‘Cocksucker Blues’: The controversial Rolling Stones documentary that you will never see
Throughout the 1960s, The Rolling Stones teased a number of movies that never came to be. The middle of the decade saw their manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, tease a project that Mick Jagger described as “the sort of thing where everyone dies in the middle”. After a number of strange hints, including an adaptation of A Clockwork Orange, the American Tour 1972 generated hype surrounding another forthcoming cinéma vérité documentary called Cocksucker Blues.
Without going into detail, it’s clear from the name alone what the content of such a documentary might include. Cocksucker Blues was essentially a part of a series of failed plans to bring The Rolling Stones to the big screen. The Beatles had experienced significant success with A Hard Day’s Night and Help!, and so Jagger and Keith Richards were eager to follow suit.
However, the difference between The Stones’ case and outfits like The Beatles’ was that the London group didn’t care as much about a shiny reputation. All of the planned features they announced throughout the years pointed towards them creating something that challenged modern viewers. At one point, they even tried to pitch a film that paralleled Dave Wallis’ dystopian novel Only Lovers Left Alive.
In the film version, Richards and Jagger play adult-free youths who wreak havoc and embellish the newfound blank canvas of parentless society. In short, all movies pointed towards tackling some sort of theme of rebellion, with The Stones at the fore of whatever anti-establishment message they were willing to sell.
While this may not seem like a bad thing, Cocksucker Blues planned to showcase a raw, honest and unfiltered version of The Stones that saw their carefree attitudes being presented in a more sinister manner. According to various reports, the documentary was about to be released before the band decided that it was too embarrassing – and potentially incriminating.
As a result, there was a court order that forbade Cocksucker Blues from being shown unless the director, Robert Frank, was physically present during the viewing. The documentary’s style is used to place you in the same environment as the subject. However, the controversial nature of Cocksucker Blues would have likely made it a difficult film to immerse in, largely due to its themes of drug use and nudity.
Those who have been able to view the movie say that it is less a documentary and more a parade of The Stones’ drug abuse and hedonistic lifestyle. Apparently, there are also scenes that depict young girls shooting up heroin and another that shows a young pregnant woman wanting to give birth while tripping on acid.
The content within Cocksucker Blues would have likely shocked worldwide audiences back then as much as it would now. However, 1970s audiences probably would have watched the documentary and forgot about it soon after, brushing it off as mere rock ‘n’ roll hilarity. Now, on the other hand, the lower tolerance for such behaviours could spark a conversation about the “sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll” culture that existed to exploit, undermine, and perpetuate dark behaviour among and around ’70s groupies.
