I make truce with you, Walt Whitman—
I have detested you long enough.
I come to you as a grown child
Who has had a pig-headed father;
I am old enough now to make friends.
It was you that broke the new wood,
Now is a time for carving.
We have one sap and one root—
Let there be commerce between us.

-“A Pact,” by Ezra Pound (1913)

I distinctly remember my old mission president–whom I hasten to add was one of the few genuinely Christ-like men I’ve ever had the privilege to know^[1]Yes, even more so than the long roster of Bishops, Stake Presidents, and General Authorities I’ve met throughout my life.–mention in passing, as an aside, likely during lunch at a zone conference or some such, that he had thrown away all his old Rolling Stones albums when he was called to Puerto Rico. When queried why, he said simply that they just didn’t seem like the sort of music that a mission president should listen to.

He said this as a fan, by the way; in the perennial Baby Boomer debate over who was better, the Beatles or the Rolling Stones, he was firmly team Stones, all the way. That is, he hadn’t tossed his Stones LPs out of annoyance or exhaustion, but as a genuine sacrifice before the Lord, to give up something he sincerely loved for something he loved even more. And while I loved this man myself and admired his humility and integrity, I nevertheless had to suppress a chuckle when he related this story, because all I could think was, Really? This was your band of sacrifice—The Rolling Stones??

Cause let’s be clear: in the early-2000s when I served my mission, there was no debate whatsoever among my immediate generation–the Beatles had clearly won. In terms of wide-ranging influence, innovation, experimentation, acclaim–or even such crassly commercial considerations as record-sales and #1 hits–the Beatles walked away with all the prizes. Throughout the ’90s, it was the Beatles who received the full-scale 6-CD Anthology and Documentary treatment, not the Stones; it was the Beatles logo that the Alt-Rock kids sewed onto their backpacks next to their Nirvana patches, not the Stones; it was Beatles T-shirts that remained in vogue well into the 2000s^[2]I recall Will Smith’s love interest in Hitch wearing one, not the Stones. The Beatles were my Mom’s favorite band growing up, and hence were the ones I developed a deep spiritual connection with (as documented in my book excerpt here)–and in this I was not an outlier, but fully representative of my fellow Millennials. By the early-2000s, the idea that there was ever a serious debate over Beatles vs. Stones was laughable.

Not that I ever hated the Rolling Stones, mind you: I will totally cop to having a soft-spot for “You Can’t Always Get What You Want“, especially since I first heard it on the radio while delivering phone books in the rain as a broke-ass teenager^[3]even if the song’s message was a little rich coming from a bunch of millionaire Rock stars; “Angie” helped me process a college break-up^[4]I remember watching two butterflies flutter around each other as I was hiking up a hill overlooking Guadalajara, Mexico, while ”Angie” played on my headphones, and I was filled with the … Continue reading; “She’s a Rainbow” is genuinely pretty and deserves to be overplayed on Classic Rock radio way more than, say, “Beast of Burden;” I like the bass-line on “Jumpin’ Jack Flash“; and I will admit that “Street Fighting Man” still gets my blood pumping–even if, you know, they never actually fought in the streets themselves.^[5]At least the Beatles were upfront about being lackadaisical during the Revolution.

Which gets to the crux of why, though I never flat-out hated them, I always detested the Stones just a little bit: they seemed to me, quite frankly, to be all talk–a bunch of gangly, pasty-white, middle-class dorks from England^[6]Mick Jagger was an economics major in college, remember, merely cosplaying as Rock and Roll rebels. By contrast, John Lennon (though certainly no saint himself) really was a born-and-bred working class hero, one willing to risk his visa to oppose Nixon and the Vietnam War; the Stones however retreated so far from any real sense of rockist rebellion as to record “I Know It’s Only Rock and Roll”—apologetically, almost cowardly. It was the Doors who famously got banned by Ed Sullivan for refusing to change their lyrics for his show; the Stones meanwhile were only too happy to oblige. A young Mick Jagger in 1965 said he would rather be dead than still be singing “Satisfaction“^[7]The Devo version is better anyways. at age 60, but then ended up doing precisely that.

Overall, the Rolling Stones became metonymic for the larger Baby Boomer generation that radiated so much counter-cultural promise and revolutionary potential in their youth, only to become a bunch of Reagan-voting sell-outs by middle-age, coasting by on whatever little they accomplished 50 years ago. Almost too on the nose, their song “Ruby Tuesday“–about a free-spirited young hippie–became the name of yet another mediocre chain restaurant. The Stones never engineered a late-period renaissance like David Bowie or Leonard Cohen; they never set trends but only chased them^[8]e.g. Blues-Rock, Psychedelia, Reggae, Punk, Disco, etc.; and every new release of theirs for 40 years now has inevitably been marketed as “their best album since Some Girls.” Pete Townsend, at their 1989 induction into the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame, cheekily told the Stones, “Whatever you do, don’t grow old gracefully, it wouldn’t suit ya,” and they appear to have followed that advice to the letter. Whereas the Beatles, like so many of their “Classic Rock” peers, had the good sense to either break up^[9]e.g. Simon and Garfunkel, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Who, CCR, The Doors, Eagles, etc. or die^[10]e.g. John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Jim Croce, Janice Joplin, John Bonham, Keith Moon, the Stones own Brian Jones, etc. and thus remain forever young, the Rolling Stones instead got old and boring.

And on a more LDS note: My seminary teachers growing up all repeated the same pearl-clutching story about the time Elder Gene R. Cook of the Seventy purportedly sat next to Mick Jagger on a plane. Supposedly, that veritable sympathizer-for-the-devil himself straight up bragged to Elder Cook that he made music primarily to get kids to have sex with each other. (Quelle horreur!) But honestly? All that story ever did was make me lose respect for not only my seminary teachers (seriously, they were trying to warn a bunch of rap- and grunge-listening teens about The Rolling Stones?), but also Gene R. Cook (why was he flying First Class with Rock Stars if he’s supposed to be a humble servant of the Lord?). Not to mention Mick Jagger himself—though not because he was some immorally-devilish Rock fiend (as my seminary teachers warned), but rather because he came across as a slightly pathetic, wannabe-provocateur edgelord in this story, trying just a little too hard to offend the “squares.”^[11]Assuming any of this story is even true in the first place—why the heck would Mick Jagger fly commercial? Wouldn’t he have a private jet? Nothing in this dumb story adds up.

Hence, though I still unironically enjoyed certain Stones songs, I could never quite revere or respect them.

And yet, and yet. Just this last summer, I overheard my teenage students complain about how much pop music sucks nowadays, and how much better it was 20 years ago (which of course is exactly what I was complaining about 20 years ago–it’s nice to know certain things never change!). Their cited examples were “Classic” artists like Tupac Shakur, Biggie Smalls, and Eminem (which of course made me feel old)—when to my surprise, this big black guy from the projects also added, “Yeah, and that ‘Paint It Black‘ song by, who was it, the Stones? That’s a great track too!” and no one disagreed with him! They’d actually all heard of it! That’s when it occurred to me: had it finally happened? Had the Stones been huge dorks for so long that they finally looped back around to being cool again?

Probably the pendulum began to swing back when that “Moves Like Jagger” song by Maroon 5 and Christina Aguillera came out in 2010 or thereabouts–or conversely, that “Tik Tok” song by Ke$ha from the same era, wherein she tells potential suitors that “We’ll throw them to the curb unless they look like Mick Jagger” (though that seems to indicate she did not actually know what Mick Jagger looked like at the time). There was also the time ”Wild Horses” was used in the season 1 finale of Bojack Horseman.

In any case, I began to realize that I had lately seen a number of college students sporting Rolling Stones t-shirts on campus^[12]alongside Nirvana and Tupac shirts, mind you, while I hadn’t seen a Beatles shirt in a hot minute. Now, I did have a student write his final paper on why the Beatles were the best band ever only a couple years ago–but then, you only mount defenses of things that are no longer a given. I also noted that the award-winning Jamaican novelist Marlon James–a man not shy whatsoever about calling our racism and cultural appropriation^[13]They’re named for a Muddy Waters song, after all.–was a matter-of-fact Rolling Stones fan^[14]When he needles the Stones for recording a crappy reggae album in A Brief Study of Seven Killings, he’s doing so as a fan, not a hater., which blew my mind, cause holy hell, have you ever actually read the lyrics to “Brown Sugar?” And I likewise recalled a Native American classmate I knew in grad school who was similarly a Stones fan, citing Sticky Fingers as her favorite^[15]That’s the one with “Brown Sugar” on it, which, again, holy hell those lyrics about raping slaves! The Stones announced they dropped that song from their 2021 tour, which they … Continue reading. Why was this gangly collection of pasty-white Englishmen resonating across such a diverse array of peoples?

I return to that Pete Townsend quip from the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame: “Whatever you do, don’t grow old gracefully, it wouldn’t suit ya,” and I suspect that that quote gets us warmer–because there really is this sense of arrested development about the Stones, isn’t there, a perpetual and pervasive immaturity and refusal to ever grow up, nor in turn take anything too seriously. Like so many other things, this is both a strength and a weakness; it’s why they devolved into punchline status as they got wrinkles and gray hairs while still stubbornly acting like snot-nosed teenagers; yet it’s also (and this is the key factor here) what allowed them to not care that they were a punchline, either.

There’s nothing less cool than trying to be cool, as we all know; yet the corollary is also true, there is nothing more cool than not trying to be cool–and I think a successful argument can be mounted that the Rolling Stones were cool precisely cause they weren’t ever actually trying to be. Does Mick Jagger look like a total dork prancing around on stage? Yes, actually, and that’s the point: to have “Moves Like Jagger” does not mean to have a slick, professional stage presence, but quite the opposite–it means to move like you don’t care how dorky you look, that is, to actually let yourself have fun for a change, which gives everyone else around you permission to have fun for a change as well!^[16]On a side-note: back in my single days, I was frequently asked how it was that I danced so freely at parties and dances, and the answer was simple–I knew I wasn’t a good dancer, which … Continue reading Did they change the words to “Let’s Spend the Night Together” for Ed Sullivan? Maybe the reason the Stones are so much less mocked than the Doors nowadays is simply because they never treated their songs as sacrosanct; these weren’t holy texts to be revered with dread seriousness á la Jim Morrison, but just fun larks to dance around to. Maybe the appeal of the Stones for Gen Zers and people of color is simply, Finally, a white Boomer rock band that doesn’t take itself so seriously. Maybe it really is “only rock and roll/but I like it.”^[17]Or in the words of “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” it really is “alright, in fact it’s a gas!”

That is, the Rolling Stones behave like little children–which is integral, because “Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 18:3).

I have two toddlers of my own right now, and so I have had numerous cause of late to ponder what exactly “become as little children” even means. For as every parent knows, children are most assuredly not meek and humble, willing to submit to whatever their parents choose to impose upon them! On the contrary: they are loud, destructive, egotistical, self-indulgent–like Rock Stars, in other words. Yet they are also affectionate, loving, exuberant, attention-hungry, devoid of self-consciousness, bursting with boundless energy, without shame and without guile–like The Rolling Stones specifically, you’ll note. Contrary to reputation, it wasn’t their gritty worldliness or bluesy raunchiness that set the Stones apart, but rather their naivety, their innocence, their impish sense of childlike whimsy.^[18]Perhaps that is also why Johnny Depp famously based his performance of Captain Jack Sparrow on Keith Richards–he was channeling that same childlike energy.

Children are also quick to injure, but just as quick to forgive and forget–also like the Stones. Recall that when Stones drummer Charlie Watts passed away last year, the most widely-shared story about him was of the time Jagger drunkenly called Watts from his hotel room and said, “Where’s my drummer at?” According to legend, Watts dressed himself to the nines, marched over to Mick’s room, knocked on the door, and then sucker-punched Jagger clean across the face while shouting, “I’m not your f—ing drummer, you’re my f—ing singer!” According to some versions, Jagger then almost tumbled out a high-story window but was saved by Keith Richards, who said, “Careful, will ya? He’s wearing my jacket!”

For almost any other storied Rock Band of the ’70s, this story would be the dark harbinger of the band’s looming break-up and decent into chaos^[19]Certainly the Beatles broke up over less—I mean, can you imagine Ringo Starr sucker-punching John Lennon? (Its not like he never deserved it).; but for the Stones, it was just a footnote, and Charlie Watts remained their drummer till the day he died. Why? Because they were simply acting like children–and therefore got over it as quickly as children. They did not take themselves seriously enough for the incident to do real damage to their relationships–something we could all stand to learn from.

Recall also that it was the Pharisees, not the Savior, who insisted upon decorum and reverence, who took deep offense at any insult to their personal dignity, and who demanded of Christ that he tell all these unseemly children to stop celebrating and quiet down–to which the Savior of the World replied, “I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out” (Luke 19:40), and the Stones have indeed been crying out with childlike joy for decades now.

And that is why, I suspect, my mission president was a Rolling Stones fan growing up, such that he considered it a genuine (if still small) sacrifice to throw his old albums away. I said at the top that he was one of the most Christ-like men I’ve ever had the privilege of knowing–and that was in large part because he was also like unto a little child, for of such is the Kingdom of God.

So like Ezra Pound to Walt Whitman, I make truce with The Rolling Stones—
I have detested you long enough.
I come to you as a grown child
Who has had a pig-headed father;
I am old enough now to make friends.
Let there be commerce between us.^[20]“Beast of Burden” still sucks though.