If you'd told me at the age of fourteen or fifteen that I would ever, *ever* like the Rolling Stones, I'd have slapped you in the face (if you were male. If you were female, I'd have said "no!" emphatically). I came to rock music and a deeper appreciation of it through the Beatles, and in the divide between them and the Stones (to some extent manufactured by the Stones to get attention, but very real in some aspects) I was firmly in the camp of John, Paul, George and Ringo. I'd have made the argument that the Fab Four stopped while they were ahead and, barring John's tragic death in 1980 (when I was one year old, mind you), they could very well have reunited and been just as important without soiling their legacy. Whereas the Stones, off and on, have been around since the Kennedy administration, and apparently still liking rock and roll enough to keep on with a series of albums that I'm guessing would satisfy only those rare completists in the Stones camp (though I've never listened to any post-1969 album in full).
Sure, the Stones rock, especially in that fertile period between 1965 (the debut of "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction") and 1978 (I'm sorry, but I will not apologize for liking "Miss You." You can't blame Mick and the boys for jumping on the disco bandwagon that year, anyway). But for the longest time I was of the opinion that their legacy was as also-rans, nowhere near as balls-out rocking as the Who (and I didn't get Pete Townshend's devotion to the Stones, either. His was the better band, right?) and without the storied legacy of the Beatles. I preferred the Yardbirds when it came to authentic (or what I took for "authentic," which is a bit of a misnomer in certain circumstances anyway) British blues-rock (Eric Idle's famous definition of the blues in The Rutles as "black music performed by whites" certainly applied to the way in which America was introduced to a rich legacy of blues and R&B thanks to pasty English kids who sang of the Old South with a Cockney accent). As I hope has become well apparent for anyone reading this blog regularly, I can often times be fucking stupid.
Because, as it turns out, the Stones were not and never have been also-rans. And their take on R&B early on developed into their own unique, powerful version of the blues, which is still there just under the surface. One criticism I'd level at heavy metal (a genre that I don't necessarily hate, but which I'd be hard-pressed to enjoy listening to except on occasions when I want my face melted with the awesomeness of an Angus Young guitar solo) is that it almost completely eliminates any traces of the R&B/blues roots of rock and roll (though conversely, you couldn't find any traces of the country & western strain that helped cement rock and roll in heavy metal, either. I think this negates any argument to be made about any racist overtones in heavy metal, so please if you're a metalhead reading this and getting pissed at me understand that). You still hear the influence of Muddy, Robert Johnson, B.B. King and other paragons of blues past and present in Mick's singing, Keith's guitar work, and the band as a whole.
Also, their story is almost as good (if not better) than most of the other "rock histories" you'll find. Yes, they came along in the shadow of the Beatles, and they could've easily folded under the weight of that (as countless bands like the aforementioned Yardbird, the Byrds, Gerry and the Pacemakers, the Searchers, etc., did). They forged their own path, however, and when I came across first Symphony for the Devil by Philip Norman (author of another important book, Shout!, all about the Beatles), I got a taste of how interesting they were. When I took a film class that covered all the genres and included the documentary Gimme Shelter, about the Stones' concert in Altamont. Seeing Mick Jagger wince as he saw the murder of a fan by one of the Hell's Angels hired to provide "security" at that event humanized him for me, and I started to see that the cocksure, strutting wildman of legend was in many ways simply the creation of a young man looking for an identity beyond that into which he had been born. Isn't that what we all seek to do, over time?
All of this is a long way towards getting into why "I Am Waiting," a minor song that doesn't often get included in the "greatest Stones tracks ever," is the one I'm writing about here. The film Rushmore took over my life for a period beginning in early 1999 (after I'd bought the soundtrack album at Christmas without even seeing the film first) and continuing for some time after. "Waiting" wasn't on the soundtrack, but as I learned when I finally saw the film, it was included almost in its entireity as part of a montage showing the fall (and subsequent rebirth) of Max Fischer. I considered dressing up like Max in his iconic (to me, anyway) blue blazer and khaki pants, his uniform to navigate the halls of a high-end private academy that he dominated through his arrogant intelligence (hmm, sounds like someone who fronts a very popular, long-lasting band if I do say so myself). I was going to do so for Halloween in 1999 (I was working at a grocery store at the time, just in time for the Y2K madness sweeping the nation, and we were encouraged to dress up for that day if we were working), but a co-worker talked me out of it with the words "I have no idea who you're talking about." A few years later, needing something formal to wear (either to my aunt's graduation or to a wedding, I can't remember which), I picked up a blue sports jacket and thought myself quite dashing in it.
Anyway, the song "I Am Waiting" was something of a gateway drug for me, allowing me to sneer at the songs people already knew (and which I secretly liked, though don't tell the Beatles crowd that) and say "well, this is one of their best songs, acutally." When I finally got iTunes, this was high on my list of songs to buy, and later on I got a nice collection of Stones cuts. Over time, I became less concerned that liking the Stones would lessen my love of the Beatles (did I mention how fucking stupid I can be?). In fact, it made me love the Beatles more, to see that their competition with the Stones (and the Beach Boys) pushed them all to heights never experienced in popular music before. Yes, the Stones carried on for far too long in some aspects, but I didn't get why this didn't matter until I read Keith Richards' autobiography (my earnest desire to do so would have struck my fourteen-year-old-self as idiotic, though the only official word from any of the Fab Four was George Harrison's brief autobiographical section in I Me Mine). The reason the Stones continue is because they found something that they love to do (make music, be it for their fans but mostly for themselves) and they want to do that for as long as they can. Don't you wish you could say that about your job?
My passion is writing, and writing about music has been and continues to be something that I love to do. And yes, my song choices might be off the beaten track sometimes (though as in the case of Jay-Z or Queen, I'd probably be seen as the kind of guy who just listens to whatever's popular on the radio by people who don't bother to read anything else I've put here). But I love doing this, I love getting the inspiration for doing it from my buddy Jonathan Garren, and I love being able to share songs that might not be on everyone's iPod (but they should be). "I Am Waiting" kicks ass and takes names, in an understated way that someone who only knows the Stones of "Jumpin' Jack Flash" might not understand. It may not be their best song, but it's probably my favorite (though the song and restaurant chain "Ruby Tuesday" inpsired my favorite piece I've ever written for McSweeneys). I doubt I'll ever love Mick and the boys the same way that I love the Beatles, but I think that's okay.
No comments:
Post a Comment