‘Star Star’: the most offensive Rolling Stones song of all time?
The Rolling Stones writing a song that doesn’t particularly paint women in the most empowering light? No, that doesn’t sound like them.
Who are we kidding? The Rolling Stones are a band who bring the sex to “sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll”. In fact, they’re a band so fixated on that first factor, the over two often present themselves as mere afterthoughts, never far behind, though.
They have always embraced their overt nature in their music, which has sometimes led to pretty fun songs. However, there are other occasions when they have been deemed to take it too far, and their track ‘Star Star’ is a great example of that.
Music can take on new shapes when presented in a way that feels not only engaging to listen to but is also reflective of the world around you, something which Bob Dylan harnessed to his grand appeal. However, sometimes the world view of a rockstar is slightly different to that of the everyday person, which means songs stop being relatable and start being a poor mirror of their headspace, which can be borderline offensive for listeners.
The Rolling Stones cottoned on when they released the track ‘Star Star’. The original title was ‘Starfucker’, but their record label sanitised it to take the word “fuck” out of the title. Regardless, people were enraged at how it depicted women as only being good for sex and not much else.
You don’t really have to read into the lyrics to find the lines that upset people. Words like “Your tricks with fruit was kinda cute, I bet you keep your pussy clean” aren’t the most inspiring. Then of course you have the choral mantra which proclaims, “Yeah! You a starfucker, startfucker, starfucker, starfucker, star, yeah, a starfucker, starfucker, starfucker, starfucker, star, a starfucker, starfucker, starfucker, starfucker, star”. The label could only diffuse so many F-bombs.
When Mick Jagger was taken to task on the song, he doubled down that it was supposed to be a reflection of the world that he was used to, as opposed to being intentionally offensive. In his defence, he managed to offend even more people, essentially saying that unless they had a specific job to do, women didn’t belong on tour.
“They always say Starf–ker, and that just happened to be about someone I knew. There’s really no reason to have women on tour, unless they’ve got a job to do,” said Jagger. “The only other reason is to fuck. Otherwise, they get bored, they just sit around and moan. It would be different if they did everything for you, like answer the phones, make the breakfast, look after your clothes and your packing, see if the car was ready, and fuck. Sort of a combination of what (road manager) Alan Dunn does and a beautiful chick.”
‘Star Star’ could well be the most offensive song that The Stones have ever released; however, that’s tough to say given it’s up against such stiff (no pun intended) competition. Tracks like ‘Brown Sugar’, ‘Some Girls’ and ‘Under the Thumb’ are all equally offensive, having painted women in a pretty poor light as objects. The band have never been apologetic about their comments, and it hasn’t affected their career too much, which shows just how much a decent bit of blues and R&B-inspired music belted by white men will take you.
