Mick Jagger & Keith Richards - The Team

They are a powerful team. In a way, they remind me of the Davies brothers, where Ray/Mick are the brains, and Dave/Keith are the fire.

They have an integrity and commitment to the music that instantly stands out.

 

They were smart learning from their mistakes as well as mistakes of their peers in business.

 

I think that Keith could also be made out to be the brains. I think Mick is the business savvy member of the team while Keith represents brains when it comes to music /fire. etc.

 

At last count I think Jagger Richards have written about a hundred more good songs than the Beatles put out.

 

First off, greedy, inhuman bastards could never make music as deeply human and organic as they have. The image has passed it's expiration date, but the music is timeless.

 

I would still use the word "integrity" rather than brains for Keith. He's tuned in, understands what works and what doesnt, and doesnt mail it in. Mick is the literal wordman, but Keith is speaking just as eloquently musically.

 

So true. And for the record, musicians don't get into the business for humanitarian reasons. It's money and chicks. MONEY and chicks.

 

Keith still came up with the definitive riff. As you hear in this clip, Mick has written the bare bones of the song, but Keith took it to another level.

 

I don't like to get into ranking this or that above such and such, or turning music into a competition. So I will simply say that Jagger/Richards are my personal all-time favorite songwriting team. I have gotten more joy and more emotion from Rolling Stones music than any other rock band. As individual writers and as a team, Mick and Keith make music that makes my soul sour.

I'm not Parachute Woman just 'cause it sounds cool.

 

They've written more, yes, unsurprisingly. The rest is opinion presented as fact.

 

I've gotten more joy out of "Dead Flowers" than the entire catalog of every other rock & roll band in the world. And "Dead Flowers" is not even my favorite Stones tune. Long may the Glimmer Twins reign.

As a side note, we owe their initial writing impetus to Andrew Loog Oldham who understood that songwriting was where it is at and forced them to sit down and hash out some tunes.

 

As Robert Christgau once said, Keith provides the soul and Mick provides the concept.

 

Yeah I don't think brains/not brains is the way to look at the Jagger Richards dynamic. Jagger is more conventionally articulate, and therefor over the years has been more the marketing face of the band. But I don't get a sense one or the other is the smartest.

 

Fascinating comments. And very nice to see it all being so polite.
I personally find Jagger/Richards among the best partnerships in rock.
There is a reason they are still THAT big.

 

When I think of No Brains/No Brains, Steven Tyler and Joe Perry come to mind.

 

"As long as there's, you know, sex and drugs, I can do without the rock and roll." Mick Shrimpton - Spinal Tap

 

They hit their stride for sure in the Mick Taylor years. Totally overrated/overplayed, but that's ok.

Fagen/Becker

 

That makes more sense to me. My world has been returned to its axis.

 

I love Keith, but there is a real reason why in all these years, Keith Richards only has a whopping grand total of 4 songs copyrighted under his single name alone. And besides with Mick Jagger, Keith has written most of his other published songs with non-guitarists like Steve Jordan and Tom Waits, who both have well-known proven talent in arranging and collaborative lyrical skills. When he tried working with Jimmy Page, Gram Parson or John Phillips in the mid '70s, Keith came out of it with basically nothing useable or finished, at least nothing that any of us has ever heard. He clearly needs a collaborator to flesh out his rough sketches and ideas.

And in the same way, there is also a small, lonely, unmarked graveyard of Lennon Beatles song fragments that got run up the flagpole, and McCartney didn't salute them, such as "Madman" from the Get Back sessions, Child Of Nature, A Case of the Blues, etc. etc. "Madman" got played several times during Get Back but never really stuck, so Lennon quietly dropped it. "Child of Nature" was similar, but also being the notable exception, in that Lennon later salvaged it with completely new lyrics. But while Paul simply went ahead and recorded solo versions of the bulk of his unused 1968-70 tunes for the Beatles, early in his solo career (implying he just kept right on going, same as he ever was) it seems like more than a few of John's rejected efforts from that era were destined for pure oblivion. Again, this just speaks to the team and what kind of songwriting partners they were.

 

I would love to know "who wrote what" with Jagger/Richards on every song in minute detail the way we do with Lennon/McCartney. There are surely exceptions to "Jagger wrote the words and Keith wrote the music".

 

There's a wonderful scene in last years documentary, Ole' Ole' Ole'! -
That really speaks to these two guys as a team and as long time mates.
Mick and Keith are alone in a room with the filmmaker.
They are just causally hanging out and one thing to another -
they roll into an impromptu performance of Country Honk.
At first you think Keith will let it fall off after the first verse- but no-
he keeps it going and Mick rolls with it.

You think of all the **** those two have been through- yet here they are- all these years down the road-
in that moment - yeah, it's only rock and roll and they like it.
The connection between these two guys is genuine and Truly unique.

 

Jagger's work ethic and drive is pretty amazing. He's in better shape than men 3 x younger and works with a voice coach. More power to him!

 

What always strikes me about these guys is that, unlike Lennon/McCartney, they had no ambition to write songs. Also that Andrew Oldham picked them out of the lineup to write together. It worked out pretty good.

 

so, Mick isn't/wasn't sure of Keith's kids' names?

 

Nah, it's also because you obviously recognise how great their deep album cuts are. Particularly that one. Is there anything in their catalogue as wonderfully bluesy and sleazy (in a good way) as that one? Pretty much my favourite song on the album.