bit about working with you on saturday night live did you ever see no i never saw he [09:15] Thank you.

[09:15] talking about working with famous people on the show and specifically about working with you and people would ask him i'm paraphrasing but people would ask him like is mick jagger nice yeah you know and he says of course mick jagger's not nice or he's nice for the version of the life that mick jagger has led and he's he points out that you play to stadiums of people screaming for you for 50 plus years that's got to change you as a person you know uh [09:43] Can you articulate how that's changed you as a person?

I think... [09:48] Well, obviously... [09:50] You [09:51] It's not normal... [09:54] well it's not like most people's lives no no it's not it's not but but yeah it does affect you [10:02] um you can become disassociated um from other people other people yeah and you and a lot of people in show business only hang around with people in show business um uh because because they got something in common you know they because they can relate to each other you know and and [10:23] And you get disassociated from what? [10:27] what people might call real life.

Do you think you have? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Definitely. And then you can, I mean, you do fight against it. It's a conscious effort. It takes conscious effort to fight against being disassociated. What do you do to fight against it? Well... [10:48] It's quite easy, really. I mean, you just go out and walk on the street on your own and go do normal things and go buy the New York Times. You know, but nevertheless, that... [11:03] That's only temporary. So because I think psychologically, your actual state of mind is... [11:11] is permanently damaged by this...

[11:15] or affected or, I mean... [11:17] I think when you're in your... [11:20] late 20s and early 30s is a very tough time for people in this business because it because it's a big ego trip basically i mean it's a huge you you have to have a huge ego to do this if you don't you have lots of people that do this that don't have huge egos have huge problems because they have to manufacture a completely different of course my personality on stage is not my i have [11:50] on stage so was that friend right yeah we make jokes about it because it's absurd what you do on stage i mean of course i'm not really like my stage persona jimmy fallon which i'm just about to go and do he he thinks he's doing me when he does me but it's it's completely such a exaggerated version of me but it works for him you know his version of me but i mean to me that [12:17] The person to be like that all the time is overbearing, shouting, ego-driven person.

It's like, of course, you're not really like that. But I think when you're in your... [12:28] late 20s and early 30s you you can be like that all the time and there are people in show businesses that never switch off [12:38] A lot of them are comedians. And comedians, sometimes they can't switch off. They can't stop making jokes. Or they get depressed. [12:46] But, I mean, it's a bit of a sweeping statement. Did you have to learn to switch off? Yeah, I think it comes with age. It's like if you do a movie, you do a character, right?

So if you're a method actor and you do this character, you've heard all these stories about method actors. But they take it to the absolute extreme, so they like the character all the time [13:08] And then after the movie's over, they're still in the character for a long time. It takes a long time to laugh off the character. So which character do you go back to? What was the character that you're going to retrieve next? [13:22] Is he? [13:23] Is he always going to carry some of that character in his true character?

Whatever that is. [13:31] So this is, I think, the show business... [13:36] Dichotomy [13:37] And it's like a... [13:39] It's something you learn to live with, and you always hope, of course it isn't true, that you always hope that you're a so-called normal person underneath. Yeah. It's nice to have the perks, though. The perks are nice. Yeah, but it's not about the perks. It's about being these several characters. You know, you're the character that plays the theater. You're the character that does the interview. You're the character that goes in on the stadium.

You're the character in the recording studio. You're the character writing the song. [14:05] not this character i'll write now i'll be another character yeah i'll write a song then i'm going to be this character and i've got wounded love now i'm going to be like fuck you you know do you ever let the world see the person underneath the characters i'm not sure probably it's all there songs are pretty direct in a way um as a as a method of communication they're relatively direct compared to say a movie where you need like a love you know you've got someone

[14:35] and you're changing the script and you're going to change your lines and you've got 200 people and then it's all edited in [14:42] chocked up in bits. [14:44] Records are relatively simple compared to that. [14:47] There are a handful of political lines sprinkled throughout the album. There's, you know, you sing about scuttling billionaires scrambling to their bolt holes in the sky, about dirty rat autocrats, rubber stamping judges. Yes. And I actually find it heartening to know that Mick Jagger sees the same problems out in the world that the rest of us do.

So can you just tell me more about – [15:14] why you felt the impulse to include those kinds of lyrics? What are you seeing when you look around the world? Well, I mean, it's not the first time I've done songs with social comment. I like doing it, but in small doses. It's pretty like that. I mean... [15:30] Who does it in a huge dose? It's hardly anybody. It's pop music, you know? I mean, Ringing Hollow is more or less completely... [15:41] social comment. Right. So, but, but even then, so I had to, I had two songs, I [15:47] that were on more or less the same subject, which is my love of America, you know.

And what's gone wrong? Bringing hollow is a lament about the state of the country. Yeah, it's a lament, but it's a love song, but it's a lament. And it's about my own experiences, which are long and varied and encompass lots of different places in America. And not just being in New York and living in the Upper West Side. [16:17] have never ever been nor were ever likely to go to you know because they don't not in our world living in new york well we're talking we're talking now living in a or chicago but i spend a lot of time in these weird places like what you know just on turn you see everything you see everything you you know how many people from new york you know that we sit around really go to cleveland very often you know and then you're there for five days it's not very long [16:47] If you go out every day, you see different sides of it.

No, I'm not saying, I mean, I enjoy it. You know, other women go out. I mean... [16:56] New Orleans people, I know people go to New Orleans and it's a tourist place. But, I mean, you find things there and then you find fantastic music scene. It's a unique town in the United States, completely unique. There's not any other town. It's not... [17:15] So you explore these places and you go, [17:18] You have a love of the country and everything. So in Ring Hollow, so... [17:24] I had another song with it, but the other song I thought was too down, and I rejected it and worked on Ringing Hollow instead.

It's really a love song to Americans. [17:33] you know, I fell madly in love with you before we ever met. So before I ever went to America, I was in love with America like a lot of European teenagers, you know, were, you know, see the movies and all this. So it's all about that. And then, [17:49] So then it talks about, you know, then it goes into the America of now and, you know, how can we... [17:57] You know? [17:58] ascertain what's going on what's the last the last line line of the song right i can't remember i'm gonna buy a brand new hat brand new hat what's that a reference to something good is gonna happen i think that's what it means yeah uh uh i heard that as as like a [18:16] A passive-aggressive MAGA reference, but maybe.

But you know who the one person that is named – [18:22] by... [18:24] Okay. [18:24] Their actual name... [18:26] on the album i might be missing one do you know the one there's one uh elon musk elon musk yeah mad mogul mr musk yeah what's your impression of him i've never met him so i don't really i mean he's obviously hugely successful and you know he's someone who who the term rock star gets applied to sometimes and now it's become kind of a common trope where these tech entrepreneurs are yeah [18:53] What does an actual rock star think of the way that that term has now become applied to anybody who has sort of the patina of iconoclasm?

It's kind of weird because it's applied to all kinds of people, not just tech people. It's become a phrase that's thrown around for in any form of success. I think it just means that you're just out there and in front of thousands of people and you're a huge success. I mean, that's what it means. [19:23] I think it's a big compliment to be cool. That's also a compliment to rock stars to use that actual phrase. I think it devalues. It devalues it, but it also, it bigs it up as well, you know?

Yeah. So, yeah. [19:35] I want to ask something that's sort of related to [19:39] Kind of what you were talking, what we were talking about earlier, the how people understand, like the persona of Mick Jagger. And my question is to do with how you understand your relationship with your audience. This actually maybe speaks to the politics stuff in a way, too, because let me give two counter examples to sort of triangulate the question. So on one poll, we have somebody like Bob Dylan. Yeah. If you go see him live. [20:08] He's great.

It almost feels like the crowd is incidental. Like he's going to be doing whatever he's doing, whether or not people showed up. On the other end of the spectrum, you have somebody like a Bruce Springsteen who clearly sees his job as engaging in a meaningful back and forth with his audience. It means something different to him. What does your relationship to the audience mean to you? What do they represent? [20:34] all those people out there? Well, well, first of all, it depends where you are. And, well, [20:41] what kind of event it is like the the the one the new orleans event [20:47] That's a festival.

They didn't come to see you necessarily. They bought their tickets before they knew you were coming. Right, if you play the New Orleans Jazz Festival. We played that. Then we do Summer in the Park in London. You buy those tickets. Glastonbury. You buy those tickets because you like that festival. You always think something's good is going to happen, but you don't know. So they're not necessarily... [21:10] coming to see they're not your biggest fans necessarily I'm not saying that they hate you otherwise it probably wouldn't be there there's different levels of these kind of people and you have to treat them in a slightly different way the bottom line of my thing is really is that [21:26] I...

[21:27] My job in the live music world is... [21:35] Just those people that come is to have the best time they possibly can and for two hours or whatever it is to forget. [21:45] all their problems and problems of the world and their mortgages and their whatever and and and and if they have problems or just just to give them they can have just the best time it's similar going to a sports event really because you you you everything else is shout you're just watching that who's going to win you know you're not worrying about everything else you know you're those things are out of your mind i know you're still on that you're on the phone everything [22:15] because I hurt his tooth.

But, you know, I know you can still have that. I know you can still have that, but in the old days, you never had that, really. So, [22:26] that's my job. So, [22:28] is to make them have the best time they possibly have. And some audiences want to go completely nuts, you know? And so then you encourage them to go more nuts. And say you can play to some places in the world, it's different, you know? You play in Finland. It's not the same as playing in Argentina, you know? There's a different – they don't want to go completely so nuts.

Maybe they do. I'm just using them as possibles, you know? [22:58] churn them up into like get frustrated that they're not being demonstrative or you don't think they're having a good time because they might be quite [23:05] relatively calm they might be relatively you know they're having a good time but in their I always say to everyone else they're having a good time in their own way and there's but as you go to another place and they're going completely apeshit you know so [23:20] So, and your job is to make them more apeshit.

That's, I don't want to go apeshit, well, let's go apeshit, you know, so. [23:26] But... [23:27] I want to dig a little deeper on that question. So you're talking about what your job is in those events, is to make people have a good time. They want to leave the concert feeling like it was worth it and they can forget their job. And you don't want to lecture them. You don't want to lecture them. [23:45] But my question is actually about what meaning the job has to you. I have... [23:51] a job that has a basic description it's very different than yours yeah but my job actually you know it means something to me and when it's working best it allows me to uh satisfy curiosity i have about the world meet people i wouldn't normally meet ask questions of people that i would never get a chance to ask and learn things that help you know that i find are valuable to me as a person do you like what's mick jagger's version of that am i being naive and uh polyanna

[24:21] thought about this. I mean, obviously, you thought about it. At the beginning of my career, I just didn't think about it at all. I was just learning how to do what, you know, it's totally... [24:31] about you and the band. What's the next number? Are they going to play it right? Am I going to remember the words? It's just the basics. You're getting the basics down. Okay, so now, after you've got through that accomplishment, which takes a bit of time to do, but then what you're saying is, when I get out there...

[24:56] What does it all mean? For you. Well, it's a lot of joy for me, first of all. First of all, it's a huge... [25:05] buzz, adrenaline, [25:07] And it's a huge adrenaline buzz, which must be the same as for a sport. If you're playing sport, if you're playing a football team, you go out and play 50,000 people. It must be about the same, similar buzz. So, you know, I don't have anyone coming at me. So it's much easier than playing sport. You don't have to dribble around someone and then sing.

I don't have to do any of that. But that's where the analogy breaks down. So you get out there and you get, when you get out there first, you get this massive adrenaline buzz. [25:37] and then your job really is really you have to control that adrenaline buzz [25:42] You know, you've got to look after yourself first. And while you're doing that, [25:46] first five minutes, then you are evaluating the audience. So you evaluate them [25:54] in a good way I mean [25:57] but you're evaluating them. Taking the temperature. Yeah, what's the temperature of the crown?

How are they feeling? Is it cold? Is it raining? All these things happen. [26:09] And are they already enjoying themselves? Or do they feel a bit listless after they wait too long? Have they had a hard time getting in? All these things have contributed factors and all that. [26:21] Thank you. [26:22] So then you evaluate the audience and see how they're feeling. And then [26:26] A lot of them are a very long way away. [26:29] which is one of the problems you're playing, because mostly I play stadiums, right? If you're playing a theatre, you don't have these problems.

You know, if you're playing a theatre, you can very quickly become a group, you know? And people, when I was, you know, starting out, showed me how to do that, were like little Richard I toured with for a long time. I had no idea that people even could do what he did. You know, performers didn't do that. [26:59] and played their songs and kind of said hello and that was it. I mean, he was embracing them all, getting them all to, you know, go along with his version of the world, stand up, sit down and make jokes and it becomes a community, you know, so for a small time it becomes this community.

It's much more difficult to do that in a stadium. You still have to do it. So that's why stages have to be big. That's why you have to get down there. That's why you have to pay attention to all these people. And, [27:29] That's why you have to talk to them. [27:32] Because you want that community for those couple of hours to be a good community, have fun. That's your job. I mean, I'm not completely answering your question. But I mean, that's a lot of what I do. You know, I've read...

[27:48] A huge amount of interviews with you going back, you know, decades. Poor years. They're interesting, but there are some things that stand out. And one thing that I've noticed that you almost never do in interviews is – [28:00] tell stories about being in the Rolling Stones. And [28:05] And I'm not asking you to be nostalgic or share some intimate details, but there's got to be some – [28:13] like old, you know, chestnut that you break out at cocktail parties or that your kids, if they ask you, hey, what was it like being on tour with Stevie Wonder in 1972 or whatever?

Yeah. Like a break glass in case of emergency kind of story that you can tell. Is there one? [28:31] Here's a funny thing that happened when I was in the road. You mentioned Stevie Wonder. I shouldn't have found you. You mentioned Stevie Wonder. So we were playing Master of Garden with Stevie Wonder. We said, come up and we'll play. [28:43] We do a mashup of satisfaction and uptight. [28:47] and uh so because they're both the same beat so um so so he comes on the stage and we do this mash-up about time and then someone and i can't remember whose idea it might be mine um decides that we're going to throw custard pies at the end because it's the last date of the tour and it's the last number of the show why wouldn't you throw custard pies it's rather unfair for stevie so we

[29:17] everyone's trying to customize, including Stevie's trying to customize, and everyone's ends covered in customize. And I loved it. All right. There you go. Thank you very much for taking the time to speak with me. I appreciate it. Thanks so much for everything. Any questions are interesting. [29:35] After the break, Mick and I speak again about whether we'll ever see the Rolling Stones back on the road. I hope so. [29:43] I want to do it. I'm up for doing it. [29:47] Thank you. [29:53] This message is brought to you by AppleCard.

Feel like a rock star every time you use AppleCard. You can earn daily cash back on your everyday purchases, everywhere you shop. From Reno to Rio. From cowhide to cowbell. AppleCard is a credit card that gives you the power to rock your personal world tour. Apply in the wallet app on your iPhone and use in minutes with ApplePay. Subject to credit approval, AppleCard is issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA Salt Lake City Branch. Terms and more at com. [30:21] I'm David Marchese. And I'm Lulu Garcia Navarro. And we're the hosts of The Interview from The New York Times.

David and I have spent our careers interviewing some of the most interesting and influential people in the world. Which means we know when to ask tough questions and when to just sit back and listen. And now we've teamed up to have these conversations every week. We'll try to reveal something about the people shaping our world. And we'll get some great stories from them, too. It's The Interview from The New York Times. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. [30:53] Music. [31:01] Mick, we're officially rolling now. Okay. So what are we going to speak about today that we didn't speak about before?

Oh, there's so many things. But I'd like to start with a question about something that just came to me this morning. So I was watching just clips of you on YouTube, and there's a great – it's like a 50-second clip of you. Maybe it's backstage. It's just you at a keyboard trying to work through the tune Shine a Light, [31:31] the chords and it's it's actually just this it's a really beautiful short clip because you're playing those gospel chords yeah it's like to paraphrase the song there's a little uh gleam right in your eye okay uh and and it feels like the apparatus of like fame and and a crowd or any of like that has anything like that has fallen away just a musician yeah playing music and and [32:01] or a memory of just when you were playing music and kind of the the machinery around the rolling stones just fell away and and you just had that love and freedom and lost yourself just playing playing a tune that would that's what you do when you're writing i mean the occasion that you describe i don't really remember but uh you said it was backstage so that's a different thing you're

[32:28] I don't know what I was doing. [32:29] I was probably going to do that song, but maybe I wasn't. Maybe I was just doodling with that song, you know, for fun. While you're waiting to go on stage sometimes, sometimes you... I always have a piano in the room and a guitar and stuff. And... [32:43] And my room's always the quietest because I don't let people in like a load of friends and families. They can come in, but it's like then you have to leave, you know. And so, yeah, so you can like you have moments where you just doodle around, you know.

What you're describing really is when you're writing. I mean, you don't you're not thinking about going on stage or anything. [33:13] writing, then you're just doodling... [33:17] That's how songs get made, you know, really. It's just where you just doodle around and you're not thinking about anything else. The thing about writing songs is because popular songs are really quiet, [33:30] Amen. [33:32] They're obviously really short, so... [33:35] which is due to the length of the 78 record creation. It's completely arbitrary reason that there are about three minutes. Yeah, the technology imposed this thing on it.

I think that's – anyway, it doesn't really matter. That's what it is. You know, it's three minutes, four minutes maximum, something like this. So – [33:54] So it's not going to be that much. [33:57] and it can be quite complex musically, but lyrically, how much lyrics are you going to really stick in? So musically, it's... [34:08] You know you can just doodle your way through this. So while your mind is free and you're having fun with it, then I think that's the most interesting part of the process. [34:21] I think having fun is not like, I don't mean you're all standing around drinking and shouting and jumping up and down, but I mean your mind is not really being serious.

It's playful. Playful is a better word than fun. So you can be playful. And then so… [34:39] If you're playful, you can... [34:42] you can just let your mind just go this way that when if not and don't be worried if not if nothing happens nothing happens something will happen later or tomorrow [34:51] I was watching the video for In the Stars recently, which is the one where they use the de-aging technology for you guys. And I actually thought it was sort of a – [35:03] like a conceptually interesting choice for a variety of reasons.

One of which is that, you know, I, I think of one of the, [35:11] sort of life-affirming things about the Rolling Stones is that you've been sort of defiant in terms of like what aging means. You know, you're still out there doing it and then doing the de-aging. I was like, oh, that's kind of an interesting – [35:26] choice to take but you know i think that an opposite view of of the band is being like defiant defying aging and and still being out there is that you know you guys all have peter pan complexes or something like that but but i want to know what you find that's a good thing that's a good thing

[35:42] Like, [35:43] interesting or hard to reckon with in terms of aging or like what's good about getting older, what's less good. And I don't just mean physically, but metaphysically too. There's nothing good about it. [35:56] Nothing. Wisdom. [35:59] No. Nothing. You don't get wisdom. You forget everything. Forgot all my wisdom. [36:05] I might have had a couple of pearls drop, but I think I've probably forgotten what they are. Yeah. Nah. So, no, it's not particularly… [36:15] Um, [36:17] Pleasant and of course you can't do things as quickly as you want to and all that sort of thing and [36:24] physically [36:26] Physically, you can't do things that you would like to do.

[36:29] You've got to be, you have to be more careful. You can still do them, but you have to be more careful when you do them. You know, if you're playing goalie in a football team and you're, okay, you're going goal. They put you in goal a lot. [36:44] I'm not really very good at it [36:49] It's a metaphor for aging, being put in goal. Yeah, being put in goal. [36:55] I have another philosophical question. Yeah. And this one is about sex. [37:00] And I'm not going to... It's a big subject.

It's a big subject. I'm not going to ask you for any details. So don't worry. It is sort of... So you're... [37:09] You know, you have publicly been identified with sex for a long time, like a sex symbol. You write songs that are heavily sexual. You're like an avatar of sexiness. I don't think I'm speaking out of turn by saying you have- Sex, drugs, and rock and roll. We're going into that. Right. You have a reputation as sort of a libertine, maybe. But that's outside perspective. But I wouldn't be surprised if you also have

[37:36] had like sort of a [37:37] put sex as like central to your identity over the years. And I wonder how has your thinking about sex changed over time? Because it changes for everyone. So how has it changed for you, Mick Jagger? Well, it's really difficult. And I don't know the answer, honestly. It's a very good question. And people always say that when I'm thinking about what the fuck am I going to say to him? [38:01] But I don't really know. I really don't know the answer. [38:07] You know, you're asking these questions that is a really hard question.

And I don't know what the answer is. I could if we sat down and we weren't recording this and we weren't doing an interview, we could talk about how that would work. And you'd have to tell me how it worked for you because we could compare experiences. But, you know, could we? Yeah, probably, because that's how you get insights. You know, I mean, if you're just talking about yourself like a public person, it's weird. [38:37] The only thing I will say is that [38:40] throughout your life your attitude to sex changes and your sexual tastes change [38:47] In one's life, sex is not a fixed point.

So... [38:52] That's what I think. Obviously, everybody's different. But I would like I would say and I'm not this is not my sort of area of expertise, honestly, because we're into areas of of human psychology, sexual drive. [39:22] attitudes to sex are different as you [39:25] as in different parts of your life yeah i mean your orientation your sexual orientation may change it [39:33] it may change completely or it might change oh or or avenues might open up to you that you hadn't realized or then or you or you might close avenues that have opened up because you don't like them or you tried something that you'd like for a [39:51] it's a couple of years and then you decide oh okay and and it's like other tastes it's like tasting art you know that you when you're very young you might like these kind of pictures and then when you're a bit older you might [40:05] Change your taste in art.

So I'm not saying sex is like art. Well, I am. What I'm saying is you're... [40:12] That's a question of taste, but why does your taste change? You know what? Right. There's something. Is it because of knowledge? [40:20] Or is it just because you're bored with it? [40:23] you know is it a combination of all these things you know so you're you're tasting you're literally tasting food changed so when you're really young and you like alcohol you drink the sweet things normally you know when you you like sweet wine oh that's like great and then then someone tells you that's not really you shouldn't be drinking that you know you should drink this [40:44] And you try that and go, I really don't like that, but I'll try it, you know.

[40:47] Like when we were really teenagers, we liked rock music, but other more snobbish people say, you should listen to this jazz, you know? You should listen to jazz, you know? It's more... [41:00] intellectual, you know, then... So... [41:04] And so in Tom Stoppard's play, The Real Thing, he's an intellectual writer. It's almost Tom. But he's going on this program called Desert Island Disc, which is a program where you choose records to take with you on your desert island. And that's the only music you can have. [41:34] so he's an intellectual so it's this thing of being an intellectual so he's saying like [41:40] yeah okay play me that jazz music you know okay dizzy gillespie play me dizzy gillespie okay do i really like that or do i like chuck berry you know what i mean so well i'll i'll start to appreciate it you know and we used to like play the modern jazz quartet you know oh yeah yeah i used to go and see the modern jazz quartet in concert i mean it's expensive everyone's sitting [42:10] Talk about a rabbit hole.

I asked you about sex. We ended up at the modern jazz court. How did I get out of that question? But I thought you gave a good answer. You said you didn't know how to answer. Then you gave a good answer. [42:23] Okay. [42:24] I want to also know a little bit more about sort of how you see your musical experience. [42:30] evolution because i think i think it's fair to say that you know probably in that sort of magical period between 68 and 72 is the period when sort of what people expect a rolling stones album to sound like

[42:45] kind of got solidified and and the new album people say you know this it sounds like a stones album and i think they mean it sort of has the signifiers of the the classic stones album and i know there's been lots of experimenting with you know reggae funk disco over the years but i think it's it's true that there is a rolling stones sound and as a as a sort of a creative i can kind of argue against that in a way if i want to [43:09] What argument would you make?

I'm going to tell you, Mick Jagger, you, that you're wrong. No, but I can take another position. Okay. I mean, just for the sake of it, I could. Because if we're talking about musicality, that's what you're best known for. You know, what the most people, if they're not particularly vaguely interested, but not very interested, then you're absolutely right, you know, that that's what you would say. But I could point, [43:39] out to lots of [43:41] Other things, I'm not a huge student of the Rolling Stones oeuvre, you know what I mean?

I haven't got it all at my fingertips and lists of it. If I did, I could point at them and say, you see, I could point to like… Miss you. So many… Yeah, I could say, well, that was… Hot stuff. That was that… Yeah, but then I could point at Lady Jane, you know? Right, like an Elizabethan… Yeah, and I could point to as tears go by. I could point to Angie. Yeah. I could point… [44:08] I mean, I could point to Paint It Black. Even, like, Under My Thumb, that someone played to me the other day, I mean, it's, vocally, it's very me, but,

[44:18] instrumentally and the way it's played is so light and it's so [44:23] it's so sort of like it's not heavy at all everyone's playing really lightly and so [44:30] There's other versions of the band, and that's what I think makes the band an interesting band. Obviously, it's not the same people either. [44:39] She Smiles Sweetly is another one from... Yeah, very old. But it's interesting that the songs that you noted are all songs that came before, I guess with the exception of Angie, before that period, I suggested. Yes, but even after that period, I can point out other ones.

Yeah. It's just that I don't remember them as well. [44:59] And there's not Elizabethan ones, but there's many other ones. And you said Angie, that's not in that period. And there's lots and lots of others. [45:09] of... [45:10] rumba, you know, ballad rumba. I mean, it's, you know, it's like very light with an auto saxophone lead. It's not really what you would expect. But are there styles of music that just... [45:25] you maybe wanted to do or sort of like dream projects that you had in the back of your mind that you thought sort of because of maybe audience expectations or what you thought the band would be interested in that you didn't pursue?

[45:40] Yeah, well, yes, but you can pursue them, but you don't take them to the kind of doing a whole album of them. You know, I can say I like samba music, so I did Sympathy for the Devil. I have never done another samba, but I listen to samba all the time. [46:10] Thank you. [46:10] down so far down the road i mean i'm interested i like i mean i love latin music of all kinds and and like that rhythmically speaking there's so many different rhythms and and yeah i'd i i would like to pursue that and maybe i could have or should have pursued that more because i i'm really interested in those rhythms you know so [46:31] So, yeah.

But if you're in a rock band, you get to... [46:35] touch on them but you don't get to fully explore them um [46:39] There's a beautiful version you did of Long Black Veil with the Chieftains probably 30 years ago. And I thought, oh, it would have been it would be great to hear a Mick Jagger album of. [46:49] like traditional... [46:51] Irish, British and American Yeah, I mean [46:55] I've. [46:56] I've done that and I mean the thing is that all the members of the [47:02] band of Keith and Brian and to some extent all like that music.

[47:09] Ronnie also. [47:10] you [47:11] I mean, it's kind of our kind of in a way, it's our home music, you know, and even though the sort of 80 percent of our music is influenced by black culture, which we have a huge debt to owe to black music and everything. [47:28] Uh... [47:30] We also acknowledge our own roots in that other music, you know, by playing those songs, you know. I mean, Long Back Vale was, I think I heard Johnny Cash do that first, but it sounds like an Irish or English song.

And I did it with the Chiefs, which... [47:49] is an Irish, was an Irish fan, but it's, [47:52] it's, [47:53] Thank you. [47:54] you know, it could be an English song or border ballad or, you know, we were all very interested. We're all brought up to read border ballads, which are neither English nor Scottish nor Irish, but they're an amalgam of all of those things, a very, very similar background. I'd also like to ask you about [48:14] rock a little more broadly and generally. It's this music that you've given your [48:20] creative life to.

And, you know, the still in 2026, the biggest rock concert draws are like Gen X bands and Baby Boomer bands. And I've seen data that actually suggests that catalog music, you know, older music has more streaming market share than younger music. And [48:39] and is continuing to trend that way. And I think that even if you think about [48:44] The buzziest younger rock band of today, which is a band like Geese. I don't know if you're familiar with them. Yeah, I am. Even a band like that still... [48:54] kind of feels like a culturally marginal band to a certain extent.

And so my question to you is – What do you mean culturally marginal? They're not in the center of the culture. They don't have – I mean I talked about them in an interview. Someone asked me. [49:10] I, I, everyone was talking about this band and I, when I played them, I thought it was going to be more like an indie band, you know, but it was, it was much more experimental than I thought, which I thought was great. You know, I mean, I liked it, but it wasn't what I thought went from people describing it to me or reading about it.

So yeah, so it's very hard for a band as experimental as that to be, to break through, to be, you know, in a, in a, in a center of a mainstream music, I think. [49:40] anytime I mean maybe in a [49:43] 1970 it might have been but but now I wouldn't have thought so but anyway I mean maybe they will be maybe I'm wrong do you have thoughts about [49:52] the vitality of rock music as a whole or its place in the culture right now, given that the most popular exponents tend to be older artists?

It's kind of unusual. But despite the fact that, you know, [50:08] rock music, [50:10] as a genre is not really... [50:14] the mainstream center of music. It still has a lot of supporters and it still has a lot of young teenage people that want to play it. [50:25] you know, in, you know, in all kinds of forms of it, you know, and you hope that it evolves, you know, rap was kind of center of our music like 20 years ago. And now it's like, [50:37] Rap is not [50:39] the force it once was really, but everyone incorporates it.

You know, you incorporate it into everything. It's one of the strands of popular music, like rock is like, you know, rap is like, straight pop is like, all these things we have all these strands in popular music. [50:58] that really... [51:01] I wonder, you know, it's really... [51:04] rather artificial a lot of times when we describe music. Didn't we touch on this before in our earlier conversation? So – [51:12] it's a marketable [51:15] When you have to market things, you want to tell people what they are, you know, so this is mint flavored, okay?

[51:26] So everyone normally likes that, you know, so it's mint flavored ice creams, mint flavored this. So you put the genre mint. I'm selling mint products. It's a bit like that music. So people know what they're getting and they know what they're getting, you know, so you don't want to scare them. So we've got cut up all our genres into little slices. But the reality is that most musicians appreciate all kinds of music. [51:56] has a lot of history and it shouldn't really be [52:00] by intelligent people shouldn't be slicing little bits and so only like this bit you know i don't like folk music what's that mean doesn't mean anything [52:09] What's folk music?

All these invented things, you know? Right. They're arbitrary distinctions. They are. Yeah. I saw a quote from Keith the other day saying, you know, the band probably – [52:23] He's probably not going to be able to do long tours anymore, that there might be, you know, there's hopes to do residencies and things like that. And I don't know how you think, but do you think? [52:33] You must have some doubt about whether or not the Rolling Stones will ever go on a [52:38] Yeah, I mean, I have doubt about it.

When I hear that, you know, I have doubt about it. I don't mind touring at all. I mean, residencies are, if you can't do any shows and you can't go anywhere, then you have to do residencies. Obviously, you can't go. You've got to go to the, well, you have to go to the arena. You're not going to do it for your bedroom. But I suppose you could. But you've got to go somewhere.