01x01 - Mick Jagger

[bunniefuu]

Is it hard trying to live up

to this image that people have

of Mick Jagger?

No, because I don't try to.

But your own image,

Mick Jagger's image?

I don't believe in images.

It's only press and media that like

to have images because it's useful

to put people into categories.

Well, how do you see yourself, then?

Oh, that's the most difficult thing

of all.

I mean, that's what it takes

your whole life to find out.

This programme contains

some strong language

What most documentaries do

is just repeat the same thing

over and over that you've heard,

all the mythologies repeated

until it becomes true.

People want to put things in boxes,

and then it all becomes

this sort of cliche box.

And then the easiest thing

is just to keep repeating that.

So I guess we'll try,

when we're chatting,

to expand those boxes.

I think people

probably like that idea.

CHEERING

The Rolling Stones are the ultimate

rock and roll band.

It was just magic.

They created this magic,

and they've been doing it

for how long now?

A product of their times,

they've helped to define ours.

They have a chemistry together,

a creative inspiration

that is magic.

And Mick Jagger has been out front

for 60 years.

And he will sing and dance for us

to illustrate his early moves.

They look like Rolling Stones,

they act like Rolling Stones,

and they sound like Rolling Stones.

They set the benchmark for what

a rock band should sound like,

look like,

feel like.

If I start looking too mournful

and boring,

light me up a bit, yeah?

The Rolling Stones

recreated music, fashion.

It is a fact.

The supreme pop music brand,

they're a link

between the counterculture

of the 1960s

and the commercial modern world.

Across seven decades,

they've written the playbook

for modern rock and roll.

I got it.

And we'll try and keep it light.

So this is the story

of the key ingredients

of the special

Rolling Stones recipe.

Chemistry is something

that you can't buy.

That's the magic of a band.

Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood,

and the much-missed Charlie Watts.

We thought they were gods.

We really did.

And on vocals,

Sir Michael Philip Jagger,

better known as

Mick Jagger. Slate three.

Let's start with a cliche.

No! No cliches.

I thought we weren't doing

cliches today.

Mick Jagger's Mick Jagger.

He's the best frontman

in the business.

I mean, he'll get up there

and do his stuff

and lay it on you, and he means it.

What you see is what you get.

You know? I mean, there's loads

of facets and variations on him,

but he's really

a very honourable man, you know.

I mean, under all that crap.

HE LAUGHS

One of my big jobs

is to be a big show-off, really.

I mean, that's really what it is.

I suppose that's my job.

For two hours,

to make people feel good,

to bring people a joyous experience,

that they have a great evening.

And that's what I think my role is.

# And I saw her today

at the reception

# A glass of wine in her hand

# I knew she was gonna meet

her connection #

I always loved the idea

of being Mick,

one of the greatest front guy,

the greatest rock star of all time.

# Now, you can't always get

what you want #

And how incredible that would be.

# You can't always get

what you want. #

It's truly inspirational.

They are the pioneers.

They were the ones

writing the story.

# But if you try sometime

# You just might find

you get what you need. #

That's something that requires

attention to a lot of detail.

Mick Jagger does it incredibly well.

Mick's not going to let

anything go wrong

cos he's in control.

# I went down to

the demonstration #

And you just can rely on him.

# To get my fair share of abuse

# Singing, we're gonna vent

our temptation

# And if we don't,

we gonna blow a 50-amp fuse. #

Y'all sing it now.

He's more of a controller

and an organiser than he knows.

It's just what he is built to do.

He wants to see this ship sail.

You know?

# You can't always get

what you want. #

I'm not a control freak.

That is really

That must be really boring.

# You get what you need. #

Someone has to be in control

of an enterprise like this.

It's not only about music.

I'm representing the band

in a way to make sure

that they don't get f*cked.

Mick Jagger has fronted

The Rolling Stones

for more than half a century.

I had several neighbours

in my little suburban community

who played guitar

and played together.

And I used to go to these kind of

..dances, I suppose they were,

and there'd be

rather greasy bands playing.

And I'd ask, could I come and

I was probably 15, 16.

"Can Ican I sing a song?"

And they were

Yeah, they were nice.

And they'd said,

"Yeah, go on, then."

# Well, you got me runnin', baby

# You got me hidin' too

# Tell me, tell me, baby

# What we gonna do #

And it used to go down quite well.

So, you know, I'd think,

"Yeah, I can do this.

"And people seem to like me."

I mean, I didn't have a band.

The Stones form in 1962,

and their first classic line-up

soon takes shape.

Mick Jagger, Keith Richards,

Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman,

and the band's founder, Brian Jones.

And this song, Honey What's Wrong,

is from their first-ever demo.

# Now, don't treat me, baby

# Like you used to do. #

A lot of stuff

with this Rolling Stones mythology

is it's, like, The Rolling Stones,

this blues band

And, you know, it started off

It's all true.

But really, The Rolling Stones

are a rock band.

It's all bullshit, the mythology.

Rock music was the thing.

We loved rock music

from the '50s.

Crackers like Sweet 16, Chuck Berry.

We were kids

and we were high energy.

What we were popular for was playing

this rock music.

That's what we did.

But you had to label yourself

as a blues band to get a gig.

We weren't really

ONLY just a blues band.

We're an everything band.

It takes the Stones just a few

months to blow up in the UK,

with a sound and image ready

for almost instant fame.

What's it like being a Stone

and having this 24 hours a day?

Well, it's something that you get

used to, especially

We've been doing it for, well,

the sort of screaming thing,

for about two years now.

And after two years of it,

it just becomes part of your life.

I remember talking to

Mick once and I said,

"What's it like to be famous?"

And he said, "You're not

really asking the right person

"because I've been famous

ever since I was 17."

From their very first UK number one

and its follow-up,

this cover of Willie Dixon's

Little Red Rooster,

the rise of the Stones is rapid,

part of a revolution in British pop

that takes place on screen.

# I am the little red rooster

# Too lazy to crow for day

# I am the little red rooster

# To lazy to crow for day. #

Television is hugely important.

Millions of people would watch

these shows.

When I was a teenager,

there was a couple of rock shows,

but you would never miss that show

cos it's the only rock show a week.

It is a fact -

the streets in this country

would be empty

on a Friday night

because everyone was watching

"Ready Steady Go!"

I could see how important this was.

Everyone's watching this.

# Hounds begin to howl. #

That's going to stand you out

from all the other people.

So you've got to learn

to work that medium.

You've got to figure out how

you're going to make an impression.

# If you see my little red rooster

# Please drive him home. #

I used to go to "Ready Steady Go!"

when we weren't even on.

I would work out

how the camera angles worked.

I would work out

what we were going to do.

# Ain't had no peace

in the farmyard

# Since my little red rooster's

been gone. #

And I practised my moves, you know,

at home, and I would be rehearsed.

But to really make it big

in the UK and in America,

the Stones need more songs,

hit songs,

and preferably written by them.

Andrew Oldham, who was our manager

at the time, said, you know,

"You've got to start writing songs

like The Beatles,

"because we can't

just keep doing cover songs."

We knew we had to be a pop band.

We wanted to write pop songs.

I mean, Andrew wasn't

particularly talented

in any direction.

Andrew was just Andrew,

and what Andrew did was saw

our possibilities.

It's songwriting that turns

the Stones into global superstars.

And the writers of the hits

are Keith and Mick, not Brian.

Good. Let me get up here

and say hi to Brian.

Brian is one of the writers

of most of the things, right?

No, I'm not, actually.

Well, I'm not really a writer.

He was very musical, so he was

He could pick up

different instruments

and he was quite innovative.

A lot of his contributions

were perhaps not from melodies

or lyrics or anything,

but from licks that he played

as a musician.

Mick and Keith write

moremany of our

These are the two that are supposed

to be all the writing talent.

You fellows get together

and do most of the writing, right?

Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

I mean, yeah, he liked

to tell people it was his band,

but we was always like, "Really?

"Really, it's your band?"

We thought it was OUR band.

The future as a Rolling Stone

is very uncertain.

It's Jagger and Richards

who will soon give their friends,

Lennon and McCartney,

a run for their money.

If you listen to all

the popular songs ten years ago,

very few of them

actually mean anything

or have any relation

to what people are doing.

They don't Songs didn't have

any relation to what people actually

spend their lives doing,

like getting up, washing,

going to work, coming back

and feeling very screwed up

about certain things.

Life for the working guy

never changed.

You still live

in a council house.

You still had to pay your rent.

And then you hear

"dam-dam, da-da-da."

All right!

MUSIC: Satisfaction

by The Rolling Stones plays

I remember the first time

I heard it,

and I just went,

"What the hell is that?"

# I can't get no

# Satisfaction

# I can't get no

# Satisfaction

# And I try, and I try

# And I try, and I try

# I can't get no

# I can't get no #

There's this pool,

and there's this motel

in Clearwater, Florida.

And I remember sitting with Keith

and writing the song Satisfaction.

Andrew Oldham said,

"This is like a number one single,

"This is great."

Keith was like,

"I don't really like it.

"It can't come out as a single."

And it went to number one,

like, instantly.

# Oh, no, no

# Hey, hey, hey. #

It was like a big moment.

You know, it became

your signature tune,

your cri de coeur,

your sexuality, your controversy.

You need to have that song

that everyone remembers.

# I can't get no

# Satisfaction

# And I try #

It turned everybody on.

It was just a brilliant song.

Those boys were building

a new road to the future.

It makes a huge change,

and it also brings you

into a much more confident era

of writing, production,

all that stuff.

Wait a minute.

There's at least 15

huge hit songs here.

Paint It Black, Ruby Tuesday,

Get Off My Cloud, Under My Thumb

Christ.

Most bands would be happy

to get one of those.

# I can't get no

# I can't get no #

All right.

Behind it is this sort of cynicism

and reality of all the blues things

that I'd been listening to

since I was very young,

very, very young.

And there's a way of speaking

and a way of talking about life

and a way of being sexually

roundabout but sexually

kind of provocative.

Mick is sexy.

And he knew he was sexy,

confident,

and he was so cool.

He's got those lips.

And for me, I love to kiss,

so I was a kisser.

You know what I mean?

I do remember meeting him.

I'm 15.

I was slightly wary,

and Mick went, "Hello, Lulu."

And I tried to string a few words

together,

and I believe I spoke to him.

I don't really know that I said

very much, or could even engage

properly in a conversation.

I was frightened.

I was afraid of him.

All that sexual image

that sort of oozed.

It was scary.

SHE LAUGHS

Exciting and scary.

For some reason,

Mick Jagger's got

this thing

where he can project

that wild animal

that's in all of us.

It's like, "Yeah, that's

That's who we are."

You celebrate the true nature

of the human being

when you look at Mick Jagger.

All right! CROWD: All right!

Well, all right! All right!

When it came to how to present

myself on stage and everything,

I really didn't know how to do that.

And when I sing this song, I want

everybody to raise your hands.

Everybody, raise your hand.

Come on.

Little Richard literally

taught me how to do this stuff.

He would say, "Oh, you've got

to get them involved.

"You've got to get them standing up.

"If they're not standing up,

tell them,

"you've got to tell them

to stand up, you know?"

Everybody say, "Well, all right!"

ALL: All right!

You know, and they would.

You!

You!

# You! #

When I was on stage,

you'd feel it very strongly

these people giving you this energy.

And you don't really understand,

you just feel it.

You don't understand really

what they're trying to say,

what they want, what they need

from you, what they need from life.

But you just feel that they need

something, and they're giving

..giving it to you.

He knows what he wants.

And you know when he knows,

cos he starts to respond

and he starts to sing and he starts

to move

And voom, voom, voom

And it starts.

Yeah, really enjoy life.

I've heard Keith saying

on more than one occasion

about what a great

performer Mick is.

"He could perform

on a coffee table."

He's really proud of his guy,

and he knows the responsibility

that Mick takes on.

It takes a lot of ba*ls to stand up

and command an audience

of 100,000 people.

You're not the same person

on stage as you are

the rest of the time.

You have to be very, very,

very egotistical.

Cos that's I mean, you're acting,

you're doing an act for them.

It's not really you.

What do you set out to do

in your act?

Entertain people.

Most successful entertainers

have always been

the most egotistical ones.

All that ego is got rid of onstage.

What sort of person do you think

you are off the stage?

About half as egotistical.

HE VOCALISES

I think Mick Jagger

has this wonderful gift.

He can make

a huge stadium,

seem like a small room

and make everybody feel involved.

And that's the secret.

# Everywhere I hear the sound

# Of marching, changing feet, boy

# Cos summer's here

and the time is right #

They always find a way to make

even the biggest of the shows

as intimate as possible.

And, obviously, Mick Jagger

does it incredibly well.

# Except to sing

for a rock and roll band

# Cos in sleepy London town

# There's just no place

for a street fighting man. #

He works at it.

He works hard at it.

And he gets them hips going.

And he gets them legs going.

He's got his thing.

He dances his a*s off.

It ain't the latest dance move

that everybody is trying to do.

No, it's HIS dance.

And he dances the sh*t

out of his dance.

# Compromise solution

# But what can a poor boy do

# Except to sing

for a rock and roll band

# Cos in sleepy London town

# There's just no place

for a street fighting man. #

And Mick is taught

by some of the all-time greats,

many of whom share a stage

with the Stones on tour.

He was watching me,

just watching every move,

this white-faced person

behind the speakers,

just watching me

while I was doing my thing.

Mick would always

come backstage

to the dressing room

and we would, like,

show him moves

and steps and things.

He was OK, but I didn't think

he was going to amount to anything.

Sorry, Mick!

SHE LAUGHS

# Except to sing

for a rock n' roll band

# Cos in sleepy London town

# There's just no place

for a street fighting man. #

Really, in rock music,

it's about personality

more than virtuosity.

It's not what's best

and it's not even what's good.

If you want good, go see a musical,

where they've all been trained

to sing.

I don't think people even think

that Mick has a beautiful voice.

It's just Mick Jagger.

I think he is

a great dancer

in the way that

he expresses himself.

It's like when you see a young child

learning how to dance,

but they do it with so much heart,

you can't help but embrace it.

SHE LAUGHS

The way that he dances,

it is total belief and freedom

of expression and individuality.

The transformation is complete.

This is Mick Jagger,

the charismatic frontman.

Here's Michael wearing

a pair of ordinary gym shoes,

which should you'd wear

when you were playing tennis.

And this is Mike Jagger,

just a few years earlier.

A swotty, sporty schoolboy

with academic ambitions

and his sights set on higher things.

I'm working hard at my schoolwork.

I'm quite academic.

I want to go to university,

so I can't just f*ck about.

You spent, I think, two years

at the London School of Economics.

Yeah. So I've been trying to unlearn

everything I learnt ever since.

But I've, I think, almost succeeded.

Would you ever think

of going back there? No.

No, I don't think so.

I didn't like it there very much.

What didn't you like about

that sort of academic learning?

I wasn't given any freedom.

But Mick is about to discover

that freedom can have consequences

he can't always control.

He's on his way to Redlands,

the new country residence

of Mr Keith Richards.

"Dear Mick, do come to lovely party

in Redlands. Acid provided."

I don't think that was on the

invitation, but I can't remember.

Keith might remember

because he had to buy the acid.

He'd just got Redlands

and he'd done it up

and he wanted everyone to see, like,

as you do, you know what I mean?

As you do up a nice house

in the country and you want everyone

to come for a weekend.

It was quite a kind of

bohemian weekend, really.

We went for a nice walk.

# She comes in colours everywhere. #

And there was a lot of drugs there.

LSD, hash

We were just having fun.

And then the fuzz bust in, man.

When you're on acid, being busted,

it's very odd.

It's not fun being busted at all.

But being busted on acid

is really weird.

KEITH RICHARDS: They were breaking

in my house.

JOKINGLY: The police

were against you!

Unnecessary authority.

The establishment was against you!

I always felt that

they were picking on me.

Man, they're all against us.

They want to shut us down!

Of course, that only reinforced

my wariness of authority.

What they're trying to do is,

like, close the Stones down!

I still carry a chip.

Yeah. I could use a joint right now.

You know?

HE LAUGHS

But it's no laughing matter.

The arrests steer the Stones

into a storm of controversy.

Drugs raid. Jagger arrest.

Keith Richards being arrested.

It was all adding

to this whole idea

of this rebel outfit.

The first reaction is, "Oh, my God,

what am I going to do?"

You know, and,

"What does my mum think?"

Because they say you could go

to prison for five years.

You've now been derailed

from your amazing life

of a pop singer.

It takes the emphasis

off your career and achievements.

It makes you a group of drug addicts

rather than a talented group

of musicians.

But the band have always risked

falling victim

to their bad-boy image,

the invention of their manager,

Andrew Loog Oldham.

I think that Andrew very much

like to contrive the danger,

cos he saw that very cleverly

as a foil for The Beatles.

They got cleaned up

by their manager,

to make them more palatable

to the public.

Otherwise, they were

exactly the same as we were.

Filthy swine.

But Brian Epstein

didn't want to sell them as such.

He sold them as these lovable scamps

and funny,

and could be sarcastic,

but nevertheless lovable.

So Andrew wanted us to be more nasty

and more dirty, more of an edge.

Which is a very good sell.

And it wasn't difficult

for us to do

because, you know,

you're that age,

it's quite easy to have that edge.

The gentlemen of the press

have been kept waiting.

Mick Jagger is half an hour late

for his press conference.

His fine contempt for convention

seems to irritate journalists.

So you think he'll be coming

into a hostile audience?

I would imagine so, yes.

Journalists would be

very patronising.

Morning! Good morning.

Good afternoon!

What do you think of him?

Oh, he does a damn good job

of what he wants to do,

which is to be a paid exhibitionist.

He makes a lot of money.

He laughs all the way to the bank,

as Liberace said.

Do you like press conferences? No.

LAUGHTER

Why not?

Oh, I just like I really

like to keep myself to myself.

I always remember one point

where Brian used the word

in a stupid press conference -

"esoteric."

IMITATING BRIAN: It's

a bit esoteric, really.

And he'd used the word eclectic

quite a lot as well.

They were so shocked, and

we would obviously tease him

and behave like yobs as well,

so they didn't know what to expect.

If you want to follow up

in TV journalism

what rubbish they dish out

in the press,

then you're pretty low.

So watch out, boy.

One half of you is sort of the yob,

and the other half is saying,

"Well, yeah, we also know

what we're talking about."

Mick Jagger needs the reporters,

and the reporters need him.

A sort of love/hate relationship.

The press can be savage,

so you have to be very careful.

In fact, the News Of The World

helped them get busted

in the first place.

But in a famous editorial,

that bastion of the establishment,

The Times, actually sticks up

for them, arguing that artists

should not be crushed by the law,

and the law listens.

There was obviously a collusion

between the police

and the newspaper.

I mean, that's not questioned.

But I was freed from jail

by the establishment.

It's years since such crowds

gathered to await an appeal verdict.

But this was a Rolling Stones case,

with the fans out in force.

When Mick Jagger was conditionally

discharged and Keith Richards's

sentence quashed, the pop idols

drove off,

the shadow of jail

no longer over them.

Earlier today, Mick Jagger talked

briefly to a press conference

after the Lord Chief Justice

Lord Parker had quashed

his three months' prison sentence

for possessing amphetamine tablets.

It was a complete waste

of everybody's time.

Bollocks, basically.

Publicity since the case has shown

up a split between the society

which resents the anarchy

of people like the Stones

and that which favours

greater individual freedom.

It had ramifications

far beyond just a drug bust.

It had a lot of social implications.

What's wrong

with people smoking drugs?

This is when this first came up.

This became a big discussion.

You're often taken as a sort

of symbol of rebellion.

Do you think that the society

that you live in

is one you ought to rebel against?

Or do you think you're rebelling

against it?

Yes, definitely

rebelling against it.

# I was born

in a cross-fire hurricane

# And I howled at my ma

in the driving rain

# But it's all right now

# In fact, it's a gas

# But it's all right

# I'm Jumpin' Jack Flash

# It's a gas, gas, gas#

Kids are looking for something else

or some different moral value.

The whole sort of basis of society

and values which were accepted

could be changed, but it's up to

them to carry on those ideals

that they have, instead of just

falling into the same old routine

that their parents have fallen into.

# But it's all right now

# In fact, it's a gas

# But it's all right

# I'm Jumping Jack Flash,

it's a gas, gas, gas #.

The violence of the Vietnam w*r

is what's causing the blowback

of the violence

in the street. Right?

Because the violence in the street

is a direct consequence

of the Vietnam w*r, and that gives

causes a right to violence,

because the state

is perpetrating the violence

on other people, big time.

At Grosvenor Square, police waited

for the marchers to arrive.

They'd been told

there'd be no violence.

Sincerely they hope so.

1968 is a turbulent year.

And Mick is in the thick of it.

If you want to demonstrate, we have

to meet them on their own ground.

If they want to use horses,

we'll have 10,000 people on a horse.

That I love.

And that's that I thought

when I was there.

That's what it should have been.

I couldn't believe how vicious

the police were.

That was the scary thing.

The mounted police just chasing

at people with their horses

in the middle of Grosvenor Square.

Really scary.

There was nothing going on violent

from the crowd at all.

It was pretty peaceful,

and the police made it not peaceful.

That's what I remember.

As 1968 thunders on,

Mick writes a song that peers

into the Heart of Darkness.

# Please let me introduce myself

# I'm a man with wealth and taste

# I've been around for many

a long, long year

# Stole many a man's soul and faith

# Yes, I was 'round

when Jesus Christ

# Had his moment of doubt

and pain#

When you involve religion,

it always gives it an extra frisson.

So, it's obviously got

religious overtones.

When I wrote it, I wasn't thinking

of how provocative that was.

I had read all these things

about you,

and some people call you

the Devil incarnate.

I don't know who started that.

I don't know.

British journalists and all.

# Pleased to meet y'all

# Hope you guess my name

# But what's puzzling you

is the nature of my game#

You're not this image

that people have of you.

I don't know what that is.

Well, it's a sort of sexy,

evil, satanic

You can be nice, nasty,

masculine, feminine.

You know, all those things.

And everyone is all those things.

Try and make it a bit more life.

Not clipped

Reluctantly, Mick becomes

the poster boy for a troubled era,

with trouble followed by tragedy.

OK, now, listen

I really don't know how to do

this sort of thing,

but I'm going to try.

..just say a few words

that I think I feel about Brian,

and I'm sure you do,

and what we feel about him just

going when we didn't expect him to.

OK, are you going to be quiet

or not?

Peace. Peace.

He is not dead. He does not sleep.

He has awakened

from the dreams of life.

It's we that are lost

in stormy visions

and keep with phantoms

and unprofitable strife.

And in a mad trance,

we strike with a spirit's knife.

APPLAUSE

All right.

Six months after Brian's death,

another tragedy,

as a chaotic free concert in America

ends in m*rder.

OK, it's definitely on.

Well, they've decided now

they're going to hold the concert

at Altamont Speedway.

So, in the '60s, I was only

interested in being, you know,

a good musician and

a good performer and so on.

I let other people do the control

part of it, which was a mistake.

Our tour manager said, we're going

to do it in this place called

Altamont, which I'd never heard of,

and I don't think anyone else had.

He said, "It's all going to be fine.

"It's San Francisco, you know,

you don't have to worry about it.

"It's peace and love."

When we got there, it was

the antithesis of peace and love.

It was a disastrous mess.

The Hells Angels were

the people doing the security.

You had no control over anything.

And we were We were scared.

We felt something bad was going on

and these people were crazy

and they were, like,

standing next to you.

And it was scary.

The whole thing was out of control.

Altamont, California.

Four people in the audience of

a free and unscheduled concert died,

one of them from stab wounds.

All we could do was get out without

getting in trouble ourselves.

It was just a nightmare.

Life as a Rolling Stone

is spiralling into chaos.

After that, the '60s period,

then we had to take more control,

so that's when I had to take

that role on a bit more,

not that I particularly wanted to.

The ideal, in this situation,

is to have someone that will do

all that for you.

But I never really found

anyone like that.

LAUGHTER

The Rolling Stones

are about to find out

that their taxes

have not been paid for years

and they're not as rich as they

or the British government

thinks they are.

There was nobody actively

managing The Rolling Stones' money.

Rolling Stones had no money

in the bank.

So now I had to try and put my head

down and try and solve this puzzle.

To create income,

we decided that the best way

of doing that was to leave the UK,

because we'd have to pay less tax.

At the time, it looked

as if it was a total curse.

By the time we dealt with it,

I think that it was a blessing.

Quite honestly, we'd grown

too big for England's boots.

Keith always says that he was chased

out of England by the cops.

He may believe that, but the real

reason the band left was money.

Mick is forced

to take on the main responsibility

for the band's fortunes.

The band would certainly

have their say in everything

and, if they weren't particularly

interested in having a say

about a certain detail,

then I'd have my say

and I would tell them,

"This is what we'll do. Do you

agree?" And they would say, "Yes."

Now we work a bit that way now.

The word democracy is used to keep

everyone, you know, pacified

but you really have to have a strong

leader in any organisation.

You have to trust someone, trust

that they know better than you do.

Mick's not going to let anything

go wrong because he's in control.

He was armed with the playbook

of the London School of Economics

and, my heavens, he was well armed!

I think he brings rigour,

discipline,

a 360 vision on everything.

He's across all the detail.

He tests every proposition.

And to interact with him, you've

got to stay at the top of your game.

You've got to be in the A-stream

really to try and keep up with him.

Someone has to be the person

that says, "Look, this is

what we should be doing."

People can disagree with you,

say, "We're not doing that" or

"We want to do something different."

But I don't mind to be in control

of certain situations

that I feel that I'm confident,

that I know what I'm talking about.

Step one for Stones 2.0 is a

brand-new deal, brokered by Mick,

with Atlantic Records agreeing

to warehouse their own label.

The band is about to become a brand.

We were doing

the Sticky Fingers cover.

I don't know why

I thought it should have a logo.

I remember stopping

at a Shell Oil gas station

and the big picture of

a yellow shell, no letters.

Wow!

Everyone knows it's Shell.

We need a logo

that stands by itself.

And so I think I'd gone

to John Pasche and said,

"Let's try and get some funky

idea," and I gave him this idea.

I was at the Royal

College of Art,

studying graphic design.

The college got a call

from the Stones' office,

asking for them

to put forward a student

to come and see Mick Jagger.

What a break!

I think a lot of people believe

the lips are sort of based on Mick,

but that's not really true.

I gave him this idea of

this disembodied tongue of Kali,

and so then he modernised that.

I saw it as maybe a symbol

of protest, of anti-establishment.

It was like kids

sticking their tongue out.

It had to work as a stand-alone

symbol, if you like, for the band,

which was unusual.

I mean, there were brandings

for companies and so on

but not so much

in the rock-and-roll world, really.

It related to the band.

It had a connection.

Colour, f*ck you,

funkiness, originality,

and so that's why it stuck, I think.

I think that tongue

is as important

as any fashion logo

in the world

and probably resonates

in every country, every city,

with people knowing

exactly what it is.

JOHN: It's a logo that's sort of

really gone round the world now.

It's a Rolling Stones weekend

on Radio 1,

and their record

has gone up seven places

to number seven

in the chart this week -

The Stones, Fool To Cry.

MUSIC: Fool To Cry

by The Rolling Stones

But Mick Jagger is more

than just a brand manager.

He's a band member

and a musician as essential

as a Keith Richards riff

to the signature Stones sound.

# When I come home, baby

# And I've been working

all night long

# I put my daughter on my knee

# She says #

I think if you have an

individual timbre of your voice,

which is recognisable just by luck,

if you want, that's really helpful.

You know, the minute he parts

those lips, you know it's him.

When somebody meets him

and they talk to him,

he speaks like

an English gentleman.

One perhaps doesn't ask

for responsibilities.

Perhaps one

is given responsibilities

when one is pushed

into the limelight

in this particular sphere.

# I go see her sometimes

and make love #

When he starts to sing,

he turns into a black man

from the south -

the Mick Jagger voice.

# I put my head on her shoulder

and she says

# Tell me all your troubles

# You know what she say to me?

# She say, ooh #

He's, like, listened to

those voices, you know,

to, like, all those

blues singers,

and he had it down.

# And it makes me wonder why #

Loads of people have great voices

but, er,

er, like, lots of people

are great guitarists,

but that doesn't necessarily mean

you're going to be successful.

Have you got a good voice? No.

Technically? No, not really.

I mean, I'm lucky

I still can sing

more or less, like, the same notes

as when I was 19.

But, no, I haven't got

a great voice.

But it's OK, it does its job.

Mick Jagger, the singer

with the group, a fascinating man.

He's been described variously as

"the supreme sexual object

"in modern Western culture."

That's a quote. "A compound of

menace and energy," is another one.

"A sadomasochistic freak,"

is another one,

and it's fascinating.

Mick was not the same

person that I met in London

when he was standing

behind the speakers.

He had come out of his shell

because he had found what could make

him perform the way he wanted to.

He became a great performer.

He became Mick Jagger.

Mick decided what he wanted

to look like on stage,

whether it was something

very bohemian,

something maybe glittery,

wearing eye make-up

and becoming very androgynous.

He was as chameleon-like as

you could possibly imagine,

but Mick really didn't give a sh*t.

He did his thing anyway.

So that influenced me to really

go into the fashion business.

The Stones really innovated

that whole androgynous look.

It was a feminised way of dressing,

wearing their girlfriends' clothes,

mixing it in with their wardrobe

when they had to, like, you know,

attract 50,000 people

to look at them on stage.

They adapted their look.

How did you manage to make androgyny

look so butch?

I didn't even know I was doing

androgyny. I was so naive.

But I was. I was doing androgyny,

but obviously that was just the way

I was naturally, you know,

I was a bit fey.

I remember Brian being

rather critical of me once

because he thought

I was too feminine.

I mean, I had my moments of that.

Every, every outfit,

he just steals the screen.

There's a lot of camp background

to theatre,

and rock and roll is still part

theatre in a way.

I had a great make-up artist called

Pierre

who would dress me up, like, wildly,

and I'd have to take some of

the layers off!

And, you know, I loved it.

I loved dressing up.

Of course, you dress up

very effeminately,

but you don't act necessarily

feminine.

By 1972, Mick has

never been more famous

or infamous.

More than just a rock star,

he's an instantly recognisable

global celebrity.

It can be really annoying

because people make

all these assumptions about you

but there's ways of dealing with it.

And some people can take it

and some people can't.

It's a bit of a pact with the devil,

really.

Cut.

I suddenly got an invite to go

to his wedding to Bianca.

I thought, "Oh, this will be fun."

I realised that it's

in the south of France.

He'd laid on a plane.

The plane's filling up with

all these artists

and famous people of the day.

We had such a great weekend.

Everyone was stoned.

And so it was a great atmosphere.

At probably the most chaotic

wedding of the year,

Mick Jagger arriving at

the Saint-Tropez town hall

with his bride, Bianca de Macias.

When Jagger found that there

were scores of photographers there,

he said he refused to be married

in a goldfish bowl.

However, in spite of all

the confusion,

scuffling and shouting,

one Rolling Stone at least

finally came to rest.

As Mick's fame grows, so does

his ambition for the band.

From the 1970s on, the sheer scale

of their live performances

grows ever larger.

I've been getting into lights and

things, which has been nice, but

I don't think anyone's really done

lights properly in this country.

Last week, New York City finally got

to see and hear the Rolling Stones.

We were the last stop on

a tour that I'm sure most

of you have heard about.

And the tour was amazingly

complicated, logistically,

in terms of moving them

and more than 100 people

that travel with them

and all the equipment

from city to city.

The Stones were

the first band

to have their own

stages built

and their own

stage designs,

which were pretty extraordinary.

That was Mick. That wasn't

anyone else. That was Mick.

The next two decades see the Stones

create a travelling carnival

that only they control.

I felt something like

I'd never felt in my life.

I felt like 20,000 people's

energy looking at Mick.

And I couldn't believe the sensation

of their focused energy.

It's undescribable.

When all these lights

come on in red,

I'd like the whole stage

to be red

and not to have just

the front area.

We've gone back to the crane.

I mean, I know we talked about

just losing the crane.

Steel Wheels in '89 was the

ground-breaking stadium tour.

It was the Stones who did

the first tours of stadia.

As they got bigger and bigger,

you know,

three or four nights at

Madison Square Garden wasn't enough.

They did create

the stadium rock show.

That generations of people

go to see the Rolling Stones

because it's a bucket list item,

it's a life experience,

it's a rite of passage.

That stadium experience

was mind-blowing.

I was just designing a playroom

for myself that was huge.

And I used to climb up the back

of this stage that was 90-foot high.

No-one had seen anything like it.

It's like in the old days

when the circus would come.

Rock music got

to that level.

It became this giant thing.

Mick was running the show,

and I think he's always run

the show,

and I think they're all happy

that he did.

Are you ready for a little bit more?

We would go through the ideas

for these big stadium tours

with the massive stages,

very expensive,

some of them just crazy and

wonderful.

There were so many ideas

and not all of them practical.

Mick wanted to have

an elephant come out

at the end of a performance

and present him with a rose

in the end of his trunk.

What was he thinking?

What was he thinking?

Mick will always

push the envelope a bit.

Keith is the person

who might stop that.

He famously stopped the elephant

on the stage.

Heh-heh! Everybody

The sigh of relief

almost blew the building down.

I think at times Mick

might push further than the band

would like to go.

When that happens, I guess

there's a little discussion

or there's no discussion.

There's just, you know,

"No. No, I'm not doing it

and you can't make me."

Would you tell me

about your relationship with Keith?

No. You know, we have

a pretty good relationship.

We have our ups and downs.

I mean, after 30 something years,

I mean, if you don't have any ups

and downs, there's something wrong

with your relationship.

There was a time

you would never see

Mick and Keith

put their arm

around each other

because for a lot of years they

weren't laughing so much together.

The band isn't really meant

to be touchy-feely.

That's what's great about them.

You've been playing a bit

of guitar, haven't you?

Yeah, on stage, yeah.

I haven't played so much. I enjoyed

it very much, playing guitar.

Keith keeps adjusting my settings

when I'm singing, of course.

If I did that with him,

he'd probably go bananas.

That anger created a type of spark.

Anger, you know,

makes for good songwriting.

Mick has always been

the captain of the ship.

Keith won't like to hear that,

but, you know, in the early '70s,

I thought,

like we all felt at the time,

you don't know how lucky you are,

mate.

After a while, I'm now seeing

the love and respect

..that they have each other.

It warms the sh*t out of me.

# I'm the man on the mountain

# Come on up

# I'm the ploughman in the valley

# With a face full of mud

# Well, I'm fumbling

and I know my car don't start

# Yes, I'm stumbling

# And I know I play a bad guitar

# But I just want a drink

# From your loving cup

# I just want #

The thing about bands is that

..that's it's a band.

It's a collection of individuals,

a band.

They say, "You're just like

brothers. It's like a family."

It's not like a family at all.

I actually have a brother and I know

what it's like to have a brother.

It's not like being with Keith

at all.

It's friendship and it

And it's friendship

and working together.

# Give me a drink

from your loving cup #

As in friendships or love affairs,

people have roles to play,

but those roles change.

And so it's in a state of flux,

so it's never the same.

So if you're talking about a band

like the Rolling Stones,

who've been around such a long time,

then all of these things apply.

Jagger and Richards

depend on each other

more than

they'll ever know.

# What a beautiful buzz

# What a beautiful buzz.. #

Oh, you know, "They've had a,

they've had an argument.

"Oh, my God!"

You know, I mean,

and it's so, you know,

talk about storms in teacups,

you know what I mean?

It's like And so before

I know it, you know, Mick and I

are actually sort of

making up fights

just to keep everybody happy,

you know?

And so it gets ridiculous.

No, we're tight.

# Give me that drink

from your loving cup

# Just one drink

and I'll fall down drunk #

Have you got any idea

why your group particularly

has lasted as long as it has?

Because we stay together,

I suppose, and we enjoy it.

We all have little sort of

disagreements. We haven't had

We haven't had any violence

since 1965, I don't think.

What happened in 1965?

Was that the chicken?

Someone stole someone's

chicken sandwich.

That was the last fight we had.

Can you picture yourself at the age

60 doing what you do now?

Yeah, easily, yeah.

What happens to someone like

yourself, Mick Jagger,

when you get old?

When you get old?

Same as what happens to you, love.

The Stones have now played live in

front of more than 15 million people

on every continent on Earth,

drawing record-breaking crowds

in Rio in 2006

and Havana ten years later,

in a country that banned their music

for decades.

But I try to do things

that haven't been done before

or difficult to do.

But I don't honestly enjoy doing

business per se very much.

I'd much rather be a performer,

and I wish I didn't have to do

any of the business bit.

But I am interested

in creating shows.

The whole thing of trying to go

to Cuba was, like, impossible.

Let's see if we can do it, and the

answer is, "Not really, we can't."

And you push and you push and you

push, and you keep pushing

and you keep pushing. We'll find

a way of just getting around this.

# You can't always

get what you want #

I like to hear on the radio,

five past eight,

you hear the tour manager

to the production manager

and he just says,

"We're walking, we're walking."

We know that it's three minutes

to the stage and then they start

the intro music

and then the show starts,

and you still get butterflies

and excitement when you do that.

# You get what you need

# You get what you need #

Sometimes, I think the Stones

would go on without Mick or me.

It'd still carry on somehow.

If you look at musical history,

pop music history,

nothing lasts forever.

You have to go, how did this

rebel rock and roll band

stand the test of time

and still stay together?

Mick is the answer to that.

He doesn't beat his own butt about,

"I'm not who I was 40 years ago."

It's like, "I know

who I was 40 years ago.

"I knew who I was 50, 60 years ago."

They're not going to end.

They've been doing this

since I was in sixth grade,

and they're going to keep

doing it till they drop.

The hardest thing in rock and roll

is to keep a band together.

Got to keep the band together.

Got to keep the band together.

And Mick Jagger did.