Mick Jagger, in a desperate attempt to remain relevant decades after his star has set, has decided to release a song bashing President Bush. Advance press on the upcoming song , Sweet Neo-Con suggests that it's going to be an aggressive political statement, from a man whose political preferences are in right in tune with the AARP.
Perhaps that's why Mick is upset with the current Administration. Maybe he's a little upset that Social Security Privatization will hurt all his fans, and if Medicare gets cut, they'll be forced to decide between prescription medicine and a new Rolling Stones record.
I used to like the Rolling Stones. I also used to like the Beatles, Lesley Gore and the Monkees. I even liked the Beach Boys, who aren't much older than the Rolling Stones, but are treated that way.
In reality, the Rolling Stones are now an Oldies act. I defy anyone who claims to be a fan, to sing any one of their songs from the last ten or twenty years. They haven't had a hit album since Tattoo You was released way back in 1980. At least the Beach Boys were on the charts as recently as 1988 with Kokomo.
Even though Rolling Stones fans are all bald and sagging, Mick Jagger looks better than he did forty years ago. Despite the fact that he is roughly the same age (62) as Beach Boy, Mike Love (64); or pop icon, Neil Diamond (also 64), he seems a lot younger. His plastic surgeons should be proud.
In a way, Mick Jagger has become a reverse Dorian Gray for the Baby Boomers. While they grow older, he remains an ageless icon: a skeletal osteopyhrrotic vessel for the spirit of the sixties. It is how the Boomers still imagine themselves, youthful and sassy, despite twice passing the age they weren't supposed to trust anyone beyond. Sure there are IRAs, and doctor appointments to deal with, but as long as Mick can still do the rooster dance, the sixties are alive. Thank God for hip replacement surgery.
It is that obsession with the sixties that makes this incident a newsworthy story in the first place. Did anybody ask whether Benny Goodman was opposed to the war in Vietnam back in 1971? Of course not. Back then, a musician thirty years past his prime was ignored by the press. The reporters of the day, knew that a 62 year old man, could only be counted on, to repeat the politics of the previous generation, a reflection of ideas from a time long past, opinions that were no longer relevant in the modern world.
I wish that today's media were half as wise.
