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If you were to ask any music fan to assimilate the greatest lead singer of all time from the pieces of legendary frontpeople who have come before, then there is a good chance that every single composite character would have at least one characteristic from The Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger. A perennial pop star, Jagger has been the mouthpiece of the band for over 60 years and, with every passing decade, his legacy solidifies in glittering gold. 

Born to a middle-class family in Dartford, Jagger was destined to be a singer. A noted showman and completely smitten with the danger of rock and roll on the radio, a chance meeting with school friend Keith Richards, as both squeaky-voiced teens held the records of Chuck Berry, would send him on a path toward musical greatness.

Across six decades, Jagger’s prestige as a frontman only grew. Starting out as a long-haired dandy with a devilish smile and a seductive glint in his eye, he would hone his craft to become the archetypal leading man. Dashing and usually dancing, Jagger and The Rolling Stones would become the more dangerous side of the 1960s pop revolution before going into overdrive the following decade, becoming a worldwide phenomenon.

The decades that followed wouldn’t necessarily see the band hit their artistic heights, but their domination of the world stage is still something to behold. As the years passed by the crowds only seemed to grow as the chance to see one of the greatest rock and roll groups of the 20th century presented itself. While Jagger and his group may be in their element on the stage and under the spotlight, the singer has done far more than provide vocals for a rock group during his glittering career.

Whether it is acting, painting, producing or simply dancing, Jagger has become an icon of freedom, expression and creativity. Below we’ve picked out 80 legendary moments as we reflect on an artist whose effervescent enthusiasm for life belies the number assigned to his age.

Mick Jagger’s most iconic moments:

80. Mick Jagger’s first appearance on TV

As one of rock’s most confident frontmen, Jagger might’ve spent a career dancing like a maniac on stage like his heroes James Browne and Chuck Berry, but his first television appearance is a glimpse into a slightly shyer Jagger. Recorded in 1959 when he was still just Mike, a then 15-year-old Jagger made regular appearances on a weekly segment of Seeing Sport.

His father, Joe Jagger, was a PE teacher, and both he and his sons Mick and Chris were regular guests, and in this clip can be seen extolling the virtues of plain old gym shoes for rock climbing. It’s a far departure from the rock and roll life that Jagger would become synonymous with, but also a touching reminder of his roots.

79. Inducting The Beatles to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

The infamous rivalry between the Beatles and The Rolling Stones might’ve been at its most tense in the 1960s, but by 1988, both bands massively respected each other, as Jagger’s speech when he inducted the Beatles into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame proved.

In his speech, Jagger light-heartedly mentioned the rivalry, saying: “We went through some pretty strange times. We had a lot of rivalry in those early years and a little bit of friction, but we always ended up friends.” He thanked the band for letting the Stones record ‘I Wanna Be Your Man’, as well as praising their success in America for paving the way for similar bands coming out of England. “They were some of the greatest times of our lives,” said the Stones leader, continuing: “I’m really proud to be the one that leads them into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.”

78. The Rolling Stones arrested in 1972

One of a litany of arrests The Rolling Stones would go through, the 1972 Boston arrest is most memorable because the Mayor of Boston was a fan of the band, and in one the slickest PR moves ever pulled – went on stage himself to announce to the 15,000 strong crowd waiting for the band he’d “called and got them out”.

Jagger and Keith Richards were arrested for assaulting a photographer in Rhode Island. The band were meant to be in Boston, but due to fog, their plane had to land in T.F Green Airport – by which point they were already annoyed because their opener Stevie Wonder had already started to play. But after the arrest, they were released on bail thanks to Mayor Kevin H. White’s interventions. The process might’ve delayed their Boston Garden concert by three hours, but it certainly made White a popular politician that night.

77. Recording ‘Dancing in the Street’ with David Bowie

In 1985, Jagger teamed up with old friend David Bowie to record a cover of the Martha & the Vandellas hit ‘Dancing in the Street’. Bob Geldof insisted the pair record it for the Live Aid relief benefit, and they got the job done in a four-hour rush at Abbey Road Studios in only two takes.

Once the two takes were finished, they were headed for Spiller Millennium Mills to shoot the music video for the single. Directed by David Mallet, the video has become an iconic moment in pop history for two reasons. Firstly, the absolute abundance of cheesy 80s dancing – secondly: the silent video version that later emerged, in which directors Strack Azar and Michael Stevantoni stripped the song of all sound in favour of goofy, cartoon overdubs.

76. The Rolling Stones riot at Blackpool

In 1964, The Rolling Stones arrived in Blackpool for a show at the Empress Ballroom during the Glaswegian Fair, where factory workers from Scotland visited the seaside for their summer holidays. The happy holiday vibes soon turned into hostility, and Jagger and the band found themselves on the receiving end of some Glaswegian rage.

The crowd were throwing pennies and bottles at the stage, rushing the stage and kicking their gear. Chandeliers got smashed, seats were ripped it and it was a general frenzy. Even once the band swiftly retreated from the stage, the mob tried to break into the Winter Gardens nearby, where The Dave Clark Five were performing. The entire ruckus caused an estimated £4,000 worth of damage, which prompted Blackpool Council to ban the Stones from playing in the town again.

75. Providing backing vocals on Carly Simon’s ‘You’re So Vain’

Carly Simon’s seminal hit ‘You’re So Vain’ has been shrouded in mystery ever since its 1972 release, famed for the clever lyrics: “You’re so vain, you probably think this song is about you.” Jagger is often pipped as the source of songs inspiration (or angst, depending on your outlook), largely because he contributed uncredited backing vocals to the hit.

Over the years, Simon has kept schtum – but has revealed ‘letter clues’. After she agreed to reveal the name of the songs subject to the highest bidder in the Martha’s Vineyard Possible Dreams charity auction, it emerged that the letters ‘E’, ‘R’ and ‘A’ appear in the person’s name – so Jagger could still be the man in the apricot scarf.

74. When Mick Jagger refused to tour with The Rolling Stones

With The Rolling Stones’ 1983 Undercover album finished, Jagger turned his attention to producing his own debut solo album with the help of music heavyweights like Jeff Beck, Pete Townsend and Herbie Hancock. But Keith Richards was less than impressed with his move to solo work, insisting the band should be the priority. It was the start of an almost decade-long debate about creative direction that would result in Jagger refusing to tour with his own band.

After spending the best part of 20 years together, tensions were running high, and their relationship was rocky – so rocky, in fact, their eventual feud was referred to as “World War III”. In Richards’ autobiography Life, he revealed their dynamic was at its worst over the later recording of Stones’ album Dirty Work, and things were so volatile Jagger simply refused to tour with the band to promote the album.

73. Writing ‘Midnight Rambler’

Jagger wrote ‘Midnight Rambler’ with Richards for the 1969 album Let It Bleed, based loosely on the life of the Boston Strangler, Albert DeSalvo, who murdered 13 women in the 1960s. The song’s nature was very dark but bizarrely written while the pair were on a scenic holiday in Italy, with Jagger experimenting on the harmonica in Positano’s cafes while putting together the so-called “blues opera”.

‘Midnight Rambler’ was a concert favourite, primarily because Jagger would writhe around and lash the stage with his belt, taking on the persona of a serial murderer as he belted out: “I’ll go easy with your cold fanged anger, I’ll stick my knife right down your throat, baby.” It was a testament to Jagger’s on-stage charisma that he was able to forge such a fan favourite out of telling a murderous psychopath’s story.

72. Mick Jagger joins U2 and Fergie to perform ‘Gimme Shelter’

At the star-studded Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 25^th anniversary concert in New York’s Madison Square Garden, Jagger performed the Rolling Stones classic ‘Gimme Shelter’ – joined by U2’s Bono and Black Eyed Peas singer Fergie in an electric performance that saw Jagger nearly outshine Fergie’s own high-energy dance moves.

Fergie told US Magazine joining Jagger onstage was a huge honour, saying she grew up with the Rolling Stones playing because they were her dad’s favourite band. “It was electrifying to be up there with him, with this crazy kinetic energy bouncing off each other because we are both nuts and so that was great,” she said. “Just to have that kind of camaraderie and then to be on stage with U2 at the same time is classic rock and roll brilliance for me.”

71. Rejecting his father’s footsteps

Jagger was born into a middle-class family in Kent, and his father, Joe Jagger, was instrumental in popularising basketball in Britain. Joe was a gymnast an PE teacher, and Jagger’s grandfather was also a teacher. Jagger has said that although he was encouraged to follow his father’s career path growing up, it became quickly apparent he was born to sing.

He loved listening to singers on the radio and watching performers on TV and in films. Around the time he discovered his love of singing, he’d met Keith Richards for the first time when they were classmates at Wentworth Primary School in 1950. That same year, Jagger moved schools to Dartford Grammar School (now the Mick Jagger Centre for Performing Arts school). Although the two lost touch in the move, it seems they were almost destined to meet and create music together.

70. Writing ‘You Can’t Alway Get What You Want’

One of many smash hits from the Stones, ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ appeared on the 1969 album Let It Bleed. Jagger wrote it alongside Richards, initially describing it as “one of those bedroom songs” he just played around with. Someone along the way floated the idea of getting a gospel choir in on it, and when it was suggested they could more feasibly get the London Bach Choir, the band thought it would be a laugh and committed to it.

It’s a decidedly ‘60s song, addressing love, politics and drugs – and the associated joy and disillusionment associated with them, with many assuming it was about the slow burnout of the swinging sixties in London. Its subject matter makes Donald Trump’s choice to play the song at his 2016 Presidential campaign appearances strange, with Jagger saying it was an “odd” choice, given it’s a “sort of doomy ballad about drugs in Chelsea.”

69. Starring in Performance

Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg’s Performance was initially meant to be a light-hearted look at the swinging scene starring Jagger as a rockstar that morphed into a far darker exploration of sex, violence and drug use. It was produced in 1968, but the extent of its graphic violence meant Warner Brothers held onto it for two years, which resulted in what can only be described as a disastrous test screening which prompted a mass walkout and vomiting.

Frank Mazzola was hired to put the film on a chopping block with a major re-edit, because what the studio executives thought would be the Rolling Stones equivalent of The Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night had somehow morphed into a graphic portrayal of an identity crisis, and to add insult to injury, The Rolling Stones were meant to write the soundtrack, but due to Richards and Jaggers long-standing creative tensions, it never came to be.

68. Forms SuperHeavy with Joss Stone, Dave Stewart, A. R. Rahman, and Damian Marley

In 2011, Jagger announced the supergroup SuperHeavy, which featured the Stones frontman alongside Joss Stone, Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart, A. R. Rahman, and Damian Marley, Bob Marley’s son. The group put out one self-titled studio album, which featured Jagger singing in Sanskrit and rapping, and never released again. It was a chaotic mix of rock, soul, and reggae. At the time, Jagger shared, “We wanted a convergence of different musical styles. We were always overlapping styles, but they were nevertheless separate.”

On his first foray into the rap world, Jagger told The Hollywood Reporter, “I was just copying Damian. I do a little bit… I went toasting, we call it, but it is the same thing [as rap]. Damian was doing this really good toasting, West Indian rapping, so I thought, ‘I would do that. It can’t be that difficult.’ It actually was quite difficult. With a bit of practice, it is alright. It is a laugh.”

Listen to ‘Miracle Worker’ by SuperHeavy below.

67. Mick Jagger is shot in the hand on the set of Ned Kelly

The Rolling Stones had secured their place in music history in the late 1960s, and Jagger was looking to expand his creative endeavours further into acting. His fame lent him to filmmakers looking to make a profit at the box office. In 1970, the frontman starred in the title role in Tony Richardson’s biographical film Ned Kelly.

But while on set, Jagger sustained a serious injury to his hand while shooting one of the film’s final scenes. The Sydney Morning Herald reported, “A pistol loaded with blanks, which he was using at the time, backfired to drive the metal into his hand”. He left a Canberra hospital, “heavily bandaged and in a sling under his long fur coat. Still affected by the local anaesthetic used to extract the metal, Jagger said he only remembered he was ‘shooting a lot of policemen’ when the incident occurred.”

Look back on Jagger’s hand-wounding starring role in Ned Kelly below.

66. Annoying Charlie Watts

In an instance recalled by Keith Richards in his autobiography, Life, a drunken encounter with Charlie Watts led the drummer to punch Jagger in the face. Emboldened by alcohol, Jagger repeatedly called Watts in his hotel room to ask, “Where’s my drummer?” Eventually, Watts became so agitated that he went down to Jagger’s room, lifted him up by his jacket and punched him.

Richard recalls the incident, “There was Charlie Watts, Savile Row suit, perfectly dressed, tie, shaved, the whole fucking bit. I opened the door and he didn’t even look at me, he walked straight past me, got hold of Mick and said: ‘Never call me your drummer again.’ Then he hauled him up by the lapels of his jacket and gave him a right hook. Mick fell back onto a silver platter of smoked salmon and began to slide towards the open window and the canal below… It takes a lot to wind that man up.”

65. Mick Jagger’s first song with Keith Richards

Jagger and Richards have come to be known as one of the most important and influential duos in music. The duo spent their early years covering R&B standards while perfecting their songwriting abilities. They finally released the first song they had written themselves in 1965 – ‘The Last Time’, which formed the lead single for the 1965 Rolling Stones album, Out of Our Heads.

In 2003, Richards shared their early songwriting difficulties in the book According to the Rolling Stones, stating, “We didn’t find it difficult to write pop songs, but it was very difficult – and I think Mick will agree – to write one for the Stones”. After months of trying, the result was a track inspired by the Staple Singers’ ‘This May Be The Last Time’, which Richards suggested was “kind of a bridge into thinking about writing for the Stones”. From then on, Jagger and Richards went on to write over 170 more songs together.

64. ”What and look like you?”

Jagger became firm friends with David Bowie between shows at the same venues and their shared interest in the 1970s party scene. In an appearance on Michael Parkinson’s talk show, Bowie once shared the story of the first time he ever saw the Rolling Stones, including his first impression of Jagger. The Stones opened for Little Richard long before they were at the height of their fame – Bowie recalled a fanbase of “about six kids” rushing to the front. Still, he called the performance “priceless”, adding, “I’ve never seen anything so rebellious in my life!”

At the gig, one audience member yelled, “Get your hair cut!” to Jagger, to which he replied, “What? And look like you?” Bowie delivers the line in a perfect Jagger accent and declares that he’ll never forget the frontman’s rebuttal to the heckler. He concludes, “I thought, ‘Oh my God, this is the future of music?’ And sure enough…”

63. Playing Hyde Park to 250,000 people

In the summer of 1969, the Rolling Stones took to London’s Hyde Park for a free headline show, accompanied by King Crimson and Third Ear Band. An estimated audience of around 250,000-500,000 gathered to see Jagger lead the memorable concert, which also formed a tribute to the Stones’ former leader Brian Jones.

Jones passed away just two days before the gig was held, so Jagger began the set with a eulogy. Donning a white, flowing dress, Jagger read aloud two stanzas from a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley before releasing thousands of white butterflies from the stage. Mourning fans also brought candles along to the show in tribute.

Though the set featured out-of-tune guitars and out-of-practice band members, it still marks one of their most remembered performances. Watch Jagger pay tribute to Brian Jones at Hyde Park in London in 1969 below.

62. When Mick Jagger impersonated Keith Richards

Back in 1993, Jagger appeared on the beloved American sketch show Saturday Night Live, in an episode hosted by Luke Perry. As part of the news section of the show, Jagger made an appearance as part of the “point/counter-point” section to discuss censorship. The sketch commented on Ice-T’s 1992 song ‘Cop Killer’, which was controversial at the time of its release and led to the artist being dropped from his label.

Accompanied by Mike Myers, who impersonates the frontman himself, Jagger takes on the persona of his co-songwriter Keith Richards. While Myers takes on the anti-censorship position, Jagger presents his bandmate as pro-cop, declaring, “Mick, you ignorant slut. All the time, all the time with your liberal clap-trap”, trailing off in a characteristically Richards British drawl. Myers replies, “That wasn’t English Keith”. The sketch ends with the two mirroring Richards and Jagger’s real working relationship as they write a song together.

61. Mick Jagger invents the Moonwalk

The moonwalk is one of the most well-known dance moves of all time, involving a slick gliding movement backwards. The move was famously popularised by popstar Michael Jackson, who made it a feature in his live performance in the 1980s. But almost two decades earlier, Jagger replicated the move in his own performance.

In 1965, the Rolling Stones appeared on the stage of Wembley’s Empire Pool in London alongside headliners the Kinks and performances from The Beatles, Dusty Springfield, and Tom Jones. While they were performing their 1964 cover of Chuck Berry’s ‘Around and Around’, Jagger’s vocals were accompanied by some impressive leg movements, some of which were reminiscent of what would come to be known as the moonwalk. Gliding sideways and backwards, the footage suggests Jagger might have preempted the popularity of the famous dance move in the 1960s.

60. Twisted prank of Van Halen

The early 1980s saw both the Rolling Stones and Van Halen embark upon huge tours with a surprising crossover. The Rolling Stones opened up for Van Halen on their final tour date in Florida. But the show wasn’t entirely smooth sailing. Kevin Dugan recalled how the show went wrong in Ultimate Classic Rock.

Michael Anthony broke a string on his bass, so Dugan quickly ran to his aid to change the strings: “So, I yell, ‘Bill! Get out of the way!’ Bill jumps out of the way, and I grab the door of my workbox and throw it open. The other guy he was talking to, the door hits him in the chest, and he flies back on his ass about five feet.” Dugan had knocked promoter Bill Graham out of his way but, unbeknownst to him, he had also knocked Jagger.

Years later, Dugan was pushed into a mysterious limo and confronted with Jagger, who remarked, “I understand we’ve met before”. After pretending to be interested in featuring Anthony on bass on his album, he recalls that Jagger, “lunged at me, grabbed me by my shirt, pulls me towards him and says, ‘If you ever knock me on my ass again, I’ll have you killed!’ […] I can’t keep a straight face.”

59. Sharing the 10 things he learned after 50 years in music

In an appearance on Letterman, Jagger shared a list of things he had learned throughout his 50 years of experience in rock music, imparting his wisdom to young musicians and fans. The list cautioned against taking relationship advice from Phil Spector, believing the intentions of those who are looking for fame, and encouraged people to respect their hotel neighbours by trashing hotel rooms before a 10pm curfew.

Other highlights of advice included, “Nobody wants to hear anything from your new album” and, “Before shouting ‘Hi, Seattle!’ make sure you’re in Seattle”. Jagger took a dig at Maroon 5’s hit with Christina Aguilera, ‘Moves like Jagger’, jokingly commenting “You don’t earn a cent when someone does a song about having ‘Moves like Jagger’”. He concludes his list with the line, “You start out playing rock n’ roll so you can have sex and do drugs, but you end up doing drugs so you can still play rock n’ roll and have sex.” Watch Jagger reveal his full list of advice below.

58. Writing ‘Let’s Spend The Night Together’

In 1967, the Rolling Stones released a double A-side single which featured ‘Let’s Spend the Night Together’. The track charted at number three in the UK and would become the first track on their album Between the Buttons for its US release. Due to the lyrics, which included the line, “I’ll satisfy your every need, and now I know you will satisfy me”, its accompanying single ‘Ruby Tuesday’ was to perform more successfully in the US charts, reaching number one.

Jagger wrote the song around his own experiences in romance, telling Melody Maker in the year of its release that it wasn’t entirely sexual. He explained, “I always say, ‘Let’s spend the night together’ to any young lady I’m taking out. What it means is shall we spend the evening together>? If people have warped, twisted, dirty minds, I suppose it could have sexual overtones. The song isn’t really very rude. When you hear it, you’ll realise it.”

57. Sleeping with Donald Trump’s girlfriend

Throughout his 50 year music career, Jagger committed fully to the sex, drugs and rock n’ roll lifestyle and reportedly slept with over 4,000 women, earning himself the nickname ‘Jagger the Shagger’. One of his many affairs involved Italian-French singer and model, Carla Bruni. One of the highest-paid models in the world in the 1990s, Bruni was also seeing Eric Clapton at the time Jagger began his affair with her.

Their affair lasted so long that it overlapped with Bruni’s relationship with future US President Donald Trump, who later dubbed her “desperately stuck” on the Stones frontman. Bruni has since turned her affections to another political leader. She married Nicolas Sarkozy in 2008, a Republican politician who served as the President of France from 2007 to 2012. Jagger’s shagger days are also behind him, as he has been in a committed relationship with Virginian ballerina and novelist Melanie Hamrick since 2014.

56. The Rock and Roll Circus

The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus was a unique concert film hosted by The Rolling Stones in December 1968. The concert film was shot by the esteemed filmmaker Michael Lindsay-Hogg, who suggested the idea of a “rock and roll circus” to Mick Jagger. Intrigued by the plan, Jagger set the wheels in motion by giving some of his famous pals a call.

Filmed on a makeshift circus stage, the feature saw Jethro Tull, The Who, Taj Mahal, Marianne Faithfull, and the Rolling Stones perform a series of colourful and elaborate sets. Among the memorable performances was a one-off supergroup named The Dirty Mac, comprised of John Lennon, Eric Clapton, Mitch Mitchell from The Jimi Hendrix Experience, and Keith Richards.

On a similar level to The Beatles’ famous roof-top performance just over a month later, The Rolling Stones’ Rock and Roll Circus marked a climax for the 1960s rock scene, dragging some of the British Invasion greats under one roof for a rare spectacle.

55. First appearance on Saturday Night Live

As a distinctly genial stage presence, Mick Jagger has never been a stranger to our TV screens. In October 1978, The Rolling Stones paid their first and only visit as a group to the newly established US variety and comedy sketch show Saturday Night Live. At the time, the band had just released their disco-rock album Some Girls and, as well as hosting the evening, treated the audience to live renditions of ‘Beast of Burden’, ‘Respectable’ and ‘Shattered’.

Jagger returned to Saturday Night Live on several occasions over the ensuing decades: in 1993 and 2001 as a musical guest, and in May 2012 to host the season 37 finale. Upon his return to the host’s chair in 2012, Jagger performed ‘The Last Time’ with Arcade Fire, a medley of ‘19th Nervous Breakdown’ and ‘It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll (But I Like It)’ with Foo Fighters and ‘Tea Party’ with Jeff Beck and the SNL Band.

54. Collaborating with will.i.am and Jennifer Lopez

In 2011, Black Eyed Peas singer will.i.am announced that he would release a song in collaboration with Mick Jagger and Jennifer Lopez. ‘T.H.E. (The Hardest Ever)’ appeared on the iTunes Store on November 20th 2011, just a few hours after its debut at the American Music Awards. The stand-alone single was initially intended as the lead single on the studio album #willpower. It was later accompanied by an official music video on December 12th.

The video begins with will.i.am. sending a text message to Jagger, before the pair begin coordinating their exercises. Next, will.i.am. embarks on an extraordinary journey, running through walls and transitioning through various modes of transportation, from foot and bicycle to motorbike, car, plane, train, and even a rocket, ultimately transforming into a spaceship. In the finale, Mick Jagger appears in the galaxy, serenading the audience while Lopez dazzles with her belly dance.

53. Performing with Chuck Berry

As one of the founding fathers of rock ‘n’ roll, Chuck Berry was a crucial formative influence on The Rolling Stones. Most notably, the group covered Berry’s 1961 song ‘Come On’ for release as their debut single in 1963. Following their meteoric rise to stardom, the Stones welcomed Chuck Berry to warm the stage on their 1969 tour as a replacement for B.B. King, who had other engagements.

“I am so sad to hear of Chuck Berry’s passing,” Jagger wrote in a public statement following Berry’s death in 2017. “I want to thank him for all the inspirational music he gave to us. He lit up our teenage years, and blew life into our dreams of being musicians and performers. His lyrics shone above others and threw a strange light on the American dream. Chuck, you were amazing, and your music is engraved inside us forever.”

52. The vocals on ‘Paint it Black’

“I wrote the melody,” Keith Richards once remembered, “he [Jagger] wrote the lyrics.” The guitarist had been discussing the Stones’ classic number one single of 1966, ‘Paint It, Black’. The lyrics Jagger wrote for the track, precursory to ‘Sympathy for the Devil’, helped carve out the Stones’ niche as the darker, more daring alternative to The Beatles as proponents of the British Invasion.

“Our songs were taking on some kind of edge in the lyrics…” Jagger said of his lyrical urges at the time in a quote appearing in the French book L’invention de la Rock Star. “Cynical, nasty, sceptical, rude… The lyrics and the mood of the songs fitted with the kids’ disenchantment with the grown-up world of America, and for a while, we seemed to be the only provider, the soundtrack for the rumbling of rebellion, touching on those social nerves.”

51. Fighting with Keith Richards

Although they’ve maintained a friendship and a working alliance for over six decades, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards have had their ups and downs. The pair’s most notable feud occurred in the late 1980s following the Stones’ underwhelming 18th studio album Dirty Work. The release showed, plain as day, that the band wasn’t gelling like they once had. A creative dispute spiralled into a temporary break-up of the songwriting partnership.

“Most guys, you know where you stand with,” Keith once told NPR of the pair’s complex relationship. “Mick and I don’t quite know how we stand with each other, and we never have.”

“Not everybody likes everybody all the time,” he added in a 2013 conversation with The Daily Mail. “But maybe you have a need for that conversation to continue, and music is the one way you can do that. It’s stronger than the other things that get in the way. It would be a miracle, wouldn’t it, in 50 years for two guys to get on, let alone three or four?”

50. Waging war on Rolling Stone magazine

In 1967, Jann Wenner, a 21-year-old aspiring editor, published the first issue of his new magazine, Rolling Stone, in San Francisco. The magazine rapidly gained traction in the music industry, much to The Rolling Stones’ irritation. Jagger and Richards felt like their band name had been stolen for a new US brand and couldn’t believe Wenner had the audacity not to feature the Stones on the cover of the first issue.

“Why did Jann [Wenner] call it that, when there was a band called that?” asked Jagger per Joe Hagan’s book Sticky Fingers. “You could have thought something else, to be honest. I mean, I know it arised from a song name, but that’s not really the point.”

The Rolling Stones’ legal team duly issued Wenner with a letter demanding that he destroy all copies of Rolling Stone or suffer “immediate legal action.” In response, Wenner sent Jagger a letter that stated: “My feeling is that you haven’t got any idea that this action has been taken on your behalf. ’Cause it just doesn’t seem like it’s where you and the Stones are at.”

By 1969, Wenner and Jagger had met on several occasions and managed to smooth out the wrinkles. Namely, Wenner pasted Jagger’s face on the front of an issue of the magazine and gave the Stones’ frontman shares in the UK version of Rolling Stone.

49. Writing ‘Tumbling Dice’’

While laying down their 1971 album Sticky Fingers, The Rolling Stones lived in the UK, where the government had a punitive 93% tax sting on high earners such as themselves. In an effort to circumvent such woes, the band decided to relocate to the South of France on tax exile. Here, Keith Richards rented a historic 16-room villa named Nellcôte on the Côte d’Azur.

As the band enjoyed the improved weather and tax relief, they were all too aware that they’d need to finish work on a follow-up to Sticky Fingers. What resulted was Exile on Main St., a rough gem recorded in the basement of Richars’ villa, widely recognised as the Stones’ greatest album.

The album’s lead single, ‘Tumbling Dice’, was written by Jagger and Richards as a late and crucial addition. “It started out with a great riff from Keith, and we had it down as a completed song called ‘Good Time Women’,” Jagger told The Sun in 2010. “That take is one of the bonus tracks on the new Exile package; it was quite fast and sounded great, but I wasn’t happy with the lyrics.”

“Later, I got the title in my head, ‘call me the tumbling dice’, so I had the theme for it,” he continued. “I didn’t know anything about dice playing, but I knew lots of jargon used by dice players. I’d heard gamblers in casinos shouting it out. I asked my housekeeper if she played dice. She did, and she told me these terms. That was the inspiration.”

48. Writing ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’

The Rolling Stones began to make serious headway when the Jagger-Richards songwriting partnership conjured up ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’ in 1965. The single was a sensation, topping the national charts in the US and the UK, appealing to the countercultural youth thanks to its references to commercialism and sexual frustration.

The track allegedly began as a riff that Richards came up with in his sleep. One night, he claims to have used his Philips cassette player to lay down the main riff before resuming a restful state of sleep. According to Richards in Keith Richards: In His Own Words, his conscious mind was first introduced to the riff the following morning when he listened to the recording. There were two minutes of acoustic guitar before the sound of a dropping pick, “then me snoring for the next forty minutes.”

Shortly after, Jagger wrote the catchy lyrics to seal the deal. “It was the song that really made the Rolling Stones, changed us from just another band into a huge, monster band,” Jagger once said of the song per songfacts.com. “It has a very catchy title. It has a very catchy guitar riff. It has a great guitar sound, which was original at that time. And it captures a spirit of the times, which is very important in those kinds of songs … Which was alienation.”

47. Sharing a stage with Bob Dylan

Over the past half-century, Mick Jagger has been joined by Bob Dylan on stage on several occasions. Perhaps most memorably, the pair took the stage at the 1988 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions ceremony alongside George Harrison, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, Tina Turner, Ringo Starr, Jeff Beck and several other huge names in the business. This gigantic swarm of talent performed The Beatles’ ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ (see below).

Ten years later, The Rolling Stones invited Bob Dylan on-stage to perform his song ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ at a Buenos Aires, Argentina concert.

Jagger has long professed his love for Dylan’s songwriting prowess and unique delivery. In a 2011 interview with Rolling Stone, Jagger named Dylan’s ‘Desolation Row’ as one of his all-time favourite songs. “Even after many listenings, his playing still sounds sweet; I like the slight Spanish tinge of it,” Jagger said. “But it doesn’t get in the way of what obviously is the main thing: the vocal and the lyrics. Dylan’s delivery is recitative, almost deadpan, but he engages you.”

46. Giving Living Colour their big shot

In 1963, following their first couple of singles, The Rolling Stones had a chance meeting with The Beatles’ principal songwriters. Paul McCartney and John Lennon agreed to let the Stones record their song ‘I Wanna Be Your Man’ as a single. It became the band’s first top-20 hit and is regarded as the first in a series of pivotal breakthrough moments for the band. As if mimicking this act of generosity some 25 years later, The Rolling Stones offered a helping hand to the New York funk metal band Living Colour when they asked the band to accompany them on their Steel Wheels/Urban Jungle Tour alongside Guns N’ Roses.

Mick Jagger had come across Living Colour at CBGB in New York earlier in the ‘80s. After establishing a friendship with the group, he offered to produce two of their demos, elevating the band’s status and ultimately securing their record deal with Epic Records.

In the below video from 2018, Living Colour singer, Corey Glover, speaks to Kenny Kessel at the Newburgh Vintage Emporium in New York in celebration of the 35th anniversary of the band’s debut album, Vivid. During the interview, he notes Jagger’s crucial role in helping the band breakthrough in the late 1980s.

45. Mick Jagger’s iconic interview with Dick Cavett

During The Rolling Stones’ North American tour of 1972, the Dick Cavett Show scheduled a backstage interview with Mick Jagger. The famous exchange of words occurred backstage at Madison Square Garden. “How did you sleep after the opening night last night?” Cavett asked Jagger. To which Jagger replied, “Not very well, man.”

The opening night of the tour took place in Vancouver, British Columbia, where 31 policemen were treated for injuries after more than 2,000 fans attempted to crash the venue. This incident was just the beginning of what turned out to be a riotous tour, further tarnishing the Stones’ reputation as drug-addled troublemakers among the conservative elite.

After establishing that Jagger hadn’t really slept that night, Cavett asked Jagger about a plate of pills he saw circulating at a party the night before. “Vitamins and salt,” Jagger famously replied. “A, E, C and salt.” Watch the iconic conversation below.

44 Giving DEVO a thumbs up for their Rolling Stones cover

In 1977, new wave band Devo released a cover of the Stones’ breakthrough hit ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’. Devo’s unique rendition took shape during one of the band’s jam sessions, initiated by Bob Casale’s guitar part, accompanied by Alan Myers’ drum beat and Gerald Casale’s bass line. Initially experimenting with the lyrics of ‘Paint it Black’, the band decided to try ‘Satisfaction’ when they realised it fit the music better.

Devo gained Jagger’s approval prior to recording the cover, though, which, according to Casale, was an interesting experience where “he suddenly stood up and started dancing around on this Afghan rug in front of the fireplace — the sort of rooster-man dance he used to do, and saying ‘I like it, I like it”.

Some years later, the members of Devo would be delighted to be able to play their version of the hit track in front of Jagger himself. Casale discussed the encounter in an interview with the New Yorker: “[Jagger] was just looking down at the floor swirling his glass of red wine,”… “He didn’t even have shoes on, just socks and some velour pants. I don’t know what his habits were then, but this was early afternoon and it looked like he had just gotten up”.

43. Giving advice to Andy Warhol

The Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers boasts one of the most iconic album artworks in the history of rock music, and fittingly so. The genius behind this artistic masterpiece is none other than the legendary pop artist and cultural icon, Andy Warhol.

Renowned for his remarkable contributions to various record sleeves, Warhol’s unparalleled talent caught the attention of The Rolling Stones, leading them to approach him for the artwork of their highly anticipated new album.

After he learnt that the artist would be working on the project, Jagger sent a warm letter to Warhol stating that “in his “short sweet experience, the more complicated the format of the album, e.g. more complex than just pages or fold-out, the more fucked-up the reproduction and agonising the delays.”

He added: “But, having said that, I leave it in your capable hands to do whatever you want”.

42. Recruiting Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Flea to play on two solo songs

For his third solo album, Wandering Spirit, Jagger landed Rick Rubin as co-producer and recruited Lenny Kravitz as a vocalist and Red Hot Chill Peppers’ bassist Flea for his cover of Bill Withers’ ‘Use Me’. Flea also appeared on two more tracks – ‘Out Of Focus’ and ‘I’ve been Lonely For So Long’.

Jagger and Red Hot Chilli Peppers have always had mutual admiration for one another. Red Hot Chilli Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis has talked openly about his feelings towards the Stones, recently stating that “In the last five years, I have really loved discovering the history of them and how incredibly meaningful they were to the world, and still are in a really bizarre way. But opening for them isn’t a great job”.

41. Almost starring in ‘Dune’ with Orson Welles

In the mid-1970s, Alejandro Jodorowsky, a visionary Chilean-French director known for his surreal and avant-garde films, set out to create a film adaptation of Dune. Deemed “the greatest film never made”, Jodorowsky sought to “change the public’s perceptions”, and cast artistic icons like Jagger and Salvador Dali, popular figures who were not known for their acting skills.

While Jodorowsky’s Dune was never released as a feature film, its influence and impact on the world of cinema were significant. Many of the ideas, designs, and concepts from Jodorowsky’s version influenced subsequent science fiction films, including Ridley Scott’s Alien and of course and David Lynch’s eventual adaptation of Dune in 1984.

40. Writing ‘Start Me Up’

While many of us stumble through jam sessions in search of a semblance of a tune, The Rolling Stones effortlessly functioned as a well-coordinated machine, delivering mind-blowing improvisations like ‘Can’t You Hear Me Knocking’ and ‘All Down the Line.’ They conjured musical excursions by plugging in their instruments and letting the magic unfold.

In a similar fashion, the genesis of ‘Start Me Up’ shared this spontaneous essence, yet with a distinct stylistic twist: it began as an original reggae composition. “‘Start Me Up’ was a track that was just forgotten about, a reject,” Jagger recalled. “The funny thing was that it turned into this reggae song after two takes. And that take on Tattoo You was the only take that was a complete rock and roll take”.

However, Keith Richards indicates a slightly different version – the band went through around 30 takes of the song in the reggae style before Charlie Watts began playing the song straight, simply as a way to refresh the energy of the session. The song went through three different studios over the course of nearly half a decade, so it’s difficult to say exactly how and where the changes occurred.

39. Singing ‘Old Habits Die Hard’ with Dave Stewart

Commissioned as part of the 2004 movie Alfie starring Jude Law, Jagger jumped on the mic to helm a track written and performed by Dave Stewart from Eurythmics. The duo wrote an entire album of songs for the movie and it almost provoked a completely new solo album for the frontman.

However, the collaboration doesn’t really get any better than ‘Old Habits Die Hard’, which also features soft rock hero from the 1990s, Sheryl Crow.

38. Inspiring Billy Joel song ‘Big Shot’

Billy Joel originally wrote the song ‘Big Shot’ about Bianca Jagger, but from Mick’s perspective. Mick and Bianca were on the outs and divorced shortly before the album was released, and Billy was thinking about how Mick would sing the song to Bianca when he recorded it.

As Joel crafted the song, he envisioned how Mick would perform it, imagining the poignant emotions that would resonate as Mick’s voice carried the lyrics to Bianca. This empathetic perspective added a profound layer of depth and emotion to the song, transforming it into a powerful expression of love and loss.

With the combination of Joel’s songwriting and his keen insights into the Jaggers’ personal struggles, ‘Big Shot’ emerged as a poignant tribute to the complexities of relationships in the world of rock and roll.

37. Rejected for the role of Frodo in ‘The Lord of the Rings’

Jagger’s association with Dune wasn’t the singer’s first brush with movie-star fame. In the midst of creating Ralph Bakshi’s animated adaptation of The Lord of the Rings in 1978, a fascinating development arose when Jagger expressed keen interest in taking on the role of the intrepid adventurer, Frodo Baggins.

Like many rock stars, Jagger deeply appreciated Tolkien’s epic, making him an enthusiastic candidate for the part. Despite the already completed voice-over recording, Bakshi graciously invited Jagger to his Hollywood studio to offer a preview of the work.

However, what seemed like an exciting opportunity turned out to be more complicated than expected, becoming somewhat of a hassle. “So I’m walking through the studio with Mick Jagger and the girls start to scream and faint,” Bakshi explained to The Hollywood Reporter in 2018. “I had 2,200-3,000 people working on four floors, and the word spread to each floor that Jagger is walking around, and people got from one floor to the other through the staircase, and there was thunder like horsemen coming down, shaking the staircase”.

36. Writing ‘Gimme Shelter’

Written by Jagger and Keith Richards, ‘Gimme Shelter’ was composed during a tumultuous time in the band’s history, as the late 1960s saw significant social and political unrest, including the Vietnam War and civil rights movements. The song’s lyrics reflect these troubled times and express themes of violence, chaos, and the desire for shelter and solace.

“That song was written during the Vietnam War and so it’s very much about the awareness that war is always present,” said Jagger. “it was very present in life at that point. Mary Clayton who did the backing vocals, was a background singer who was known to one of the producers. Suddenly, we wanted someone to sing in the middle of the night. And she was around. She came with her curlers in, straight from bed, and had to sing this really odd lyric. For her it was a little odd – for anyone, in the middle of the night, to sing this one verse I would have been odd. She was great.”

On writing the lyrics, Richards said: “I was sitting there in Mount Street and there was this incredible storm over London, so I got into that mode, just looking out of Robert [Fraser]’s window and looking at all these people with their umbrellas being blown out of their grasp and running like hell. And the idea came to me… My thought was storms on other people’s minds, not mine. It just happened to hit the moment.”

35. When the Queen refused to knight Mick Jagger

In 2003, Mick Jagger received the prestigious honour of knighthood, becoming Sir Michael Philip Jagger. However, true to the nature of The Rolling Stones’ frontman, his knighthood was not without controversy. Despite the formal recognition, there were critics who questioned whether the vocalist truly deserved the accolade. Adding to the intrigue, the absence of Queen Elizabeth II at the knighting ceremony fueled rumours that she personally chose not to be part of the celebration.

As per reports, the queen’s displeasure with the nomination stemmed from several reasons. Firstly, Jagger had previously referred to her as the “chief witch,” a remark that didn’t sit well with the monarchy.

Another factor that reportedly contributed to the queen’s reservations was Jagger’s association with Princess Margaret. According to claims in The Daily Mail, rumours swirled about an ongoing, drug-fueled affair between Jagger and the princess, adding to the perceived complications surrounding his knighthood.

34. Trying to produce a sitcom with David Letterman

In 2007, ABC aired an American sitcom called Knights of Prosperity – a show that follows a group of misfits who attempt to rob various celebrities. Jagger was the first, who was also credited as a producer along with David Letterman.

The series underwent a series of intriguing name changes throughout its development. Initially, the working title was the enticing Let’s Rob Jeff Goldblum, although it was never officially confirmed. However, when Jeff Goldblum opted to commit to the NBC drama Raines, the concept shifted, and it transformed into Let’s Rob Mick Jagger to fit the new narrative.

As the show progressed, ABC embraced the idea and announced it as Let’s Rob… when adding it to their fall schedule in May. Finally, a definitive title emerged in July 2006, with the series being officially named Knights of Prosperity.

However, despite receiving a handful of positive reviews from critics for its fresh concept and humour, it struggled to find a consistent audience and was cancelled after only one season, comprising thirteen episodes.

33. Collaborating with Peter Tosh

In the late 1970s, Jagger ventured into reggae-influenced music with his album Some Girls. Jagger admired reggae and its artists, and he sought to incorporate its sounds into his own work. During this time, Jagger collaborated with Peter Tosh on a track called ‘Don’t Look Back’.

‘Don’t Look Back’ was originally written and recorded by The Temptations in 1965, but Jagger and Tosh recorded a reggae-infused cover version of the song for Jagger’s 1978 solo album The Very Best of Mick Jagger. The song featured both Jagger and Tosh on vocals, and their voices complemented each other beautifully. The collaboration showcased their mutual respect for each other’s musical styles and genres.

‘Don’t Look Back’ became a hit and further solidified the bond between Jagger and Tosh, bringing their talents together in a memorable and successful musical endeavour.

32. Writing ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’

1968’s ‘Jumpin Jack Flash’ is one of the most stirring numbers Mick Jagger and Keith Richards wrote. The timeless introduction, driving guitars and Jagger’s vocal performance all make this number one of The Stones’ finest. Something of a return to the band’s bluesy roots following their baroque pop and psychedelic chapter on 1967’s Between the Buttons and Their Satanic Majesties Request, it sees the band re-energised in the most pulsating way.

Interestingly, Keith Richards’ gardener Jack Dyer unknowingly gave him and Mick Jagger the starting point to move away from the sounds of Their Satanic Majesties. “The lyrics came from a grey dawn at Redlands,” Richards told Rolling Stone in 2010. “Mick and I had been up all night, it was raining outside, and there was the sound of these boots near the window, belonging to my gardener, Jack Dyer. It woke Mick up. He said, ‘What’s that?’ I said, ‘Oh, that’s Jack. That’s jumping Jack.’”

He continued: “I started to work around the phrase on the guitar, which was in open tuning, singing the phrase ‘Jumping Jack.’ Mick said, ‘Flash,’ and suddenly we had this phrase with a great rhythm and ring to it.”

“The whole thing, we were on acid,” Jagger told the same publication about the record in 1995. “We were on acid doing the cover picture. I always remember doing that. It was like being at school, you know, sticking on the bits of coloured paper and things. It was really silly. But we enjoyed it.” A terrific song, and a reminder of the power of Jagger and Richards’ songwriting partnership; without this moment, The Stones’ oeuvre would be missing an important piece, and Jagger one of his most impressive vocal performances.

31. Performing with Bo Diddley

They say never meet your idols, but the story of Mick Jagger and The Rolling Stones brings the old adage into question. In their time, the London band have been lucky enough to meet a host of their heroes, with one of the most consequential instances of this coming in their early years, in 1963 when they signed onto a 30-date package tour of the UK with The Everly Brothers and one of their greatest influences, blues pioneer Bo Diddley.

Remarkably, this was The Rolling Stones’ first-ever tour, yet most people came out to see them, and not the established acts with whom they shared the bill. The Everly Brothers even struggled to sell tickets as their prominence waned in the wake of The British invasion. Things were so bad for the duo that tour promoter Don Arden even resorted to calling rock ‘n’ roll legend Little Richard and enlisting him to boost sales.

A week before the tour’s opening night at London’s New Victoria Theatre on September 29th, The Rolling Stones told the NME: “For us, the big thrill is that Bo Diddley will be on the bill! He’s been one of our great influences. It won’t be a case of the pupils competing with the master, though. We’re dropping from our act on the tour all the Bo Diddley numbers we sing.” Notably, this run would be one of several times that The Stones would perform with Bo Diddley, with him also joining them onstage in 1994.

When Bo Diddley passed away in 2008, Mick Jagger led the tributes and reflected on how The Stones learned from him in those formative early years.”He was a wonderful, original musician who was an enormous force in music and was a big influence on The Rolling Stones,” Jagger said. “He was very generous to us in our early years and we learned a lot from him. We will never see his like again.” It’s safe to say that without the guidance of Diddley, Jagger and his bandmates might not have turned out into the world beaters they are today.

30. Sharing a song with his brother

Another accolade Jagger can add to his list is sharing a song with his younger brother, Chris. Being the sibling of an international icon certainly can’t be an easy position to be in, yet, when Chris released ‘Anyone Seen My Heart’ from 2021’s Mixing Up The Medicine, he enlisted his brother for that extra sprinkling of star power. It remains one of the most wholesome moments in Mick Jagger’s extensive career.

Instead of usurping his brother, Mick Jagger facilitated the song, providing warm backing vocals and even joined him in the music video, where the two rock out like in the old days. Of the saxophone-led track, Chris Jagger explained: “I found this obscure poet called Thomas Beddoes. I was reading this book by Ezra Pound, and he mentioned Beddoes. I found this book of his called Death’s Jest Book, in which he wrote these kinds of weird plays.”

Continuing: “He was a poet from Bristol, and his father knew Shelley, so he was coming in just after the Romantic poets. He was an alcoholic, and he committed suicide by poisoning himself in Basel in 1849. He was only 45. I read some of his verse and took them and put them to music.”

Despite the poetry underpinning this track, it’s the two brothers in harmony that really makes it stand out in the memory. See, rockstars are humans too.

29. Writing ‘Beast of Burden’

Whilst The Rolling Stones are no strangers to introspective turns and have delivered many a blue moment over the years, there’s something particularly touching about the soft rock inflections of 1978’s ‘Beast of Burden’, from Some Girls. Featuring one of Jagger’s most impactful vocal performances, he huskily addresses a lover and defiantly tells them, “I’ll never be your beast of burden”. Notably, a “beast of burden” is usually a domesticated animal used for man’s labours. Whilst Keith Richards wrote the music and a portion of the lyrics, Jagger did what he usually does and added his unique magic to the song.

In the liner notes to the 1993 compilation Jump Back, Keith Richards said that the song “was another one where Mick (Jagger) just filled in the verses. With the Stones, you take a long song, play it and see if there are any takers. Sometimes they ignore it, sometimes they grab it and record it. After all the faster numbers of Some Girls, everybody settled down and enjoyed the slow one.”

Jagger added: “Lyrically, this wasn’t particularly heartfelt in a personal way. It’s a soul begging song, an attitude song. It was one of those where you get one melodic lick, break it down and work it up; there are two parts here which are basically the same.” Despite the frontman claiming this number is impersonal, it’s soundtracked many a heartbreaking moment for fans. What might have been something of a throwaway to him has provided solace for many. Only the true greats can do this.

28. Once replaced himself with monkeys on stage

When The Rolling Stones debuted in San Antonio, Texas, in the 1960s, it could not have been weirder and has gone down as one of the most bizarre moments in a band history brimming with them. As Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Jones, Bill Wyman and Charlie Stones entered the Lone Star state, I’m sure they were excited as they were to perform as part of the state fair. However, in a signal that things might not turn out as planned, they were accompanied on the bill by Bobby Vee and George Jones, a teen idol and country star, respectively, representing the British band’s antithesis.

Playing to a crowd of cowboys and their kids, according to the reports, most notably Jack Hutton’s in the Daily Mirror, The Stones were booed off stage and replaced by a troupe of trained monkeys who had performed earlier. “Local singers were cheered wildly,” wrote Hutton, “A tumbling act and a trained monkey were recalled to the stage for encores. But the long-haired Rolling Stones — Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Jones, Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman — were booed.” It wasn’t just the older ones in the crowd who were conservative either; a Texan teen reportedly said of Mick Jagger and the group: ​”All they’ve got that our own school groups haven’t is hair”.

After their subversive music caused a big stir at the gig, back at the hotel, their appearance caused issues for the locals. Bill Wyman recalled: “While we were sunbathing around the hotel pool in a temperature of 95 degrees, a young waiter who was serving us drinks said that a guest had complained to the hotel that girls were at the pool, swimming and sunbathing topless — that was us!”

27. Giving ‘As Tears Go By’ to Marianne Faithfull

Marianne Faithfull is an icon of the 1960s. As is well known, she was “discovered” by The Rolling Stones’ manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, at a party in 1964. After, Oldham linked up with Jagger and Richards to pen her first major release, ‘As Tears Go By’. It became one of their best-known works not for The Rolling Stones.

Arriving in June 1964, off the back of the song, Faithfull rose to prominence and released further hits, including ‘This Little Bird’, ‘Summer Nights’ and ‘Come and Stay With Me’. Later, from 1966 to 1970, she entered into a highly-publicised relationship with Mick Jagger, significantly affecting her and the frontman’s lives and not necessarily for the better. Famously though, she did inspire some of the London group’s best-loved songs, including ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ and ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’. Not long after finishing with Jagger in 1970, Faithfull fell into the throes of heroin addiction and ended up on the streets of Soho for two years, a remarkable sea change considering she was one of the darlings of 1960s popular culture.

Much of what happened to Faithfull in the 1960s can be traced back to the success of ‘As Tears Go By’. One account claims that Loog Oldham locked Jagger and Richards in a kitchen to force them to write a track together, allegedly telling them: “I want a song with brick walls all around it, high windows and no sex.”

The initial result was called ‘As Time Goes By’, the title of the track Dooley Wilson sings in the classic movie Casablanca. Oldham eventually replaced “Time” with “Tears”, which made the song stand out. In his autobiography, Life, Richards later recalled, “We thought, what a terrible piece of tripe. We came out and played it to Andrew [Oldham], and he said ‘It’s a hit.’ We actually sold this stuff, and it actually made money. Mick and I were thinking, this is money for old rope!”

Jagger’s biographer, Philip Norman, claims that ‘As Tears Go By’ was primarily written by the frontman in collaboration with famed session guitarist Big Jim Sullivan. However, Jagger has always maintained that he only wrote the lyrics while Keith Richards wrote the melody. Regardless, this was the start of Marianne Faithfull’s career and everything that followed—a majorly significant moment for everyone involved.

26. Starring in Ned Kelly

Over the years, Mick Jagger has shown that he is not a one-trick pony and is actually a decent actor. Whilst his role as Turner in 1970’s crime drama Performance is his most memorable dramatic flourish, it was his first feature-length film, Ned Kelly, that kicked things off for his career on the big screen. Not only did Jagger show that he could act, but he could also handle a leading role.

For a first-time role, Jagger does a decent job in attempting to play the fabled bushranger. However, the movie was a poorly received flop and is considered one of Richardson’s worst efforts. It was such a disaster that neither the director nor Jagger attended the London premiere. Even in 1980, Jagger claimed he had still never seen the movie. Still, we’ve all got to start somewhere, and the month after Ned Kelly arrived, in August 1970, Performance was released, one of the musician’s finest career moments.

25. Giving ‘Silver Train’ to Johnny Winter

The Rolling Stones have given many tracks away in their time; such is the power of their collective songwriting talent. One of the most prominent instances of this came when Texan guitar hero Johnny Winter covered ‘Silver Train’. The song’s title has even been claimed to refer to the blues musician’s albinism.

Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and the band completed recording the 1973 album Goats Head Soup in January that year at The Village in Los Angeles and then in May at London’s Island Studios. Interestingly, ‘Silver Train’ was a leftover from a 1970 session at London’s Olympic Sound, which the band re-recorded in Los Angeles for Goats Head Soup.

The story goes that after hearing a demo of ‘Silver Train’, Johnny Winter was rapt and recorded a cover for 1973’s Still Alive and Well, released in March. Ironically, fans were already well versed in his rendition when The Stones finally released their original on Goats Head Soup that August. However, most importantly of all, by allowing Johnny Winter to cover ‘Silver Train’, Jagger and his band had given him one of his most important moments, despite it being theirs.

24. Left a date with Angelina Jolie to date Farah Fawcett

Mick Jagger is prone to getting what he wants and has worked his charms on the best of them over the years. This reality is what Hollywood royalty Angelina Jolie faced after starring in the video for the 1997 Rolling Stones single ‘Anybody Seen My Baby?’ Despite being married to Trainspotting star Jonny Lee Miller at the time, Jolie allegedly agreed to go on a date with Jagger, with it ending up being one she’d rather forget.

In Christopher Anderson’s book Mick: The Wild Life and Mad Genius of Jagger, the author claims that Jagger snuck away from the date to have a sexual dalliance with fellow actor Farah Fawcett. “It was very brief, but what makes it fascinating is that it happened when Angelina Jolie and Mick were attending a party, and he disappeared with Farrah,” the book states.

Anyone would have thought this would be the end of the road for Jagger and Jolie. Yet, the slick rockstar would return, and the pair would begin a two-year love affair. Clearly, there is no stopping him.

23. The Rolling Stones’ first Ed Sullivan show

Whilst The Beatles’ appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show is the most iconic of the lot, The Rolling Stones’ comes in second and marked the start of the London band taking America by storm. Mick Jagger and the group arrived stateside in the autumn of 1964, and things were instantly crazy for them. They were met at New York’s JFK airport by a horde of fans screaming, “We want The Stones”. It was like Beatlemania all over again.

After two sold-out nights in New York, they were asked to appear on a string of TV shows, including the pinnacle of them all, The Ed Sullivan Show. Things would never be the same again for Mick Jagger and his band. The Rolling Stones performed the Chuck Berry classic ‘Around & Around’, with Jagger catching the eye as a swashbuckling force and the rest of the group also on heat. As soon as this song finished, the curtain dropped, and The Rolling Stones were received with ear-piercing shrieks. Even as the next act came on stage, the audience could not be silenced, with it becoming so unbearable that Sullivan exploded and demanded “quiet!” several times.

Luckily for the frenzied crowd, The Rolling Stones were back to close the evening’s show with their new single ‘Time Is on My Side’. Keen to impress, the band ran over to the stage to start it all again. Watching the footage, we see the young Mick Jagger beginning to find his footing as the frontman of one of the most successful acts of all time, commanding the crowd with every move. This power would later become his second nature as The Rolling Stones matured.

As The Rolling Stones closed out their set, Sullivan challenged the audience for more noise, saying: “Come on, let them hear it!” The crowd met his challenge and then some, delivering a clangorous howl. The noise was so deafening that Sullivan’s brief chat with Jagger was almost entirely inaudible. This was a sign of their coming success’ gravity.

Mick Jagger later recalled that consequential evening (per Udiscover): “Ed told us that it was the wildest, most enthusiastic audience he’d seen any artiste get in the history of his show. We got a message from him a few days later, saying, ‘Received hundreds of letters from parents complaining about you, but thousands from teenagers saying how much they enjoyed your performance.'”

22. Exiled by the British tax system

Moving from a moment when Mick Jagger and The Rolling Stones were on the ascendence to one when they had long been at the top, this memorable chapter of the frontman’s life comes from 1972. Here, the band were living as tax exiles outside the United Kingdom.

Leading up to 1972, The Rolling Stones had amassed a fortune from royalties and live shows. However, as bassist Bill Wyman explained, they were still short when it was time to pay their taxes, saying: “Tax, under the Labour government of Wilson, was 93% if you earned a million quid, which we didn’t, you’d end up with 70 grand. So it was impossible to earn enough money to pay back the Inland Revenue and stay here, in England”.

Instead of playing benefit shows or trying to make money in other ways, the band left the country, living in exile outside the taxman’s jurisdiction. Jagger fled to Paris, France with his girlfriend Bianca, with Richards decamping in Nice and the rest of the group settling elsewhere in the country. Free from the alleged terror of the taxman, they now had time to write music and a makeshift studio was set up in Richards’ house, The Villa Nellcôte. They began working on one of their very best albums, Exile on Main St.

Spread over two discs, the album provides a snapshot of what the band’s frame of mind was like at the time, with the highlight being ‘Tumbling Dice’. Interestingly, apart from the hits such as this, most of the songs are about living life on the run, with it an authentic sound due to their exiled status.

Despite its undoubted brilliance though, in a now-controversial 2003 account, Jagger explained that he is confused by the immense response and legacy of Exile amongst his fans. “Exile is not one of my favourite albums, although I think the record does have a particular feeling,” Jagger explained.

He continued: “I’m not too sure how great the songs are, but put together it’s a nice piece. However, when I listen to Exile it has some of the worst mixes I’ve ever heard. I’d love to remix the record, not just because of the vocals, but because, generally, I think it sounds lousy. At the time Jimmy Miller was not functioning properly. I had to finish the whole record myself, because otherwise there were just these drunks and junkies. Of course I’m ultimately responsible for it, but it’s really not good and there’s no concerted effort or intention.”

That’s the thing with writing a masterpiece; it takes on a life of its own far outside of the artist’s. Still, I can’t help but think that Jagger is critical of Exile on Main St. because it emerged during a period when he and the band weren’t the most gregarious.

21. Writing ‘She’s a Rainbow’

Fearless is a perfect word to describe Mick Jagger and The Rolling Stones. This manifested in two ways in the song ‘She’s a Rainbow’ from 1967’s Their Satanic Majesties Request. Even though it arrived during the group’s most experimental period, it still stood out and continues to do so. Perhaps their trippiest song, complete with the lullaby-like piano melody, string section and out-there textures, I’d send detractors of the band in its direction. There’s more to them than meets the eye. Even future Led Zeppelin man John Paul Jones features, arranging the prominent string section.

Not only is ‘She’s a Rainbow’ one of Mick Jagger and the group’s bravest pieces in terms of its experimental angle, but it is in the way that it was allegedly inspired by the 1966 Love single ‘She Comes In Colours’.

Notably, the lyrics in the chorus share the phrase “She comes in colours” with the title of the Love track. “The Rolling Stones stole the line ‘she comes in colours’ for ‘She’s a Rainbow,'” Love drummer Michael Stuart-Ware later told Uncut magazine. “Wasn’t Mick Jagger afraid of being sued? I remember we all thought, Wow! How could Mick think it was OK to do that.”

See, brave.

20. The Rolling Stones release their first album

It had only been less than a year since Andrew Loog Oldham had permanently christened The Rolling Stones that the band released their debut album on Decca Records. Having missed out on signing The Beatles, Decca gave the Stones a generous advance and the ability to own their own master recordings. Mick Jagger was all of 20 years old.

Recorded entirely at Regent Sound Studios, The Rolling Stones is largely a collection of quickly-recorded blues covers and only a single Jagger/Richards composition, ‘Tell Me (You’re Coming Back)’. In the UK, the album was released without a title or band name on its cover, relying on the massive popularity that the band had before the album was even released. The Rolling Stones was an immediate chart success, building on the massive momentum that the band had built in mere months.

19. Writing ‘Honky Tonk Women’

A song seemingly endlessly covered, with all the swagger and sway of a straight-shooting dancefloor cowboy, ‘Honky Tonk Women’ is a guaranteed gem for all types of Stones fans.

About the track, Richards said: “‘Honky Tonk Women’ started in Brazil. Mick and I, Marianne Faithfull and Anita Pallenberg who was pregnant with my son at the time. Which didn’t stop us going off to the Mato Grasso and living on this ranch. It’s all cowboys. It’s all horses and spurs. And Mick and I were sitting on the porch of this ranch house and I started to play, basically fooling around with an old Hank Williams idea. ‘Cause we really thought we were like real cowboys. Honky tonk women.”

He continued: “We were sitting in the middle of nowhere with all these horses, in a place where if you flush the john all these black frogs would fly out. It was great. The chicks loved it. Anyway, it started out a real country honk put on, a hokey thing. And then a couple of months later we were writing songs and recording. And somehow by some metamorphosis it suddenly went into this little swampy, black thing, a blues thing.”

18. Andy Warhol’s Mick Jagger painting

Jagger had met legendary artist Andy Warhol as early as 1964, but the pair’s working relationship wouldn’t come to fruition until 1971. That year, Warhol was tapped to create the artwork for the band’s Sticky Fingers album. With a blatantly sexual and boundary-pushing design, Warhol’s cover was the perfect match for the Stones’ rawest, grittiest, and most drug-obsessed album.

Jagger and Warhol stayed in touch, with Jagger and his wife Bianca renting out Warhol’s Long Island residence in 1975. While there, Warhol captured a number of Polaroid photographs. Jagger’s face, body, and essence were distilled into a series of portraits.

“If you want to be reminded of a certain period, you can look at what Andy was doing then,” Jagger observed when Warhol died in 1987. “He was very much in tune with what was going on. Of course, he was criticised for that, for being sort of trendy. But I think some people’s great forte is being so in touch.”

Happy birthday Mick Jagger!#portrait by Andy Warhol pic.twitter.com/yppfvqzjPH

— Alice Marianne (@_Emmet_Emmet) July 26, 2019

17. Sending shots at Oasis

Jagger could be incredibly generous to new generations of artists. From appearing with Peter Tosh on Saturday Night Live in 1978 to inviting singers like Amy Winehouse, Mary J. Blige, and Lady Gaga onstage with the Stones, Jagger always seemed interested in staying up with the times.

And then there was the time that Jagger dragged Oasis for being antagonistic toward their audience. “Well that’s what they do, they don’t move – that doesn’t mean to say they don’t connect – they do connect sometimes, sometimes they’re not always good ways,” Jagger told Absolute Radio in 2010, a year after Oasis broke up.

“What was that famous story when they were in New York, and they didn’t think the New York audience was loud enough, and they said something like ‘You’re rubbish’ or something, ‘New York, you’re a load of crap’ or something like that – which is not what you do anywhere really, especially in New York,” he added. If there’s one thing Jagger can’t stand, it’s not entertaining your audience.

16. Performing with Muddy Waters

Muddy Waters was probably the one person most responsible for getting The Rolling Stones together. He was in the stack of records that Mick Jagger was hauling with him on the day that he and Keith Richard reconnected at the Dartford Railway Station in 1961. It was also Waters’ 1950 recording of ‘Rollin’ Stone’ that provided the band with their name.

“You want to be a blues player, the next minute you fucking well are and you’re stuck right amongst them, and there’s Muddy Waters standing next to you,” Richards recalled in his autobiography Life. “It happens so fast you really can’t register all of the impressions that are coming at you… It’s one thing to play a Muddy Waters song. It’s another thing to play with him.”

The Rolling Stones shared the stage with Waters on a few different occasions, most notably at Chicago’s Checkerboard Longue in 1981. The intimate performance came just a year before Waters’ health took a turn for the worst, causing the legendary bluesman to retire from touring. Waters died in 1983, making his performance with Jagger and the Stones one of his final live shows.

15. Buying an entire football team

As strange as it might seem, professional soccer was peaking in popularity throughout the United States during the late 1970s. The North American Soccer League became the biggest soccer draw in the US, featuring star athletes like Pelé and Carlos Alberto. It was with this in mind that Jagger gathered some of his rock star friends to fund a team in the league.

In 1978, Jagger teamed up with Rick Wakeman, Peter Frampton, and Paul Simon to create the Philadelphia Fury. Playing out of Veterans Stadium, the same sporting venue that housed the Philadelphia Eagles gridiron football team and the Philadelphia Phillies baseball team, the Fury was set to be Philly’s newest sporting draw.

Instead, the Fury only lasted for three seasons before plundering attendance and poor team performance led to the musicians cutting their losses. Without ever securing a winning season, the team was sold to a new ownership group that promptly uprooted the squad and rebranded them as the Montreal Manic.

14. Allegedly sleeping with 4,000 women

Jagger had notable relationships and affairs with a host of notable figures across the years, including stints with Marianne Faithful, Marsha Hunt, Carla Bruni and Bebe Buell. He has been married once to his ex-wife Bianca and has had long-term relationships with Jerry Hall, L’Wren Scott, and currently American ballet dancer Melanie Hamrick.

But that doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of Jagger’s liaisons that he’s had in his 80 years of life. From bedding groupies to carrying on affairs with public figures, it seems like almost every woman in the music industry (and beyond) at least had some connection with Jagger over the course of 60-odd years in the public eye.

Jagger’s own biographer Chris Andersen had to come up with a ballpark figure for Jagger’s sexual exploits, but even when he came up with his estimation, Anderson stressed that it was a conservative guess. “Mick Jagger has slept with 4,000 women over the course of his life, and in retrospect, I think that might be kind of a low figure,” he claimed.

13. Writing ‘Wild Horses’

Initially demoed by Keith Richards as early as 1969, ‘Wild Horses’ eventually became the emotional centrepiece to The Rolling Stones’ 1971 classic Sticky Fingers. Jagger took hold of the lyrics, wrapping them inside the fraught emotions that were conjured up when his relationship with Marianne Faithful was disintegrating. Jagger himself has been dismissive of the connection but confirms the feeling was the same.

“I remember we sat around originally doing this with Gram Parsons, and I think his version came out slightly before ours,” Jagger recalled in the liner notes to the 1993 Rolling Stones compilation album Jump Back. “Everyone always says this was written about Marianne but I don’t think it was; that was all well over by then. But I was definitely very inside this piece emotionally. This is very personal, evocative, and sad. It all sounds rather doomy now, but it was quite a heavy time.”

Even Keith Richards couldn’t deny the power of Jagger’s lyrics. “If there is a classic way of Mick and me working together this is it,” Richards said in 1993. “I had the riff and chorus line, Mick got stuck into the verses. Just like ‘Satisfaction’, “Wild Horses” was about the usual thing of not wanting to be on the road, being a million miles from where you want to be.

12. Once buying a mansion while high on LSD

The Rolling Stones had just released their iconic 1969 album Let It Bleed when Mick Jagger was tripping on LSD. Somehow on his journey, Jagger and his girlfriend Marianne Faithful had stumbled upon a dishevelled Hampshire country estate called Stargroves. While still tripping, Jagger managed to close a deal on the large country house.

That’s according to publisher John Blake, who obtained a 75,000-word memoir allegedly written by Jagger in 1981. Jagger himself has claimed to have no memory of writing the book, at least according to an article authored by Blake featured in a 2017 edition of The Spectator.

Jagger purchased the estate for £55,000 from Sir Henry Carden in 1970, eventually converting some of the castle-like home into a recording space. Before he sold the estate in 1979 for around £200,000, Jagger and the Stones recorded parts of the albums Exile on Main Street, Sticky Fingers, and It’s Only Rock n Roll at Stargroves.

11. Releasing the first single from The Rolling Stones

Mick Jagger had only been singing in public for less than two years when The Rolling Stones released their first single, a cover of Chuck Berry’s ‘Come On’, in the summer of 1963. Jagger was still a teenager, turning 20 right around the time that ‘Come On’ peaked at number 21 on the UK Singles Chart.

Oddly, The Rolling Stones refused to play ‘Come On’ during their concerts, only occasionally breaking out the song before permanently putting it to rest in 1965. “Nobody else knew it and to the best of our knowledge nobody had done it,” Jagger recalled in 1974. “I don’t think it was very good, in fact it was shit… It really was shit. God knows how it ever got in the charts, it was such a hype. In fact we disliked it so much we didn’t do it on any of our gigs… Eventually we did it in the ballrooms and the people seemed to dig it.”

By that point, Jagger and Richards had begun their songwriting partnership. The influence of Chuck Berry would remain omnipresent throughout the band’s career – all of The Rolling Stones’ first three albums released in the UK contained Berry covers – but their nod to the legendary rocker was the kick-off to their entire recording career.

10. Appearing in The Rutles’ All You Need Is Cash

When Eric Idle was putting together his Beatles parody project The Rutles, he needed some legitimacy to make sure the act could get off the ground. While filming the band’s film All You Need Is Cash, Idle largely worked with George Harrison in order to get some of the more specific Beatles elements correct in order to lampoon them properly.

But the crux of the film comes from Mick Jagger earnestly recalling the friendship/rivalry he and the Stones had with The Rutles during their fictional ascent. Jagger is fully game throughout his interview, fondly remembering how The Rutles influenced him when he was “living in squalor” and giving his honest opinion on the “horrible” song that the band tried to sell him.

Pitting The Rolling Stones as “the South’s answer to The Rutles”, Jagger is hilarious in his brief cameo during the film. It would set the stage for Jagger’s gameness to parody himself on programmes like Saturday Night Live and show off a less serious side to one of rock’s greatest personalities.

9. Meeting Alex Korner and starting a band

It all had to start somewhere, and for Mick Jagger, it started in London with local blues legend Alex Korner. Jagger and Keith Richards had been playing in their own garage blues band prior to meeting Korner and his band Blues Incorporated at the Earling Jazz Club, but they had yet to stage any notable professional gigs by that point.

Meeting Korner was a turning point for Jagger as a performer. Encouraged by Korner, Jagger and Richards sat in with Blues Incorporated, which also included future bandmates Brian Jones, Ian Stewart, and Charlie Watts. The two were brought into Blues Incorporated full-time, giving Jagger his first consistent gig as a lead singer.

“I was only ever nervous twice, singing,” Jagger told the BBC in 1973. “The first time I sung with Alex at Ealing, I was incredibly nervous cos I’d never sung in public before. The second time was at the Marquee, again with Alexis. After that, I was never, ever nervous in my life, even in front of the Queen of the Helines and 40,000 people, at the Palace des Sports in Greece, I wasn’t nervous, thanks to my training with Alexis at the Ealing Club.”

8. The Redlands bust

Like so many desperate attempts to nab rock stars in the 1960s, the police would end up making The Rolling Stones a more desirable group when they tried to snag the group for drug possession in what became known as The Redlands bust. The group may have been apprehended while high on acid, but the trip as the most legendary rock band would last decades.

“When we got busted at Redlands, it suddenly made us realise that this was a whole different ball game and that was when the fun stopped,” Richards recalled in 2003. “Up until then, it had been as though London existed in a beautiful space where you could do anything you wanted.” Marianne Faithful, who was present and infamously had to cover herself with a fur rug during the raid, posed in her autobiography that the bust was the impetus for The Rolling Stones’ notorious public image.

7. The Rolling Stones’ first TV appearance

Unlike the Fab Four, the Stones had begun their career as avid devourers of rhythm and blues. It’s what they listened to at home and what they performed in the smoky London clubs. But it took their cover of Berry, and perhaps their emulation of the Beatles, to get them their first break on UK TV, performing on Thank Your Lucky Stars.

Before the Stones could reach the studios though, their manager Andrew Loog-Oldham noticed one thing that would have to be fixed; what they were wearing. “If they’d dressed the way they wanted, they wouldn’t have been allowed inside the TV Studios,” he recalled. “They were asked to wear ‘uniforms’ of some description.”

On the show alongside the band was guest DJ, Jimmy Henney, along with the singers, Helen Shapiro, Mickie Most, Johnny Cymbal, Patsy Ann Noble as well as two other groups, The Cadets and The Viscounts. Sadly, thanks to the unique way TV stations did their business during the 1960s, the tape of this performance has been recorded over and seemingly lost forever. While these things often work back out in the end, for now, we must listen to this recording of the track to keep us sated.

6. A tribute to Brian Jones in Hyde Park, 1969

Facing an impressive crowd of nearly 250,000 audience members, Mick Jagger and The Rolling Stones stepped onto the stage at Hyde Park and, before he sang a note, paid tribute to his friend and ex-bandmate Brian Jones.

The former Stones bandleader, Brian Jones, had tragically died just two days previously, and Jagger, alongside his band, dedicated the reading of Percy Shelley’s Adonais before beginning their mammoth set. It culminated in the release of thousands of white butterflies and marked a fitting tribute to their former bandmate.

5. The first ever Rolling Stones gig

Nobody can dominate a stage like Mick Jagger, and the singer got his first taste of the spotlight at London’s Marquee Club on July 12th, 1962. The tri of Jagger, Keith Richards and Brian jones would get their opportunity thanks to Alexis Korner, who couldn’t make one of his scheduled performances at the club, offering his spot to the young band.

There was very little from that show which would end up in the band’s mammoth productions of late. However, a palpable energy and enthusiasm for rock and roll would be a constant thread for Jagger and his band as they raced through covers of Little Richards and Jimmy Reed.

4. Writing ‘Sympathy for the Devil’

Few songs signified the very essence of Mick Jagger and The Rolling Stones. As they weave through Lucifer’s narrative without ever mentioning his name (perhaps a little worried about being censored), Jagger takes us through with a vocal that comes from the pits of Hell. It’s the kind of showing which can convert a non-Stones fan into getting a tongue tattoo.

In a 1995 interview with Rolling Stone, Jagger said: “I think that was taken from an old idea of Baudelaire’s, I think, but I could be wrong.”

The singer added: “Sometimes when I look at my Baudelaire books, I can’t see it in there. But it was an idea I got from French writing. And I just took a couple of lines and expanded on it. I wrote it as sort of like a Bob Dylan song.” It acts as one of the band’s finest ever compositions — potent, pointed and always provocative — and always pleases us when the needle drops.

3. Finally being knighted

There aren’t many rock stars who are desperate to be knighted, but Sir Mick is certainly one of them. In fact, his desire to be given the noble prestige was violently opposed by his Glimmer Twins partner, Keith Richards, who claims it to be a “shoddy award”.

However, Jagger picked up his award in 2003 from Prince Charles for his 40 years worth of contribution to music. But it wasn’t just Richards who opposed the knighthood but the Queen herself, who seemingly refused to bestow the loose-hipped singer.

2. Altamont Free Concert

It’s hard to quantify the impact of the riot which broke out at the 1969 Altamont Speedway. Iconic for all the wrong reasons, The Rolling Stones’ performance at the show has gone down in history as one of the most controversial live concerts of all time. The free concert featured The Rolling Stones as headliner, with Jefferson Airplane, Santana, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, the Flying Burrito Brothers, and The Grateful Dead also on the bill.

The concert couldn’t have gotten off to a worse start. The moment Mick Jagger arrived at the venue, he was punched by a fan. The Grateful Dead later decided to leave before playing because the crowd had become too violent. Then, after The Stones had called for calm numerous times, a fan, Meredith Hunter, was stabbed after pulling out a revolver. And with that, the hippie dream died.

1. Meeting Keith Richards

There can be no better definition of kismet than the meeting of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Their time together in one of the biggest bands the world has ever seen may be well documented, but the singer and guitarist, who together wrote some of the Stones’ most longstanding songs, have been friends for far longer than you might imagine.

“We lived one street away; his mother knew my mother, and we were at primary school together from [ages] 7 to 11,” continued Jagger. “We used to play together, and we weren’t the closest friends, but we were friends.”

It wasn’t as simple as all that though, “Keith and I went to different schools when we were 11, but he went to a school which was really near where I used to live,” he explained, adding: “But I always knew where he lived, because my mother would never lose contact with anybody, and she knew where they’d moved. I used to see him coming home from his school, which was less than a mile away from where I lived.” It would seem that things were simpler back then.

Childhood friends may be one thing but jumping to being bandmates is a whole other thing entirely and not a leap made without proof that the dual ideas would be respected. Jagger also shared how they went from mates to bandmates too. “This is a true story – we met at the train station. And I had these rhythm & blues records, which were very prized possessions because they weren’t available in England then. And he said, ‘Oh, yeah, these are really interesting’. That kind of did it. That’s how it started, really.” A shared love of music, which would create one of the most prosperous pop relationships of all time.

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