The Rolling Stones
by Tyler Woods on Mar. 18, 2010, under Life
As I am packing for my move, I had the TV on a few nights ago listening to American Idol. I admit it! Okay there! It caught my ear. The idol contestants were singing songs from the Rolling Stones and it clearly caught my attention. Some did a great job while others might as well have thrown a pie in Stones faces. Still, what a group to take on and of course this got me thinking…
The Rolling Stones happen to be the longest running act in the history of rock music with over 40-year career. Though I could swear it is probably 50 years, even though they all look like they are 100 years old. My spouse calls them dias de los muertos, but what we know is that they still are making music, and they are still rocking!
Their debut album came out in 1964 I was six years old and could have cared less. It wasn’t until a year later in the summer of 1965 the Stones recorded I Can’t Get No Satisfaction. The Stones caught my attention as I began to play the riff on my out of tune guitar. I could not quite tune the guitar, but I clearly could play Satisfaction.
The next time the Stones caught my attention was in 1967 when they did Ruby Tuesday and Let’s Spend The Night Together. For this young rocker, they were not as good as the Beatles, but they came in a close second. I caught myself learning the songs and playing them. Still, I did not own an album of theirs yet. Perhaps I was too busy with the Beatles.
They caught my attention again when Mother’s little Helper and Paint it Black came out. I started to become a real fan. It was finally in 1968 that the stones turned my head with Sympathy for the Devil and I went running to the record store to start listening to The Stones.
I recall my mother disliking us kids listening to the stone because there was so much drug abuse and media surround this band. I did not care, the more they made headlines with their rock and roll antics, the more I began to dig this British band.
Mick Jagger had a stage presence that as a kid I loved to imitate his elastic body gestures but as an adult could never imagine imitating. There was something about Jagger that I liked. Maybe it was he seemed unreal. Maybe it was his bad boy image, or his extreme feminine side. What I do know is it is hard to believe this rocker is 65, it reminds me that I am getting older!
As an adult, I like to listen to old Stones here and there and have a few of their CD’s mainly their hits from the past. I also realize they helped revolutionize early rock and roll and tip my hat to this hit making group.
I don’t want to get too nostalgic with the Stones because Jagger once said in an interview, “The word nostalgia, that I assume comes from Greek, has an inferred meaning of longing for the past. The past is a great place and I don’t want to erase it or to regret it, but I don’t want to be its prisoner either.” However, it is the older Stones that caught and still catch my attention.
I will thank the Stones for the best therapeutic advice I can ever give to my clients though, “You can’t always get what you want!”
