Providing me with hope that I will both be going full pelt and be driven by anger at injustice when I am 80: the ‘Stones new single:
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Amen to that.
Well, dear Richard, i will be 80 next month and I am still raging at all the injustices – lying Tories, inept labour, low wages, high interest rates, Westminster’ exploitation of Scotland’s wealth. Went on a march in Edinburgh last Saturday together with 25,000 others urging self determination for Scotland. I hope to be doing the same in 10 years
Go well!
And thank you
Would it not be better to hope that in ten years time Scotland already has self-determination.
I hope I don’t have to be so angry when I am 80, and I’m ten years older than Richard.
It is a terribly overworked journalistic trope to see the history of a person or a group as emblematic of the history of the UK but in the case of the Stones it is hard to resist.
The individual members all beneficiaries of the Economic, Educational and Social post-war consensus created by the Labour party in1945-51.
In the early 1960s they form a group made up of the classic, Grammar school, Art school, Secondary modern line up responsible for the explosive growth of a new genre of music that goes on to be hugely popular around the world.
Despite being part of the only original genre of music that Britain has ever given to the world they are virtually excluded from British TV that instead promotes middle of the road nonentities like Cilla, Dusty, Sandy, Lulu etc.
Having made a few bob they are also bitterly resented by Tories and the Tory Newspapers who persuade the police to arrest and convict them.
Now a bit older and wiser they decided to dump the crooked UK management that have collectively swindled them and hire an American manager, who eventually turns out to be an even bigger crook.
Still relatively wealthy but facing enormous tax bills they turn to Prince Rupert Lowenstein, tax-dodging advisor to the rich, who tells them to move into Europe where the rich do not have to pay so much tax.
They move to France in the late 60s-early 1970s.
Their finances are transformed but having moved away from the UK, in the mid-70s UK they become slowly unmoored from the cultural milieu that created them and their music.
Despite everything they carry on until one day, canny as ever, they realise that they are now part of the UK Heritage Industry and embrace it
Across the world millions compete to buy tickets to see them and add one more tick to their bucket list.
Meanwhile in the UK since 1979, the young have been fed on new performers that increasingly resemble the musical equivalent of Ultra Processed Food.
Groups of four men are the only originals, but four named women soloists (including Dusty Springfield) are all “middle of the road nonentities’?
Really?
I would not agree with that suggestion
A great benefit of a more equal world is that people can be compared on the basis of talent rather than the genes they are born with.
That great female writers, artists, etc have been underappreciated in the past because of misogyny does not mean that all female artists of the past were great.
Women are the equal of men.
Some are hugely talented, some are mediocre.
Convinced it would be my last chance to see the Stones I went……. in 1991 (or was it 1992). Turns out it was merely a half way point in their career.
Bob Dylan at 82 is now struggling to play live but Rough and Rowdy ways is a masterpiece.
🙂
Sadly despite being younger by a long shot than Mr Jagger, I think I have reached the point where his lifestyle is medically contra indicated for me.
But if you can manage it go for it!
My sadly now late ex father in law helped set up for a Stones concert at Nottingham University just before they became famous and went for a drink with them
My colleague Colin Hines still dines out on the memory of their early performances at Eel Pie Island…
First band I saw live was The Animals, very appropriate with Our Friends in the North being back on screen.
We need to maintain our outrage at societal injustice no matter how old we get. That requires educating and informing the more gullible members of society, who are constantly being brainwashed by our UK media in support of the super wealthy. The current toxic propaganda fed to the British public seeks to eradicate all belief in justice; this is accomplished, in part, by warping the language. With so few people knowing the origin or true meaning of the term ‘Woke,’ it has been deviously weaponized as an insult to suite the Tory political agenda.
What is the Webster definition of woke? Woke is now defined in this dictionary as “aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice),” and identified as U.S. slang. It originated in African American English and gained more widespread use beginning in 2014 as part of the Black Lives Matter movement.
‘Woke’ is not an insult; I am proud to say that I’m very woke. More enlightened individuals should be proud to wear this label as a badge of honor! Keep up the good work of reeducating and informing the public, one word, one sentence, one much needed report at a time, in the hope that the truth can finally overcome the lies of untrammeled government greed.