Friday, July 28, 2017

England Lost: Mick Jagger releases Brexit-inspired solo songs



From The Guardian:
Mick Jagger at 74 has delivered his first solo musical foray into political commentary, with a pair of new songs that deliver grimly mocking takes on the age of Brexit and Trump. 
The celebrated Rolling Stones frontman released England Lost and Gotta Get A Grip on Thursday, saying he wrote them while stirred by “anxiety [and] unknowability of the changing political situation”. 
The songs represent Jagger’s first solo appearance on any release since 2011 and follows last year’s Stones album, Blue & Lonesome. 
Mick Jagger wrote a 'masterpiece' memoir that has never been published Read more Both tracks feature a sardonic Jagger half-singing, half-spitting his lines in a primitive rap over programmed beats and burring, blues-rock guitar riffs. 
Jagger said in a statement he rushed to release the songs, which he began writing just a few months ago, while they still reflected the transatlantic political climate that spawned them. ‘’We obviously have a lot of problems. So am I politically optimistic? … No,” Jagger said. 
England Lost uses a disenchanted, plain-speaking football fan as the narrator for what he said was the “feeling that we are in a difficult moment in our history”.


Lyric Version 
Jagger said: “It’s obviously got a fair amount of humour because I don’t like anything too on the nose but it’s also got a sense of vulnerability of where we are as a country.” 
If the England Lost music video is anything to go by, it’s clear enough that Jagger – one of the great re-exporters of US folk music to American audiences, whose band made arguably its best album while holed up in France as tax exiles – has misgivings about a Britain turning inward. 
It features Welsh actor Luke Evans as a polite, well dressed gentleman in a cryptic scenario where he is fleeing a menacing array of compatriots who end up dragging him back from the surf as he apparently tries to swim beyond British shores. 
Gotta Get A Grip is a kaleidoscopic diatribe about a political culture led by “lunatics and clowns” who are content for a public fed “fake news” and “policy shams” to “eat shit [and] cake”. 

“Gotta keep it zipped / shoot ’em from the hip / beat ’em with a stick”, goes the modus operandi, along with an absurd journey into the modern cult of self-improvement. 
“I’ve tried diversion and I’ve tried coercion/ meditation and medication / LA culture and aquapuncture / over-eating and sex in meetings / induced insanity, Christianity / long walks and fast drives / wild clubs and low dives.” 
Jagger, the consummate businessman at the helm of the definitive music industry juggernaut for nigh-on five decades, doesn’t serve up any profound escape routes from the individualist bind at the core of neo-Liberalism, a corresponding populist lurch to the far right, or whatever else. 
He offered this take on the song’s message: “Despite all those things that are happening, you gotta get on with your own life, be yourself and attempt to create your own destiny.”

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Something happened to Jagger at Altamont. He never recovered.

Pastorius said...

If it can be traced to Altamont, then the reason would probably be this:

He realized that he was a young man who had gotten into London School of Economics, and a young man who had written songs and done performances that had made him world famous, and that he was and is an elite, and that he ought not trust scum from the lower idiotic classes, because they do shit like murder people for no reason.

Though I am a believer in the American system, I hold no illusions that most people are not scum who have very little moral compass. Most people can not think clearly enough to form moral opinions.

We do live in Idiocracy.

I sympathize with people like Mick Jagger. They want the best for the world, and the world full of scum keep dragging them back down even as they reaching out their hand to help.

Jagger is, from what I can tell, among the best of men.

His song here is not an anti-Brexit anthem, imo.

It is a open-ended statement on where we are at now.

There are a lot of scum on both sides.

The movement of history is on our side, because the other side leads to destruction.

Anonymous said...

I agree with your points, more or less. Altamont was a watershed event for him. You've seen the film: he was scared and very angry, and very confused. Yes, he is quite intelligent and (by rock star standards) well educated.

After Altamont, Jagger changed from a happy-go-lucky hedonist to a driven businessman. He never really reconnected to his audience on anything more than a commercial level. I believe the understanding that he had the enormous potential power to wield a mob coupled with the knowledge that a mob can go out of control was always at the forefront of his mind.

To this day he seems incapable of stating a concrete position on an emotional issue.

Pastorius said...

THAT I agree with. And I think it was a wise decision on his part.

I like the Jagger isn't like all the other rock stars opining on all their fucking opinions as if they are so fucking important.

Also, I believe, though I can not prove, that the Stones were truly dabbling in Satanism. They were heavily influenced by people in the Laurel Canyon scene which also included Manson, and Kenneth Anger (who Jagger worked with in films), Bobby Beausoleil, and other Satanists.

I believe Jagger may have come away from Altamont convinced that his Karma had stormed back on him. I think that, if that was part of his lesson, then HE WAS RIGHT.

I attribute these lyrics to his experience.

Saint Paul the persecutor
Was a cruel and sinful man
Jesus hit him with a blinding light
And then his life began
I said yeah
I said yeah
Augustin knew temptation
He loved women, wine and song
And all the special pleasures
Of doing something wrong
I said yeah
I said yeah
I said yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah
You'll never make a saint of me
Oh yeah, oh yeah
He'll never make a saint of me
And could you stand the torture
And could you stand the pain
Could you put your faith in Jesus
When you're burning in the flames
And I do believe in miracles
And I want to save my soul
And I know that I'm a sinner
I'm gonna die here in the cold
I said yes, I said yeah
I said yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah
You'll never make a saint of me

Anonymous said...

Other Satanists...like Anita Pallenberg? That was one messed up woman.

Anonymous said...

Of the "lower idiotic classes" you speak of, none are more violent than
blacks, followed by Hispanics, followed
by Muslims. THOSE are the people who kill "for no reason."

Pastorius said...

If numbers prove it, number prove it. Of course, the jumping off point of this conversation was the Hells Angels.