Classic rock legends Jethro Tull got it all wrong when they famously titled their 1976 album, Too Old to Rock ‘n’ Roll: Too Young to Die! The living proof of that error is the Rolling Stones.
Last week, the Stones released the single, ‘Angry’, from their forthcoming album, Hackney Diamonds – their 26th studio album and with new material after 18 years – due for release on October 20. The band was founded in 1962 and has officially turned 60. Remember, this was the year India and China seriously stopped being bhai-bhai, Abrar Alvi’s Saheb, Bibi aur Ghulam with Guru Dutt, Meena Kumari and Waheeda Rahman was playing in cinemas, and Spider-Man was created by Stan Lee for Marvel Comics. Surviving Stones members (drummer Charlie Watts passed away in 2021 aged 80) Mick Jagger and Keith Richards at 80 and 79 respectively, and Ron Wood at a sprightly 76, are still far from moss-covered.
A wizened WhatsApp forward sent to me had a picture of one-time 007 Sean Connery, who died in 2020 aged 90, walking in an oldie pic with some help. ‘Don’t be so proud of your youthful shenanigans’ was the implied wisdom of the image. I plan to send folks who forward me such WhatsApp messages Hackney Diamonds next month.
Jagger, Richards and Wood are living proof of how wrong Tull frontman Ian Anderson, 76 himself now, got it when he was 29 at the time Too Old… came out. Like Winston Churchill, who smoked a lot of cigars and drank enough whisky to win a World War and be voted out of 10 Downing Street before dying at the ripe age of 90, the Stones are here to keep rolling.
Beyond the headline writer’s favourite cliche about the Messrs Jagger, Richard and Wood not getting no satisfaction (the double negative be damned), there is this thing about growing old together. As fans grow older, seeing old rockers still belting away is a very decent way of feeling young.I saw the Stones live in Bangalore 20 years ago. Jagger was then past the retirement age of any self-respecting sarkari naukar. But the noise from the Palace Grounds may have been good enough to reach the Vidhana Soudha a kilometre or two away. Jagger-bhai is still rocking, and earning enough to remind us of what they don’t teach you – and Jagger himself when he was studying there – at the London School of Economics. That’s every bit in-your-face proving Tull’s lyrics wrong. Sang the Jethro:
‘The old rocker wore his hair too long
Wore his trouser cuffs too tight
Unfashionable to the end.
Drank his ale too light
Death’s head belt buckle, yesterday’s dreams
The transport caf’, prophet of doom
Ringing no change in his double-sewn seams,
In his post-war-babe gloom.
Now he’s too old to rock and roll
But he’s too young to die.
Anderson needs to be invited to a chat show and put face-to-face with Jagger. Which reminds me – Carlos Santana (no relation to Sanatan dharma) who made thousands go mad with his stoned excellence at Woodstock in 1969, turned 76 this year. I think we need to revisit all those old theories about sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll and get WHO to confirm that this lifestyle isn’t the harbinger of doom as it is made out to be by the village elders.
