Looking at The Rolling Stones' long lifespan of unabashed, hardcore rock and roll, it is a marvel any of them have survived past their thirties, let alone into their seventies. Any sober person would think their wild stories of partying and enduring tours were a chimery, were it not for their presence at the forefront of music nowadays. Three cheers can be given to Mick Jagger for reaching that milestone today, with the marking of his seventieth birthday, and just over fifty years in the music business. Forming The Rolling Stones in 1962, Jagger has gone on to permeate culture entirely, past the borders of music and reaching iconic status as a counterculture figure in terms of music, sexuality and politics. Even if people can only list off a few of the innumerable hits he has garnered as the lead singer of the years, they can most definitely imitate his strut, pout and trademark dance moves.
Love or loathe him - and most people fall into the former category - the man is still performing ful throttle, with The Rolling Stones performance at Glastonbury this year watched by arond 2.5 million people on TV alone. They have completed over forty tours, many of which broke the record for the highest selling tours of all time. The singer may once have stated he would 'rather be dead than singing 'Satisfaction' when I'm forty-five', but that longevity has been his very making, as they are not only historical figures but ones very much in the present.
With songs such as 'You Can't Always Get What You Want', Honky Tonk Women, Ruby Tuesday, Sympathy for the Devil, Paint it Black and their first international hit, '(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction', Jagger the foreman and the rest of his band took up where past rock and roll legends like Elvis left off and, in a sense, integrated music through the use of typically African-American traits. His raspy voice, habit of bellowing out and use of a dramtic stage presence have been hailed as an innovation of blues music into hard rock.
A self-proclaimed anarchist in his youth, he has always clung to Leftist culture, making him not only a stalwart of the sixties but a reminder of its values nowadays. The renowned sexually charged dance moves and provocative lyrics that he and the band made famous are not only fun-loving but they also somewhat contradictingly issued out a big F-you to 'the establishment' that stood rigidly against it. His off-stage antics with half the female population promote the archytpe image of a free-love sixties spirit to the Nth degree. Former wives like Bianca Jagger and Jerry Hall are also etched on the public's imaginary hall of fame, not only due to their own successes but simply as former lovers of Jagger. Even the ex-French President Sarkozy's wife Carla Bruni had an affair with the playboy.
Critics call it all a posturing act but his inveterate performances on stage (nowadays it is restricted more to on stage than off) mean he will at every age be identified as a symbol of eternal youth, no matter what the physical state he's in. It's a commonly associated joke that The Stones will soon be rolled onto stage with accompanying nurses and drips, and I for one wouldn't be surprised if it eventually came to this. But doesn't that say something about their persistent vigour for playing live? As Jagger says himself, 'anything worth doing is worth overdoing'.
