ROLLING STONES

The Rolling Stones are an English rock-and-roll group.  Founded in 1962 in London with various personnel, their classic line-up emerged in 1963: Mick Jagger, Keith Richard, Brian Jones, Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman.  Mick Taylor and Ron Wood later joined the group.  Ian Stewart and Darryl Jones were involved as regular sidemen.  Coming out of a Chicago blues background and heavily influenced by the Beatles, in their glory years the Stones were referred to as “the world’s greatest rock-and-roll band”.  The albums recorded in that period (Beggar’s Banquet, Let It Bleed, Get Your Ya-Yas Out, Sticky Fingers, Exile on Main Street, Goat’s Head Soup) are considered among the best of popular music.  In 2016 they are still creating music with their latest album, Lonesome and Blue.

The Rolling Stones composed several songs about sexuality.  These include: Let’s Spend the Night Together (lovemaking); Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow? (female prostitution);  Stray Cat Blues (underage sex); Cocksucker Blues (male prostitution);  Brown Sugar (interracial sex): and  Star, Star (groupies).  The songs are very direct and streetwise.  Unfortunately, they are also occasionally misogynistic.  Even the non-sexual songs, drawing on that blues background, tend to be touched with lust.  (The Stones logo is a big, lapping tongue).

I have always liked the sexual songs of the Rolling Stones as I have their music in general.  The songs are very erotic and knowing.  Their anti-woman edge, however, has always been off-putting for me.

A link to Star, Star: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1zgmM2lalo