{"id":1101,"date":"2011-09-21T00:00:56","date_gmt":"2011-09-21T06:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/?p=1101"},"modified":"2026-07-01T12:37:28","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T18:37:28","slug":"dear-mick-jagger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/dear-mick-jagger\/","title":{"rendered":"Dear Mr. Jagger:"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dear Mick:<\/p>\n<p>Hello. I spoke to President Obama yesterday, so it\u2019s only fair I speak to you today. He told me to tell you hello. (Actually, he didn\u2019t. I\u2019m imagining he told me to tell you hello. You probably won\u2019t read this anyway, so it doesn\u2019t matter much.)<\/p>\n<p>Mick, I\u2019m one of your more unusual fans, in that I didn\u2019t discover you by means of your work with the Rolling Stones. The first time you were seared into my consciousness was when you performed solo at the televised Live Aid concert in 1985. Bette Midler introduced you as \u201ceverybody\u2019s idol,\u201d and then you came bursting out onto the stage singing \u201cLonely at the Top,\u201d a song from your ignominious solo debut album, <em>She\u2019s the Boss<\/em>. You were flapping in the breeze like one of those plastic wind guys you see at all those car dealerships \u2013 you were flailing this way and that, looking awkward and goofy and cool at the same time.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Mick Jagger  - Lonely At The Top  - Live Aid 1985\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/hcN_aeBs79I?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>At the time, I was awkward and goofy and not as cool, so I was inspired by someone who moved as dilapidatedly as you did and still got kudos for it. I stole your every move, your every smirk, even your little rooster tail you do with your fingers behind your bum. It got me laughs, but it also got me to embrace my own physical awkwardness and celebrate its grotesquery in a respectable way. I can never thank you enough for that.<\/p>\n<p>I confess, though, that I haven\u2019t listened to <em>She\u2019s the Boss<\/em> since around the time I purchased it back in 1985.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 430px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"She's the Boss\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rollingstonesnet.com\/images\/ShesTheBoss.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"440\" height=\"431\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mick's solo debut<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>It\u2019s very much a product of its time, filled with synth drums and electronicy keyboards. Sad to say, it hasn\u2019t aged well. And if I\u2019m being honest with myself, it wasn\u2019t very good at the time, either. But I didn\u2019t know any better. It seemed funny and silly, and I still saw you as sort of a joke, but a good joke, the kind of joke I wanted to associate myself with in order to get people to laugh at me, too.<\/p>\n<p>Then I picked up <em>Dirty Work<\/em> in 1986.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" title=\"Dirty Work\" src=\"http:\/\/i2.listal.com\/image\/1579674\/600full-dirty-work-cover.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"475\" height=\"473\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em>Dirty Work<\/em> has been hailed as \u201cthe worst Stones album ever,\u201d but it was my first Stones album, and I quite liked it, thank you very much. See, with <em>Dirty Work<\/em>, I got it. I understood that the Stones worked because they were raw and authentic. No cute keyboard riffs; no synth anything; just guys with snarling guitars and you with your snarling vocals. (The day-glo colors on this album makes it look like another 80s cheese romp, but it isn&#8217;t &#8211; except for, you know, the cover.) The whole Stones oeuvre, even with a lesser outing like this one, was all ugly and nasty and all kinds of fun. Your eel-like shenanigans made sense in the Stones context in a way they didn\u2019t with your vapid solo material. The stones weren\u2019t polished or pretty; they were all rough edges. So of course their singer flailed like a ferret in heat.<\/p>\n<p>(By the way, parts of <em>Dirty Work<\/em> haven\u2019t aged well, but other parts have. \u201cOne Hit to the Body\u201d is in my top ten all time favorite Stones tunes with its speeded-up Gimme Shelteresque hard driving riff, and &#8220;Harlem Shuffle&#8221; is still a groovin\u2019 delight. And Keith\u2019s \u201cSleep Tonight\u201d remains his best ballad ever, hands down. The rest of the album sucks out loud, but you probably already knew that.)<\/p>\n<p>I left on a mission for the LDS Church in the fall of \u201987, so I missed your second solo album, <em>Primitive Cool<\/em>. <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/www.technodisco.net\/img\/tracks\/m\/mick-jagger\/2110333-mick-jagger-primitive-cool.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"436\" height=\"426\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m so grateful I did.<\/p>\n<p>Mick, all you have to do is look at the cover of that thing, with you as a hobbit or a Vulcan or something holding that dippy ring, and you knew something was wrong. Watching the video for the brain-dead anthem \u201cLet\u2019s Work\u201d makes me want to poke my eyes out with a sharp stick.<\/p>\n<p>With all that background, I had very low expectations for your 1993 solo piece,<em> Wandering Spirit<\/em>. Boy, was I wrong. You didn\u2019t try to run from your Stonesiness \u2013 you embraced it head on, making <em>Wandering Spirit<\/em> the best Stones album the Stones never recorded.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/images.uulyrics.com\/cover\/m\/mick-jagger\/album-wandering-spirit.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"495\" \/>Seriously, it\u2019s some of your very best work, within the Stones or without. It recognized that you knew what your strengths were, and that you were willing to play to them even outside the context of the Stones.<\/p>\n<p>Which brings me to the purpose of my letter today.<\/p>\n<p>As soon as it became available, I downloaded a copy of your latest magnum opus, the debut deluxe edition of your self-titled album of your supergroup Superheavy. I\u2019d heard the first single \u201cMiracle Worker,\u201d and it seemed pleasant enough. So I listened to the rest of the album.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" title=\"SuperHeavy\" src=\"http:\/\/cdn5.davestewart.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/superheavy-cover-amazon-us.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"500\" \/>Mick, it\u2019s no <em>Primitive Cool<\/em>, but it\u2019s no <em>Wandering Spirit<\/em>, either.<\/p>\n<p>The fact of the matter, Mick, is that when you try to dress yourself up all respectable-like, you look absolutely ridiculous. With lush arrangements and soaring melodies or ethnic, across-the-world mash-ups, your performance highlights a reality you should have realized long ago:<\/p>\n<p>You can\u2019t sing.<\/p>\n<p>Please recognize that that hasn\u2019t been an impediment to your career. Indeed, it\u2019s been one of your greatest strengths. No one wants to hear a real singer wail his way through \u201cStart Me Up.\u201d Can you imagine Pavarotti sneer his way through a lyric like \u201cMy hands are greasy, she\u2019s a mean, mean machine?\u201d You work as a performer because of your attitude, your chutzpah, your defiance of convention, not your pretty voice. Your voice is ugly. It\u2019s raw. It is not the voice of a man of wealth and taste. When you sing alongside Joss Stone with these otherworldly arrangements and modern autotuning and whatnot, you are the aural equivalent of a guy who wears jeans and a wife-beater T-shirt to officiate at a church wedding.<\/p>\n<p>Mick, next year marks the 50th anniversary of the Rolling Stones. Your bandmates want an album and a farewell tour. So does your public. And you don\u2019t want to give it to them, because you\u2019re too busy trying to be something that you&#8217;re not.<\/p>\n<p>As a lifelong Mick fan, please reconsider. Don\u2019t make me make you watch the \u201cLet\u2019s Work\u201d without being under heavy sedation.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=NoGofvVhKTo\">(AAAAAAGH! MY EYES! MY EYES!)<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Your friend,<\/p>\n<p>Stallion<\/p>\n<p>P.S. I would vote for you for president before I would vote for Jon Huntsman.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DearMick:Hello. I spoke to President Obama yesterday, so it\u2019s only fair I speak to you today. He told me to tell you hello. (Actually, he didn\u2019t. I\u2019m imagining he told me to tell you hello. You probably won\u2019t read this anyway, so it doesn\u2019t matter much.)Mick, I\u2019m one of your more unusual fans, in that  ... <a title=\"Dear Mr. Jagger:\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/dear-mick-jagger\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Dear Mr. Jagger:\">Read more<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1101"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1101\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5019,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1101\/revisions\/5019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}