Mick Jagger Isn't Sure He Ever Lets the World See the Real Him

I'm Tracy Bennett, I get to pick the word word every day, which is not as easy as it sounds.

The fun fact about me is that I am descended from a witch who was put on trial in Salem. New York Times games are made by people, like the ones you just heard from. Go to nytimes.com/games to start playing today. From the New York Times, this is the interview, I'm David Marquezie. Mick Jagger truly needs no introduction.

He's the legendary frontman of the Rolling Stones, who are releasing a new album called Foreign Tongs. I've been a fan of the stone since 1994, when I saw them on their voodoo lounge tour. It was my first ever rock concert, and I left a huge impression. Since then, I've listened to just about every song the band has released, from undeniable classics like my favorite, you can always get what you want, to more obscure tracks like sway.

And I've always wondered, "What's Mick Jagger really like?" Here's my conversation with Mick Jagger. Mick? Hi, David. Thank you for taking the time to speak with me today.

I have a bunch of questions about the new album. Okay. But I'd like to start with a question that comes from a place of pure personal curiosity. Okay. So one of my all-time favorite of your songs is sway, from sticky fingers.

And I always wondered about the first line of that song.

Okay, the lyrics, which are, "Did you ever wake up to find a day?"

“Did you wake up to find a day that broke up your mind?”

I've got your mind destroyed your notion of circular time. I have not. Have you? No. This is a question.

Do you remember where that line came from? No, I just made up at this further moment. I always, we were waiting for Keith to turn up for the session. He was late, and then Mick Taylor and I were there, and Charlie and Bill. And we just, I said, "Oh, let me try this."

And I was just making it up as I go along. So that's why it's a bit random. Yeah. But it makes sense that waiting for Keith Richards would destroy your notion of circular time. I thought maybe it was a more philosophical question.

You could, you know, maybe I went back off to his and spruce it off the bit. Well, thank you for solving that, Miss. Okay. I appreciate it. So the new album.

Yeah. So it's coming just maybe two and a half years after Hackney Diamond. We recorded last year now and we did it last this time last year and more or less. But the time span between Hackney Diamonds and the previous album of original material. Yeah, it was a long 18 years.

18 years. This is quick. Why did it come together so quickly?

“Well, I think we realized that we could, you know,”

we had a different method of making records really. I mean, we've been just not being very lacquered day as a call and we're not really getting down to it. And so when we got Andy what on board, you know, we decided that I said, I said, "Boy, there's a deadline.

You know, we used to always have deadlines because we had to go on tour with the record

and the tour starts in March of the record out. You know, I said, the Hackney Diamonds, I said the deadline is Valentine's Day. Are you all going to remember that? So you know, it's no excuses. You thought it was March.

It's Valentine's Day and we almost made it over four weeks we recorded probably out of no 14, 15 songs. I mean, a lot of stuff at the way I do things, some of the songs that I write. And now I demo a lot of them first.

So I go and meet the friend, my pleasure to the band, Matt Clifford. We demo a lot of the songs that I write. I demo a name in it. I can see, ah, they could go here.

They could go there. They could be this group. They could be that group.

“And then I saw a lot of my version of what I think the songs”

sounds like is already in my head. Everything else you layer on top of that. And you might, yeah, you might say that bass is great on how don't want to change anything. Or I just want to change just the chorus.

Or I just want to change this. Or I want to keep the rhythm guitar. Or I don't want to keep the rhythm guitar. I'll do it again. You know, it's complex.

Some of the songs on the new album are I hear them as relationship songs, songs of regret or insecurity. And it's interesting for me to hear Mick Jagger singing those songs at your age and think about how, you know, they land differently

than if you were singing them at 42 or 32. And I want to know from your perspective.

What are the ways that you can inhabit a song now that are different

from how you used to and happens to? Yeah. I don't know.

“First of all, I don't really think about it very much.”

So, you know, in some lines about imagination and you know, it's not all based on true experiences. But you got to play the character of this song. But in the character, but the character seen as song is it's a different character for me.

So when I'm seeing Mr. Charm, it's obviously a joke character, you know? And it's first to be taken with sense of humour. And of course, some of the incidents in the verses did happen and I control my own experiences

of talking to women in relationships. But I mean, the whole thing of it's not supposed to be taken seriously. You don't really think you're Mr. Charm. You know, you're not really.

But then you might have another song which is more, more heartfelt, you know, more, not so much humour and back in your life, which is a bit more of a kind of like it's a classic theme, you know, you meet a woman

and then she never calls you back.

You know, you have a great time and she never calls you back. Is that happened to you all? It's happened to me, of course, it's happened to me. So I control on that, I'm not saying happened yesterday, but you can control on that on that experience.

When it did happen to you, maybe it happened to me when I was 40, you know, but I could still write about it now. Writing is about imagination, you know, it's not only about personal experience, so it's a mixture of personal experience,

and a mixture of imagination. You know, I want to maybe put the question in slightly different terms. You know, there's a movie performance of yours that I love. Man from Elysian fields.

Where, you know, you play sort of like a middle-age, you know, he runs an assortment for women.

It's kind of like a, but that performance has a lot of

real feelings of regret in it. And I assume that you wouldn't have been able to give a performance like that earlier in your life. In the same way that it would make no sense for you to sing some girls.

No, no, exactly. But so are there things that you can do in a song or did on this album that you think, oh, I wasn't capable of giving of inhabiting that lyric. That's a good question.

I mean, it requires a lot of thought to give it a good answer. That's okay. That's why we're here. Yeah, you know, I can't really, it's how I've made to think of,

I'm trying to think of actual concrete examples of the songs on the record.

“I mean, I mean, I think quite a lot of it you could say,”

that I wouldn't have written any of these songs when I was 30, maybe. Honestly, I probably wouldn't have done. And then I've also got into this habit of doing songs that are about personal relationships.

And now I throw a verse about politics in there. You know, but I think that's a trick. You know, the interaction that I've learned from other songwriters or of listen to others. Because nobody wants to hear a whole song about politics.

I thought politics. Social comment. You have any kind. It can't be positive. Something else.

Like a song like the booze song like rough and twisted. It's really just like, it's just a stream of consciousness, honestly. You know, you talk about woman everything. But then you throw in this stuff.

It's all about political and it's obviously, you know, the club was called conspiracy. All they wanted was tyranny. So you find yourself using these tricks. Did you ever see the John Mulaney special,

where the comedian John Mulaney,

“where he does a bit about working with you on Saturday night live?”

So he has this bit, where he's talking about working with famous people on the show, and specifically about working with you. And people ask him, I'm paraphrasing.

But people would ask him like his Mick Jagger nice. Yeah. And he says, of course, Mick Jagger is not nice. Or he's nice for the version of the life that Mick Jagger has led. And he points out that you play to stadiums of people screaming for you

for 50 plus years. That's got to change you as a person. You know? Can you articulate how that's changed you as a person? I think what obviously,

you, it's not normal, but it's not like most people's lives. No, it's not. But yeah, it does affect you.

You can become dissociated from other people.

only hang around with people in show business, because they got something in common, because they can relate to each other. And you get dissociated from what people will make real life. Do you think you have?

Oh yeah. Definitely. Definitely. And then you can fight against it. It's a conscious effort.

It takes conscious effort to fight against being dissociated. What do you do to fight against it? Well, it's quite easy, really. I mean, you just go out and walk on the street on your own and go, do normal things and go,

by the new times. Oh, okay. You know? But nevertheless, that's only temporary. So because you're psychologically your actual state of mind

is permanently damaged by this or affected, or I mean. I think when you're in your late 20s and early 30s is a very tough time for people in this business.

Because it's a big ego trip, basically.

“I mean, it's a huge, you have to have a huge ego to do this.”

If you don't, you have, a lot of the people that do this don't have huge egos have huge problems because they have to manufacture a completely different. Of course, my personality on stage is not my, I have a friend who says, you know,

the standing joke is that I behave at a dinner party like I behave on stage. So, was that friend right? The other way, we'd make jokes about it. Because it's absurd what you do on stage.

I mean, of course, I'm not really like my stage persona. But I'm just about to go and do. He thinks he's doing me when he does me, but it's completely such an exaggerated version of me, but it works for him, you know, his version of me.

But I mean, to me, the person to be like that all the time is overbearing, shouting, "Pah, ego, tripping person." It's like, of course, you're not real like that.

“But I think when you're in your late 20s and early 30s,”

you can be like that all the time.

And there are people in Shobin's is the never switch off.

A lot of the mark comedians and comedians sometimes they can't, they can't switch off, they can't stop making jokes. Or they get depressed. But I mean, it's a bit of a sweeping statement. Did you have to learn to switch off?

Yeah, I think it comes with age. It's like if you do a movie, you do a character, right? So, so if you're a method actually, you do this character. You've heard all these stories about method actors. But they take it to the absolute extreme.

So they like the character all the time. And then after the movie's over, they're still in the character for a long time. It takes a long time to laugh off the character. So which character do you go back to?

Yeah.

“What's the character that you're going to retrieve?”

Is he always going to carry some of that character

in his true character, whatever that is? So this is, this is, I think, the show business, like, die cosmic and it's like a, it's something you learn to live with and you, you always hope, of course it isn't true. They always hope that you're a normal, so-called normal person underneath.

Yeah, it's nice to have the perks, though. Yeah, but it's not about the perks. It's about being these several characters. Yeah, you know, you're the character, the plays, the theatre, you're the character that does the interview or the character that goes in on the stadium.

You're the character in this recording studio. You're the character writing the song. Not this character, right? No, I'll be another character. Yeah, I'll write the song.

Then I'm going to be this character. And I go, wouldn't it love? And now I'm going to be like, fuck you, you know? Do you ever let the world see the person underneath the characters? I'm not sure, probably.

Still there, songs are pretty direct in a way. As a method of communication, they're relatively direct. Compared to saying a movie where you need like a lot of, you know, you've got someone like a script or a changing script in the air. You're going to change your lines and you've got 200 people.

And then it's all edited and chopped on bits. Records are already simple compared to that. There are a handful of political lines sprinkled throughout the album. There's, you know, you're seeing about scuttling billionaire scrambling to their bolt holes in the sky about dirty rat auto crats, rubber stamping judges.

Yes. And I actually find it heartening to know that Mick Jagger sees the same problems out in the world

Can you just tell me more about why you felt the impulse to include those kinds of lyrics? What are you seeing when you look around?

Well, I mean, I, it's not the first time I've done songs with social comment.

I like doing it, but in small doses, it's pretty like that. I mean, who does it in a huge dose? It's hardly anybody in pop music, you know? I mean, ring hollow is more or less. Yes.

Completely social comment. Right. So, but even then, so I had to, I had two songs that were on more or less the same subject. This is my love of America, you know? And what's gone wrong?

I mean, it's a lament about, yeah, it's a lament, but it's a love song, but it's a lament. And it's my, it's about, and all, it's about my own experiences which are long and varied and encompass lots of different places in America. And not just being in New York and being in living in Upper West Side.

You know, you know, I've spent a lot of time in American places that Americans have never ever been

nor would ever likely to go to, you know? Because they don't not in our world living in New York, well, they're talking. We're talking now, living in our little Chicago. But I've spent a lot of time in these weird places. Like, what, what do you see?

I just don't turn, you see everything.

“You see everything, you know, how many people from New York, you know?”

That we're saying, I really go to Cleveland very often, you know? And then, you're there for five days. It's not very long, but you can see quite a lot. If you go out every day, you see different sides of it. No, I don't say, I mean, I enjoy it.

You know, other than go out. I mean, New Orleans, people, I know people go to New Orleans and it's a tourist place.

But I mean, you find things there and then you, you find fantastic music scenes.

A unique town of, in the United States, completely unique. There's not like any other town, it's not, it's not, you know? So you explore these places and you have a love of the country and everything. So in Ring of Hollow, I was so, I had another song, but with other song, I thought it was too down.

I rejected it and worked on Ring of Hollow instead. It's really a love song to Americans, you know? For a madly loving you before we ever met, so, but before I were ever went to America, I was in love with America, like a lot of European teenagers, you know? Well, you know, see the movies and all this.

So it's all about that. And then, so then it talks about, you know, then it goes into the America of now

“and you know, how can we, you know, ascertain what's going on?”

What's the last, the last line of the song, right? I'm going to buy a brand new hat. What's that a Raphester? I was like, "Good, it's going to happen." I think, sort of means.

Yeah. I heard that as, as like, a passive aggressive, I mean, you know, who the one person that you, that is named by their actual name on the album? I may be missing one. Do you know the one?

There's one Elon Musk. Elon Musk. Yeah. Mad, but mogul. Mr. Musk.

Yeah, what's your impression of him? I've never met him. So I don't really, I mean, so if he's successful. You know, he's someone who, who the term rock star gets applied to sometimes. And now it's become kind of a common trope where the tech entrepreneurs call rock stars.

What does an actual rock star think of the way that that term has now become applied to anybody who has sort of the patina of this kind of way because it's applied to all kinds of people. Yes. Not just tech people. It's become a phrase that's thrown around for in any form of success, you know,

“or I think it just means that you're just out there.”

And you know, in front of thousands of people and you're a huge success. I mean, that's what it means. I mean, to be cool. I think it's a big compliment to be cool. That's also a compliment to rock stars to use that.

Actually, I think it devalues. It devalues it, but it also, it bigs it up as well, you know? Yeah. So, yeah. Well, I want to ask something that's sort of related to kind of what you were talking,

what we were talking about earlier. I mean, how people understand like the persona of Mick Jagger. And my question is to do with how you understand your relationship with your audience. It's actually maybe speaks to the politics stuff in a way too. And let me give to counter examples to sort of triangulate the question.

So, on one pole, we have somebody like Bob Dylan. Yeah. If you go see him live, he's great. It almost feels like the crowd is incidental.

On the other end of the spectrum, you have somebody like Bruce Springsteen, who clearly sees his job as engaging in a meaningful back and forth with his audience. It means something different to him. What does your relationship to the audience mean to you? What do they represent all those people out there?

Well, it will first sort of depends where you are. And what kind of advantages, like the New Orleans event, that's a festival then come to see you necessarily. They bought their tickets before they knew you were coming. If you play the New Orleans Jazz Festival.

You know, we play that. Then we do summer in the park in London. You buy those tickets. You buy those tickets because you like that festival.

You always think something's good going to happen.

You don't know. So they're not necessarily coming to see. They're not your biggest fans. And I'm not saying they hate you. Otherwise it would probably be there.

There's different levels of these kind of people.

“And you have to treat them in a slightly different way.”

The bottom line of my thing is, really, is that my job in a live music world is just those people that come is to... I haven't the best time they possibly can. And for two hours or whatever it is to forget all their problems

and problems of the world and their mortgages and whatever. And if they have problems or just to give them, they can have just the best time. It's similar going to a sports event, really. Because everything else is shy.

You're just watching there. Who's going to win? You're not worrying about everything else. Those things are out of your mind. I know you're still on the phone, everything.

Oh, my little Danny is hurt, he's tooth. I know you can still have that. I know you can still have that, but you know,

all days you never had that really.

So that's my job. So it's to make them have the best time they possibly haven't.

“And some of the reasons want to go completely nuts, you know.”

And so then you encourage them to go more nuts. And say you can play to some places and there was different, you know. You play in Finland. It's not the same as playing Argentina.

You know? There's a different credit. They don't want to go completely so nuts. Mate months. Maybe they do.

I'm just using those as passables, you know. But so you don't want to be trying to turn them up into like get frustrated that they're not being demonstrative or you don't think they're having a good time. Because they might be quite relatively calm.

They might be relatively, you know, they're having a good time it in there.

I always say to everyone else that have a good time in their own way.

And there's, but as you go to another place and they go and completely appreciate, you know. So, and your job is to make the more hype shit. That's another one to go hype shit with us go hype shit, you know. But I want to dig a little deeper on that question.

Yeah. So, you're, you're talking about what your job is as events is to make people have a good time. To make, you know, they want to leave the concert feeling like it was worth it

and they can forget their trouble. And you don't want to lecture them. But my question is actually about whether, like, what meaning the job has to you. Like, I have a job that has a basic description.

It's very different than yours. But my job actually, you know, it means something to me. And when it's working best, it allows me to satisfy curiosity. I have about the world. Meet people I wouldn't normally meet.

Ask questions of people that I would never get a chance to ask and learn things that help, you know, that I find are valuable to me as a person.

“Do you, like, what's Mick Jagger's version of that?”

You might being naive and polyannish to think that maybe there is one. I have thought about, yes. I mean, obviously, thought about it. At the beginning of my career, because didn't think about it at all.

I was just learning how to do what, you know, it's totally your, your about you, you know, and the band. And, you know, what's the next number? And are they going to play it right?

And am I going to remember the words? You know, it's just the basics. You're getting the basics down. Okay, so now, after you've got through that accomplishment, which takes a bit of time to do.

But then what you're saying is, when I get out there, what does it mean? What does it mean for you? For you? For you?

Yeah, but it's a lot of joy for me to start. First of all, it's a huge buzz. You know, adrenaline. And it's a huge adrenaline buzz, which must be the same as for a sport,

we got 50,000 people. Must be the same similar buzz. So, you know, I don't have anyone coming at me. So, it's much easier than playing sport. You don't have to triple around.

I don't have to do anything. I don't have to do anything. But that's where the analogy breaks down. So, so, you get out there and you get,

when you get out there first,

you get this massive adrenaline buzz. And your job really is really,

“you have to control that adrenaline buzz.”

You know, you've got to look after yourself first. And while you're doing that first five minutes, then you're evaluating the audience. So, you evaluate them. You know, in a good way, I mean,

but you're evaluating them. How are they? Take it to temperature. Yeah, what's the temperature of the crown? How are they feeling?

Is it cold? Is it raining? All these things happen. And, you know, do they already enjoy themselves? Or do they feel a bit listless after the weight too long?

They've had a hard time getting. All these things have contributed factors and all. So, so then you evaluate the audience and see how they feel. Yeah. And then a lot of them are very long way away.

Which is one of the problems with your playing. Because most of our play stadiums, right?

If you're playing a third, you don't have these problems.

You can, if you're playing a third, you've got very quickly become a group, you know? And people, when I was, you know, starting out, would show me how to do that. Were like little Richard I took with for a long time.

He, I know I do that. People even could do what he did. You know, performers didn't do that. They just went out and played their songs and can't sell it alone. And that was it.

I mean, he was embracing them all, gain them all to, you know, go along with his version of the world, stand ups it down and make jokes. And it becomes a community, you know? So, for a small time, it becomes this community.

So, it's much more difficult to do that in a stadium. We still have to do it. So, that's why stages have to be big. That's why you have to get down them.

“That's why you have to pay attention to all these people.”

And that's why you have to talk to them. Because you want that community for those couple of hours to be a good community. Have fun. That's your job. I mean, I'm not completely answering your question.

But I mean, that's a lot of what I do. You know, I've read a huge amount of interviews with you going back, you know, deck for you. They're interesting. But there are some things that stand out.

And one thing that I've noticed that you almost never do in interviews

is tell stories about being in the Rolling Stones. And I'm not asking you to, you know, be nostalgic or share some intimate detail. But like there's got to be some like old, you know, chestnut that you break out of cocktail parties or that your kids, if they ask you, hey, what was it like being on tour with Stevie Wonder or whatever, that's like a break glass in case of emergency kind of story that you can tell.

Is there, is there one? Well, there's a funny thing that how you manage was in the Rolling Stones. I was in the Rolling Stones. You mentioned Stevie Wonder. So you mentioned Stevie Wonder.

So we were playing it. Masks are gone. We're Stevie Wonder. We said, come up when we're played. We're doing a mashup of satisfaction and an uptight.

And so because they're both the same beat. So, so it comes on the stage and we do this mashup up tight.

“And then someone, and I can't remember whose idea it might be mine,”

decides that we're going to throw custard pies at the end. Because it's the last date of the tour and it's the last number of the show. Why wouldn't you throw custard pies? It's rather unfair for Stevie. So I got a f**k it.

So everyone's throwing custard pies. Including Stevie's throwing custard pies. I love it. Thank you very much for taking the time. Thank you.

Thank you. Thanks so much for everything. All you questions are interesting. After the break, Mick and I speak again about whether we'll ever see the Rolling Stones back on the road.

I hope so. I want to do it. I'm up for doing it. I'm David Marquesie. And I'm Ludu Garcia Navarro.

And we're the hosts of the interview from the New York Times. David and I have spent our careers interviewing some of the most interesting and influential people in the world. Which means we know when to ask tough questions and when to just sit back and listen. And now we've teamed up to have these conversations every week.

And we'll get some great stories from them, too. It's the interview from the New York Times. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Mick, we're officially rolling now. Okay.

“So what are we in this week about today that we didn't speak about?”

There's so much, there's so many things. But I'd like to start with a question about something that just came to me this morning. So I was watching, just clips of you on YouTube.

And there's a great, it's like a 50 second clip of you.

Maybe it's backstage. It's just you at a keyboard trying to work through the tune shine a light. And you're trying to remember the chords. And it's actually just this, it's a really beautiful short clip because you're playing those gospel chords. There's like to paraphrase the song. There's a little gleam right in your eye.

And it feels like the apparatus of like fame and a crowd or any of like that has anything like that has fallen away. And it's just a musician and music and loving it. And it's really very pure and sweet. And I thought, if I wondered, can you share a moment or a memory of just when you were playing music and kind of the machinery around the Rolling Stones,

“just fell away and you just had that love and freedom and lost yourself just playing a tune?”

That's what you do in your writing. I mean, the occasion that you described it, I don't really remember, but you said it was backstage. So that's a different thing. You're obviously getting ready for a show and trying to, I don't know what I was doing. I'm probably going to do that song, but maybe I wasn't, maybe I was just doodling with that song, you know, for fun.

While you're waiting to go on stage, sometimes sometimes you, I always have a piano in the room and it gets hard stuff.

And my room's always the quietest. Because I don't let people in like a load of friends and families. They can come in, but it's like, then you have to leave. And so yeah, so you can like, you have moments where you just doodle around, you know? What you're describing really is when you're writing.

I mean, you're not thinking about going on stage or anything. If you're at home or in a studio or in a writing studio or somewhere, writing, then you're just doodling, that's how songs get made, you know, really is just where you'd just doodle around.

And you don't, you don't think anything else.

So the thing about writing songs is because popular songs are really quiet. They're obviously really short, so which is due to the length of the 78 record. It's completely arbitrary reason that the analogy.

“I think that's anyway, it doesn't really matter, that's what it is.”

You know, it's three minutes, four minutes maximum, something like this. So it's not going to be that much. And it can be quite complex, musically, but literally how much lyrics you're going to really stick in. So musically, it's, you know, you can just doodle your way through this. So why your mind is free and you're having fun with it.

Then I think that's the most interesting part of the process. And I think having, having fun is not like, I don't mean you're standing around drinking and like shouting and jumping out and down. But I mean, your mind is not re-being serious, it's playful, playful is a better word than fun. So you can be playful. And then so if you're playful, you can, you can just let your mind just go this way.

That way. And don't be buried, if nothing happens, nothing happens. Something will happen later. Oh tomorrow. I saw, I was watching the video for, in the stars recently, which is the one where they use the DNA.

Yeah, the technology for you guys. And I actually thought it was sort of like a conceptually interesting choice for a variety of reasons. One of which is that, you know, I think of one of the sort of life-affirming things about the Rolling Stones is that you've been sort of defiant in terms of like what aging means. You know, you're still out there doing it and then doing the deaging. I think that's kind of an interesting choice to take, but you know, I think that an opposite view of the band is being like defiant defying aging and still being out there is that, you know, you guys all have Peter Pan complexes or something like that.

But but I want to know what you find like interesting or hard to to reckon with in terms of aging or like what's what's good about getting older, what's less good.

That's it. There's nothing good about it.

Nothing. No. Nothing. You don't get wisdom. We forget everything. I forgot all my wisdom.

I might have had a couple of pearls drop, but I think I've already forgotten what they are now. So no, it's not, no, it's not particularly pleasant. And of course, you can't do things as quickly as you want to and all actually. And physically, physically, you can't do things that you would like to do.

“You've got to be, you have to be more careful.”

You can still do them. You have to be more careful when you do them. You know, when if you're the playing goalie in the football team and you, okay, you're going go, don't put your in goal a lot. I'm really, really good.

It's a metaphor for aging being in goal.

You're playing goal. I have another philosophical question. Yeah. And this one is about sex. And I'm not going to, it's a big subject.

It's a big subject. I'm not going to ask you for any detail. So don't worry. So, so your, you know, your, you have publicly been identified with sex for a long time. Like a sex symbol.

You write songs that are heavily sexual. You know, like an avatar of sexiness. You know, I don't think I'm speaking out of turn by saying. They have drugs and rock and roll. Right.

You have a, you know, reputation as sort of a libertine maybe. But that's outside perspective. But I wouldn't be surprised if, you know, you also have had like sort of put sex as like central to your identity over the years. And I wonder, how has your thinking about sex changed over time? Because it changes for everyone.

Yeah. How has it changed for you? It would, it would, it's really difficult. And I don't know the answer. Honestly, it, it's a very good question.

And people always say that when I'm thinking about what the fuck am I going to say to you.

But, but, but, but, but I don't really know, I really don't know the answer. I'd have to read, you know, your, you're asking me these questions that is a really hard question. And, and I don't know what the answer. I could, if we sat down and we weren't recording this and we weren't doing interview, we could talk about how that would work and you'd have to tell me how it worked for you

because we could compare experiences. But, you know, could we? Yeah.

“Probably because that's how you get insights, you know?”

Yeah. I mean, you, if you're just talking about yourself like a public person, it's weird. The only thing I would say is that, that, through your, throughout your life, your attitude to sex, changes and your sexual taste change.

In, in one's life, sex is not a fixed point. So, that's what, I think, obviously, everybody's different. But, I would like, okay, I would say, and I'm not, this is not my sort of, sort of area of expertise, honestly, because we're into areas of, of humans, psychology, sexual drive, all this stuff is all pops psychology.

People, everyone's read a bit about it, but do they know about it? But, my observation is that, that you, that your attitude to sex, like different, as you, as in different parts of your life. Yeah. I mean, your orientation, your sexual orientation may change.

It, it may change completely, or it may change. Or, or, or avenues might open up to you that you hadn't realized, or, or you, or, or you might close avenues that have opened up because you don't like them, or you tried something that you'd like for a, a couple of years and then you decide, I'm, like, okay, and, and it's like, other tastes, it's like,

it tastes in art, you know, that you, when you're very young, you might like, this kind of pictures, and then when you're a bit old, you might change your taste in art. So I'm not saying sex is like art, but I am. What I'm saying is your, but, but that's a question of taste, but your, why is your taste change?

You know what? Right. There's something, is it because of knowledge? Or is it just because you're bored with it? Do you know, or is it a combination of all these things? You know, so you're,

you're tasting, you're literally tasting food changed. So when you're really young and you've like alcohol, you drink the sweet things normally. You know, when you, you're like, sweet wine, you're all that's great. And then, then something tells you, that's not really dope.

“You shouldn't be drinking that, you know, you should drink this.”

And you're trying that, you know, I really don't like that, but I'll try it, you know? Like when we're really teenagers, when we're teenagers, we like rock music.

So you should listen to this jazz, you shouldn't listen to this jazz, you know?

You just to jazz, you know, it's more intellectual, you know, than. So, so that in Tom's stop, I'll just play the real thing. He's an intellectual writer, it's almost Tom. And, but he's going on this program, who does an island disc, which is a program where you choose, records to take with you on your does an island.

“And that's all you, that's the only music, you know?”

And he, he says, but all I like is like, to do Ron Ron. And he's, he's an intellectual, so he says that exp� with the two Shownberg and Beethoven. And so, so he's an intellectual, so it's this thing of being an intellectual, so you say, but, you know, over payment jazz music, you know, okay, dizzy Gillespie. Pay me dizzy, glass from the light, okay, do I really like that?

Oh, do I like Chuck Berry, you know what I mean? So, well, I'll, I'll start to appreciate it, you know?

And it, we used to like play the modern jazz quartet, you know?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I used to go and see the, I used to go and see the jazz, modern jazz quartet. In concert, I mean, it's expensive. And I'm sitting down very seriously this evening. The name is like standing out. You know?

I was about a rabbit hole. I asked you about sex. We ended up at the modern jazz. That's more expensive. I like to get out of that question. But I thought you gave a very, you know, I thought you gave a good answer. You said you didn't know how to answer. Then you gave a good answer.

I want to also know a little bit more about how you see your musical evolution. Because I think it's fair to say that, you know, probably in that sort of magical period between 68 and 72 is the period when sort of what people expect of rolling stones album to sound like kind of got solidified. And the new album people say, you know, this, it sounds like a stones album. And I think they mean it sort of has the signifiers of the classic stones album.

And then there's been lots of experimenting with, you know, ready to fung disco over years. But I think it's, it's true that there is a rolling stones sound. And as a, as a sort of a cry, I could, I could kind of argue against that in a way if I want to. What, what argument would you make? Well, I'm going to tell you, I mean, like, you, that you're wrong.

But I can take another position, you know. Okay. I mean, just for the sake of it, I could.

“Music, because eventually that musicality, that's what you're best known for.”

You know, that what the most people, if they are not particularly vaguely interested, they've been not very interested. Then you're absolutely right, you know, that's what you would say. But I could point out to lots of other, I'm not a huge tune of the Ronin Stones over. You know, I mean, I can't, I haven't got it all at my fingertips and lists of it.

If I did, I could point at them and say, you see, I could point to him. Yeah, I could say, well, that was hard stuff. That was that, yeah. But then I could point at Lady Jane, you know. Right, like, at least at least a bit.

Yeah, and I could point to his tears, go buy. I could point to Angie. Yeah. I could point. I mean, that I could point to paint a black.

Even, like, under my thumb, there's someone played to me the other day. I mean, it's got, it's vocally, it's really me. But instrumentally, and the way it's played, it's so light, and it's so, it's so sort of, like, it's not heavy at all. Everyone's playing really lightly.

And so there's other versions of the band. And that's what I think makes the band, what an interesting band, obviously it's not the same people either. You know, she smiles sweetly as another one from me. Yeah, very old.

But, but, you know, it's interesting that the songs that you noted are all songs that came before, I guess with the exception of Angie, before that period, I suggest it. It's been even after that period, I can point out other ones. Yeah. But I just don't remember them as well.

Yeah. But there's, there's, and there's not, there's a beat of ones. But there's, there's many other ones. And you said, Angie, that's not in that period. And there's lots and lots of others, you know, weighty on a friend.

It's a, it's a kind of rumble, you know. I mean, it's, it's, you know, it's like, I'm very light with an outside saxophone lead. It's not really what you would expect. But are there, are there styles of music that just, you know, you maybe wanted to do or sort of like dream projects that you had in the back of your mind

that you thought sort of because of maybe audience expectations or what you thought

“the band would be interested in that you didn't pursue?”

Yeah. Well, yes. But you, you can pursue them, but you don't take them to the kind of doing a whole album of them. You know, but, you know, I can say, I like sambo music, so I did sympathy for the devil.

I haven't now never done another sambo.

So I could say, well, I mean, but no, it's interesting me doing a whole sambo record.

I can't imagine anyone being interested. I mean, I'd like to do another sambo tune. But you don't want to pursue your whole interest in sambo down so far down the road. I mean, I mean, I love Latin music for kinds and like the rhythmically speaking. There's so many different rhythms.

And yeah, I would like to pursue that. And maybe I could have or should have pursued that more. Because I'm really interested in those rhythms.

You know, so, so yeah, so, but if you're in a rock band, you get to touch on them,

but you don't get to fully explore them. There's a beautiful version you did of a long black veil with the chieftons. Yeah. Yeah. Probably 30 years ago.

And I thought, oh, it would have been, it would be great to hear a Mick Jagger album of like traditional Irish British and American. Yeah. I hope tunes.

Yeah, I mean, I've, I've done that.

I mean, the thing is that all the members of the band of Keith and Brian and to some extent all like that music run the author. I mean, it's kind of in a way it's our home music, you know. And even though the 80% of our music is influenced by black culture, which we have a huge debt to owe, to black music and everything, we also acknowledge our own roots in that, in that other music, you know, by playing those songs, you know that.

“I mean, long back, though, I, long back, though, was, I think I heard Johnny Cash do that first.”

But it sounds like an Irish or English song. And I did it with the chieftons, which is an Irish, was an Irish band. But it's, it's, you know, it could be an English song or border ballad. Or, you know, I was, we were all very interested. We were all brought up to read border ballads, which are neither English nor Scottish or Irish.

But it's, they're, they're a Malcolm of all of those things of very, very similar background. I'd also like to ask you about rock a little more broadly and generally. You know, it's, it's this music that you've given your creative life to. And, you know, the, the still in 2026, the biggest rock concert draws are like Jen Jen ex bands and baby boomer bands. And I've seen data that actually suggests that catalog music, you know, older music has more streaming market share than younger music.

And, and that is continuing to trend trend that way.

“And I think that even if you think about, you know, like the busiest younger rock band of today,”

right, which is a band like G. I don't know if you familiar with them. Yeah, they're, even even a band like that, still kind of feels like a, you know, culturally marginal band to a certain extent. And, and so my question to you is. What do you mean culturally marginal? You know, they're not in the center of the culture. Like, you know, it's, they're, they don't have it.

Well, I mean, I mean, I was talking about them and they answered you someone asked me. But I, everyone was talking about this band and when I played them, I thought it was going to be more like an indie band. You know, but it was much more experimental than I thought, which I thought was great. You know, I, I mean, I liked it, but it wasn't my thought went, well, from people describing it to me or reading about it. So, yeah, so it's very hard for a band as experimental as that to be.

“To break through big, you know, in a, in a, in a center of a mainstream music, I think, at this, at any time.”

I mean, maybe in the 90's, 70 might have been, but, but now I wouldn't have thought so, but anyway, I mean, maybe there will be maybe I'm wrong. Do you have thoughts about the vitality of rock music as a whole, or it's place in the culture right now, given that the most popular exponents tend to be older or older? I think, but despite the fact that, you know, rock music as a genre is not really the mainstream center of music. It still has a lot of supporters and it still has a lot of young teenage people that want to play it.

You know, in all kinds of forms of it, you know, and you hope that it evolves, you know, rap was kind of the center of our music like 20 years ago. And now it's like, rap is not the force it once was really everyone incorporates it, you know, you incorporate it and to everything. It's one of the strands of popular music, like rock is like, you know, rap is like straight pop is like, all these things that we have, all these strands in popular music.

I didn't really touch on this before in our live conversation. So, it's, it's a marketable. When you have to market things, you, you want to tell people what they are. You know, so, so this, this is mint flavored, okay? So everyone normally likes that, you know, so it's mint flavored ice creams, mint flavored, this, so you put the genre and mint, I'm selling mint flavored products. It's a bit like that music, so that people know what they're getting and you know what they're getting, you know, so you don't want to scare them.

So we've got up all our genres and like little slices.

But the reality is that most musicians appreciate all kinds of music.

So what I'm saying is there's a lot of music has a lot of history and it shouldn't really be, by intelligent people shouldn't be slicing it a little bit. So only like this bit, you know, I don't like folk music. What's that mean? It's me anything. What's folk music? Or this invented things, you know? Right, there are literary distinctions. They are.

Yeah, I saw a quote from Keith the other day saying, you know, the band probably, he has probably not going to be able to do long tours anymore. That there might be, you know, there's hopes to do residences and things like that.

“I don't know how you think, but do you, you must have some doubt about whether or not the Rolling Stones will ever go on a,”

Yeah, I mean, I've doubt about it when I hear that, you know, I've doubt about it. I don't mind turning a tool. I mean, residences are, if you can't, if you can't do any shows and you can't go anywhere, then you have to do residences. Obviously, you can't go, you've got to go to the, we have to go to the arena. You've got, you don't have to do it for your bedroom.

But I suppose you could, but you've got to go somewhere, so I would say, well, you can't, you can't just do. So if Harry Styles says he's doing residences, he's doing London and Amsterdam, you know, and so on and so on. It is a tour, you know, it's not only London, do you know what I mean? You know what I mean? What do you think the Stones will do another, you know, what I hope so?

That's what all I'm saying, I would hope so. So I'm, I'm very pleased to be able to, I wanted to, I'm, I'm up for doing it. I like touring, so the thing is, the only thing about doing residences, it makes it for the people that want to come and see you, makes it much more expensive.

“It really does, and we think about it, you have to, you have to travel, you have to get a hotel, any of the buyer ticket, which is not going to be cheap.”

You know, so that, you, it'll be less cheap, it'll be cheaper than the world cup. But in the United States, there's much easier when it was in Germany, because Joan is a small country. Do you think, do you think you'll know when you've walked off the stage with the wrong stones for the last time? No. No.

I don't think you'll ever know. Maybe I have. That's true, maybe it's happened. I don't know.

You never know, you can be, I get ran out of my boss outside my house.

You never really know, do. You know, it's going to happen to you in life. But I personally hoped it to be able to, again, I love touring. I like going places, you know, like many people, I'd like to go to weird countries, you know, and do shows. I was doing a promotion with Indonesia, and I did a show in Indonesia once on my own.

But it's, which is so crazy, it's so hot. It was unbelievable people that Europe's heat wave, it was so hot. And I was out there and it was day talks and many lights. I think, why am I going to wear it? And this guy reminded me of my show in Indonesia.

And I said, yeah, I do a show in Indonesia. You know, it's, it's really, I love doing that. I love going to India. Even when one of the two shows in India, you know, now India is a big market. Can I ask you completely tangential random question?

Yeah. I was looking. And now, so the fact that I couldn't find it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. But I could not find any quote or record of you commenting on singing backing vocals on Carly Simon's, you're so vain.

No, I can't find it anywhere. But when did you realize that some people thought the song was about you? Well, I'm going to be about me when I'm singing on it.

“And no, it doesn't make sense, but people think that's what it was.”

But that was a big thing, wasn't it?

You know, because she would never reveal who is about.

And then she would never thought to ask. Yeah. I never thought to ask. I was just a song. It sounds like a good title.

It was just a song. I'm just the backing vocalist. Because I knew the producer whose name I'm now going to go.

Oh, there you go. Yep. Richard Perry and was a guy new, you know. And he was in London.

“He just fired me out and said, can you can do the backing vocals?”

Because I love doing those sort of things, especially with, you know, if it's a female, you're the male person. You know what I mean? It's slightly different doing it with men. But I don't care. So I just went along and did it.

I thought it was a great song, you know. And it was a big hit for her.

I was never credited with a feature.

These days, I would be the featured. You know, be colleagues. So I'm a featuring man. Django. But you never said to her.

You ever said to her. Who said that was about? I'm laughing at her on some of it. I know, in the chorus, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you for clear that up. No, we've now added to the, uh, some sort of... Why are we talking about claims like so.

So I said to the beginning before. Yeah. We could. I said, oh, now the record's been reviewed everywhere. A lot of reviews.

And I got very, lots of nice reviews. It's weird how people, though, in, they give you, really, I'm out. We've got, it's gotten some great reviews. And I'm really appreciative of that. That's something's nagging at you.

What is it? No. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not nagging. It's just that people, they need, they hear some, one word. And they, and they don't really listen to the line.

So it's like, so Mick Jagger has a go at Elon Musk. What? Yeah. But you're not listening to the line. You only listen to Musk.

That's what we hear. Musk. He must be having a go at him. You're what I do call him mad. Right.

And he's the one person you name. And on the whole, I know other person. He's name chick. It seems like it would have something in mind. Yeah.

The final thing is, when I wrote that, I was like, it was, I was thinking, because of him, they were able to get those astronauts back. You know, that was stuck because he provided the transportation, because we didn't NASA couldn't provide the transportation. So that line, the line of the song is about when I was a kid.

I used to want to go to Mars and everything. And then, and then I said, who would trust? Who would you trust to get you into space? And would you trust Boeing? Or was it NASA?

Or was it Mad Mogul? Mr. Musk? So what? It's really a sidewinding compliment, because he was the one. The I remembered was able to do that when the others couldn't.

Yeah.

“Well, that's what you get for using the adjective mad.”

Well, and Mogul.

And Mogul doesn't always go down my line there.

No one likes a Mogul. No one likes a Mogul. He's got, it's a Persian word, but nobody likes to be called it. You know, I had asked you about the lyrics to sway when we spoke the first time. I have another lyric question that I want to ask you.

My favorite Rolling Stone song, which I think is also the best Rolling Stone song, is you can't always get what you want. And I think, you know, it's a simple sentiment, but I actually think there's something profound in the chorus, right? Which is you can't always get what you want.

But if you try some times, you just might find you get what you need. And what's something that are the last thing that you really tried to get, that you want it to get. Oh, my God. That you couldn't find.

And song that you got what you need. Two leads to a personal wish. Sure. No, I think I can't recall one that stands out, honestly. Well, that's a good life, my friend.

I mean, I'm sorry. I mean, obviously there's all kinds of things in daily life that everyone has frustrations. I mean, I was very frustrated professionally for years.

The Rolling Stone song has never made any new music.

That was a huge frustration for me. And I solved it. You know? Yes. I solved it.

And I mean, with everyone else's help, obviously, but I had to agree to it. You know, it was like, huh? I mean, it was like, okay. But you know, it's like, that was a huge frustration. And I mean, you'll also mean these really difficult questions.

I'm trying to come up with something to say it. But that was a huge frustration. And if you'd interviewed me four years ago, I would have said that. There's another old clip I saw of you from a press conference, probably. Really old one.

Well, there's because we don't press conferences for hundreds of years. Yeah, really old.

“I think maybe you connected to a Madison Square Garden concert in the late 60s.”

Something like that. And someone just asked, you know, you just asked you some vague question. Like, how do you think about being in the Rolling Stones? And you describe the Rolling Stones as financially dissatisfied.

Philosophically trying. Yeah.

“We're just a pat on such a news conference in New York.”

Where you used to say, people used to throw you just really dumb questions.

That was a quite a good one. Yeah, that was. It took me the pat answer in 2026. Where did you stand with those three things? My interest in philosophy is superficial.

Right. I mean, mainly because I find it a really hard subject. I mean, I really, I really find it difficult because I need a teacher. I can't just do it from reading. I can't.

And when I was in college, I did some, some philosophy courses. And that's 100 years ago. And, and I didn't really, I don't, I might want reference to, to, in, in the song.

Oh, in jealous lover, there's, there's a, there's a play to reference.

Ah, shadows on the wall? Yes. You got it. Well done. There.

You got it.

“Yeah, but I thought, but, uh, on my cave, that's even more obvious.”

Oh, yeah. Um. Uh, so. But I find it a really hard subject to educate myself into. And I've recently read a couple of books on it.

I'm really, find it hard. And so.

And there was, I was always having so many arguments these philosophers.

And then. And there was like disagreeing with their masters. And the master disagrees with, then the, I was reading this book on Kant and he. So his, has this people, I can't find his name. Who, then he writes a book.

They're attacking his own master. Yeah. And then they can't replies to him, you know. They're quite rude to each other. And then they have to make up later.

And, and, and, and none of it, I can understand what they're really talking about. You know, was Kant a Christian. I think it's the easiest.

“I think it's cool that you're reading Kant.”

Where is sort of vaguely fashionable? Um, wait, but, but, so let's say fills up. You're still trying and let's just, you know. I'm sticking with that film. I'm sticking with that film.

I'm sticking with that 96.5 quote. All right. Mick, you know, it's just so much. I've got so much. A corny way to end.

But it's been a gas gas gas. Oh, no. It's awful. It's terrible. That's Mick Jagger.

The Rolling Stones' new album "Four and Tongs" is available now. To watch this interview and many others, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel at youtube.com/adsymbolTheInterviewPodcast. This conversation was produced by Wyatt Orm. It was edited by John Wu,

mixing by Sophia Landman, original music by Marian LaZano. Photography by Philip Montgomery. The rest of the team is Priya Matthew, Seth Kelly, Paola Newdorf, Reo Bill Moonios, Eddie Costas, Amy Marino, Mark Zemil, David Hur, Kathleen O'Brien, and Brooke Minters.

Our executive producer is Allison Benedict. I'm David Marquezie, and this is the interview from The New York Times. I'm Gilbert Cruz. This week on the Book Review Podcast, author and Placicist Madeline Miller gives us a primer on the Odyssey. They are flawed characters who try and fail and try again,

who get angry and make mistakes. Plus times critic at large Tony Scott, on all the genres inside the Odyssey. It has tons of its own action, some of which is quite gory, is it a sexy story?

Well, yes, it is. Listen to the Book Review, or if you get in podcasts. Isn't that beautiful?