The Nuclear Effect of the Rocking ‘n’ Rolling Stones, Freya Astbury

Picture this, October 17th 1961, a London railway station. Two teenagers trying to change their blue and lonesome realities, trying to succeed and locate the essence that drives them. One of them carries a guitar and the other carries some records, they reconnect, start talking, and well, the rest is history.

Understanding the unification of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards is an electric thing to do. The infamous duo shaped the music industry forever with their persistent pushing of society's boundaries. There was a perpetual spark between them, something volcanic, they knew that their mutual love for blues music could create something eruptive. The pair of them were hungry for more blues music and desired to develop their culture, so on April 7th 1962, they decided to go to an up and coming club in Ealing as they thought that they should “go up to this place and find out what's happening.” In the club, they saw multi-instrumentalist Brian Jones in his original band (that he left) ‘blues incorporated.’ Similarly to Jones, bassist Bill Wyman left his previous band ‘the Clintons’ to be a member of the newest upcoming group. They could all recognise the talent and passion within each other, they knew they were destined for greatness, however, there was one piece of the puzzle missing, and that final piece, was drummer Charlie Watts. Watts became the pulse and heart beat to the band, he completed the complicated puzzle, it was now time for the band to pioneer genres, lyrics, and powerful riffs that had never been seen before.

After ‘The Rolling Stones’ had been established, their journey to the Rock ‘n’ Roll hall of fame was anything but unadorned. Their debut album ‘The Rolling Stones’ was released in UK on April 16th 1964, and it’s success resulted in an American release of the album called ‘England’s Newest Hit Makers’ was released on May 30th 1964. In the beginning, the band predominantly sung covers, but during the mid sixties the band had a unique burst of creative energy that was channelled into classic such as: ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’ ‘Get Off My Cloud’ ‘Paint it, Black’ and ‘19th Nervous Breakdown’. The entirety of the band's delightful yet devilish discography is littered with captivating songs that would convert society’s perception of music in a phenomenal way.

Growing prosperity! What will they do with it? They began to explore uncharted waters with songs such as ‘Let’s spend the night together.’ Sex! Scandal! Prudity! Nudity! Pleasuring the public's minds, this song (that was released in 1967) challenged the cultural norms by mentioning the enrapturing nature of sex. Despite the normalisation of sex in songs wrote in the 21st century, lyrics such as ‘I’ll satisfy your every need’ caused multiple strings of adversity for the band, it was a shameful topic that the Rolling Stones intended to glamourise, and ‘oh baby my my my my’ did they make it attractive. During the 1950s-1970s a popular form of entertainment was ‘the Ed Sullivan show.’ It’s millions of enthralled audience members resulted in it being extraordinarily significant if you were invited to perform on it, and in 1967, it only seemed right for the rough and revealing Rolling Stones to perform one of their newest hits. Sullivan had other ideas and released his ultimatum of ‘either the song goes, or you go’ as he believed that the song was too venereal for his audience and made it imperative for the band to change the lyrics to ‘Let’s spend some time together.’ The impact of this was atomic as it became clear to the band (especially Jagger) that sex needed to be normalised. Lust and passion inspired the Rolling Stones which can be seen in the lyrics of 1972 ‘Rocks off’ with ‘plug in flush out and fire the fuckin’ feed’ as well as the 1981 sensation ‘Little T&A’ with ‘She’s my little rock and roll, my tits and ass with soul baby!’

Debauchery has fuelled this explosive band for six decades. Sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll all created acts of moral turpitude throughout each of them. However, we wouldn’t have it any other way as the Rolling Stones sultry story will remain salient