In retrospect, much as I enjoyed Keith's autobiography (Life), certain things about his thinking keep on bugging me, particularly the way he sort of treats Mick as if he was a by-stander while they were making their great albums of the early seventies. Of course, you know that there's an underlying respect there, but for whatever reason he does slag him pretty hard throughout the book. My point in this post is this: what Keith was to rock and roll guitar, Mick was to rock and roll singing, no more or less. And people that don't think that his contribution to the band (and music, in general) was the equivalent of Keith's (or Charlie's) are not hearing things accurately. Try singing along with "Ventilator Blues" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_l0X1w8a7D8) or "Let It Loose" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrCiKD-cBvo) if you don't believe me. Mick's experience as a serious blues student and instrumentalist (Keith does give credit to his harmonica playing - but he's an excellent guitarist as well) allowed him to find melodic material and phrasings that were much more sophisticated than most people (including Keith, apparently) realize. Here are the lyrics to the album, arguably the greatest in rock 'n' roll history, that contains the classic tracks mentioned above: http://dougscripts.com/itunes/pdf/examplepdf.pdf. (You'll need them to sing along. Try it. Seriously.)

I mentioned yesterday that the Rolling Stones were fed by American music - rock and roll, r&b and the blues - and that they returned the favour by breathing life into each of them. (In fact a strong case could be made that American music was treated with more reverence and scholarship by English bands in the sixties than by their American counterparts.) But I didn't mention the relationship that the Stones had with country music, and how many of their greatest songs were from the genre. And it's not a coincidence that their classic period - from 1968 to 1972, when they released four straight masterpieces (Beggars' Banquet, Let it Bleed, Sticky Fingers, Exile on Main Street) - was also the time during which they were most involved with country, both in terms of composition and the integration of its rhythms and sounds into their rock and roll. Consider this list: "Factory Girl", "Salt of the Earth", "Dear Doctor", "Country Honk", "You Got the Silver", "Dead Flowers", "Wild Horses", "Sweet Virginia", "Torn and Frayed". And then there's my favourite Stones country song, "Faraway Eyes" from 1978's Some Girls, with its beautifully sung chorus, its unforgettable truck-driving narrator and his girl with "well, you know what kinda eyes she got": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDnZBvCetQM

The Rolling Stones are under-appreciated as lyricists. The recently released remastered version of Exile on Main Street brought this fact to my attention again. The album is wonderful musically - most people consider it their apex, but lyrically, it's a masterpiece. It's a deeply imagined tour through dirty roads, Union Halls, ballrooms, smelly bordellos, with songs such as "Tumbling Dice", with lyrics like, "Honey, got no money, I'm all sixes and sevens and nines", or "I'm the lone crapshooter playing the field every night". Come on. We know that "Sweet Black Angel" has Angela Davis awaiting an upcoming trial as its subject, but who is the narrator? He seems to be some sort of Huck Finn-type character facing down racism on his own and turning his back on the wrong things he'd learned. Amazing.
One of the record's main themes is the cost of the bohemian lifestyle, how good times have a price. There is real wisdom and empathy in songs like "Shine a Light", "Sweet Virginia", and the incomparable "Let it Loose". Contrast the tone and content of these songs with earlier ones, such as "Live with Me" or "Brown Sugar". By the way, the album also contains some of their most exuberant rock and roll. "Rip this Joint", "All Down the Line", "Happy", and "Rocks Off" are musical thrill-rides. Wicked good.
But back to the lyrics. One of the most remarkable things is the way they contain utterly convincing images of rural poverty ("Torn and Frayed", "Ventilator Blues", "Loving Cup"). It's like rock and roll Faulkner. Don't forget that the band's existence was very far away from anything like what they were describing. They had essentially been living in velvet cages since their early twenties, and their only contact with the authenticity that it appears they yearned for was through music and words. Of course, that can be enough. They proved it on this album.