The five most ludicrous Rolling Stones lyrics
That The Rolling Stones have become the go-to band to describe long-running rock and roll consistency is utterly ludicrous. At their peak, they didn’t just flirt with disaster, they looked it dead in the eye and asked, “your place or mine?”
They were sleazy, dangerous and utterly seductive. A livewire firestorm that could just as easily destroy themselves in a blaze of addiction stoked bad-blood or flare up into the most staggering show on earth with an almost telepathic level of chemistry.
That reputation has run into the way people discuss the Stones. When they do, it’s often to discuss the most primal, most immediate parts of the band. When they include riffs like ‘Brown Sugar’, ‘Satisfaction’ and ‘Can’t You Hear Me Knocking?’, you would, wouldn’t you? However, something that gets lost in the shuffle in amongst the hip-shaking thrills is Jagger’s lyricism.
At its best, Jagger’s street poetry is just as crude, imaginative and hilarious as anything off 36 Chambers or Wolf. So, we’re going to pay tribute to a lesser spotted part of The Stones’ greatness with five of his most ludicrous lyrics. Sidenote, for those of you wondering where the likes of ‘Sweet Black Angel’ and ‘Stray Cat Blues’ are, this is a list of ludicrous lyrics. Not lyrics that haven’t “aged badly” because they were vile at the time.
The Rolling Stones’ five most ludicrous lyrics:
‘Respectable’
“We’re talking heroin with the president
Well it’s a problem, sir, but it can’t be bent”
We don’t know for sure if The Stones heard that hilarious story of Elvis Presley and Richard Nixon in 1970 when they wrote this song. At the time, Presley, a man pilled up enough to start the Happy Mondays 15 years early, tried to con the actual president out of a spot in his Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. After all, that way, he could legally take drugs and guns into foreign countries rather than smuggle them like normal.
With these lyrics, though, we can make an educated guess. The Stones probably saw themselves in the story. Having earned their status as national treasures and international celebrities off the back of some seriously bad behaviour, the Glimmer Twins used this hilarious image to kick off their punk pastiche. That said, if anyone’s looking for an insight into what heroin can do to a guy, Mick ‘n’ Keef would be men in the know. Perhaps it’s also the most sensible lyric on this list, too.
‘Far Away Eyes’
“The preacher said, ‘You know, you always have the Lord by your side’
Well, I was so pleased to be informed of this that I ran twenty red lights in His honour”
It’s a truth not nearly acknowledged enough that Mick Jagger is a funny little fucker. Sure, Keith Richards has insouciant one-liners and stories for days, but his singer has a brilliant line in yuks. Whether they’re deliciously catty putdowns like “Send me dead flowers to my wedding / And I won’t forget to put roses on your grave” from ‘Dead Flowers’ or this phenomenal bit of sarcasm from one of the best moments of 1978’s Some Girls.
Speaking to Rolling Stone in the same year, Jagger elaborated on the song’s inspiration, saying it came from driving through Heartland America and hearing “all the country music radio stations start broadcasting black gospel services live from LA. And that’s what the song refers to. But the song’s really about driving alone, listening to the radio.” Speaking as someone who has also flicked through the radio stations of the American south, some of the stuff you hear is almost beyond parody. Almost.
‘Monkey Man’
“I’m a cold Italian pizza
I could use a lemon squeezer
Would you do?”
As a wise man who was very inspired by St. Jagger once said, “it’s a fine line between stupid and clever.” This wallbanger from Let It Bleed album track ‘Monkey Man’ cycles through both options a truly mind-boggling amount of times, to the point that nobody can quite tell where it ends up. It sure is stupid, but so much so that it must be intentional. Right?
Ah well, whether it is or it isn’t, it’s the kind of pick-up line that only a man of such swaggering charisma as Mick Jagger could hope to pull it off. Considering how that man made dancing like an inflatable tube man with severe frame rate issues look cool enough to have a major pop hit written about it, I’m sure he always did.
‘Rocks Off’
“I was making love last night to a dancer friend of mine
I can’t seem to stay in step
She comes every time that she pirouettes over me”
This is just confusing. So, Jagger can’t keep up with his dancer friend. Understandable, all those cigarettes laced with heroin will do a number on your cardio. However, despite that, she still achieves… Satisfaction? Hard enough to believe in the first place, and yet Jagger alleges here that when she does arrive, she arrives with a pirouette.
I mean, sure, I can imagine all those ‘She’s The Boss’ royalties pay for quite a sizeable bed and bedroom, but that’s just dangerous. Pirouetting on a soft surface like a bed could lead to some nasty injuries. If this dancer friend really was as dedicated to their craft as we’re led to believe, they’d think twice before putting their livelihood on the line.
‘Honky Tonk Woman’
“Strollin’ on the boulevards of Paris
Naked as the day that I will die
The sailors, they’re so charming there in Paris
But I just don’t seem to sail you off my mind”
By the Glimmer Twins’ own admission, in their prime there were few things they wouldn’t fuck. However, they’ve stayed surprisingly coy about whether their appetites went as far as their own gender. There’s that Bowie story that haunts Jagger, but he swears that they were just in the same bed sleeping off a heavy night. Quite why you’d need to write an apology song to Angie Bowie for that remains to be truly seen.
Then you also get lines as thrillingly homo-erotic as this, and it’s not the only one. This one from one of The Stones’ most prime slices of boogie-rock mastery takes the spot in this list, though. Primarily for the mental image of a skyclad Jagger swaggering mournfully down Champs-Élysées in a vain attempt to rid himself of the memory of his girl.
