Mick Jagger Isn't Sure He Ever Lets the World See the Real Him

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Interview – Mick Jagger Isn’t Sure He Ever Lets the World See the Real Him

Podcast: The Interview
Host: David Marchese (The New York Times)
Guest: Mick Jagger, frontman of The Rolling Stones
Date: July 11, 2026
Episode Theme: Exploring the public and private personas of Mick Jagger, the evolution of creativity and stardom, the making of the new Rolling Stones album, and broader reflections on fame, audience, music, and aging.

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Episode Overview

In this rich, revealing conversation, David Marchese sits down with Mick Jagger to discuss The Rolling Stones’ new album Foreign Tongues, creativity across the decades, the weight and weirdness of a life in the public eye, and the elusive boundaries between persona and person. Jagger reflects with candor and humor on songwriting, performing, the passage of time, his role as a “rock star,” and the psychic effects of fame—offering witty, reflective, and sometimes philosophical glimpses into the inner workings of both himself and a legendary band.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Origin of Classic Lyrics and Songwriting Process

• On the first line of “Sway” (“Did you ever wake up to find a day that broke up your mind?”)

  • Jagger reveals it was improvised while waiting for Keith Richards during a session:

    “We were waiting for Keith to turn up… I just made it up as I go along. So that's why it's a bit random.” (01:12)

  • Marchese jokes that waiting for Keith Richards would break notions of time.

• Evolving Songwriting Methods

  • Speaking about the new album’s quick turnaround—only about two years since the previous one after an 18-year gap—Jagger credits a “different method” and setting strict deadlines:

    “We used to always have deadlines because we had to go on tour… no excuses. It was. You thought it was March, it's Valentine's Day.” (03:09)

  • Jagger describes demoing extensively and approaching songs with layered possibilities.

Aging and Artistic Perspective

• Navigating Regret, Insecurity, and Age in Songwriting

  “Songwriting’s about imagination. It’s not all based on true experiences, but you gotta play the character of the song… It's a mixture of personal experience and a mixture of imagination.” (05:17 - 06:53)

  • Some songs take on new resonance because of Jagger’s age and life experience.
  • On shifting abilities to inhabit certain kinds of songs:

    “I probably wouldn’t have written any of these songs when I was 30... I've also gotten into this habit of doing songs about personal relationships and then I throw a verse about politics in there.” (07:39)

The Effects—and Management—of Fame

• How Decades of Being a “Rock Star” Alters a Person

  “You can become disassociated from other people... you get disassociated from what people might call real life.” (09:47 – 10:29)

  • Acknowledges the need for conscious effort to ‘fight against’ disassociation.

  “Psychologically, your actual state of mind is permanently damaged by this or affected or... in your late 20s and early 30s is a very tough time for people in this business.” (10:47 – 11:40)

• Switching Off the Persona

  “I have a friend who says, you know, the standing joke is that I behave at a dinner party like I behave on stage... Of course, I’m not really like my stage persona.” (11:44 – 12:49)

  • Draws comparisons to method acting and notes the burden of multiple “characters.”

• Does He Ever Show the ‘Real’ Mick Jagger?

  “I'm not sure. Probably it's all there. Songs are pretty direct as a method of communication...” (14:20)

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Politics and Social Commentary in Music

• Sprinkled Political Lines

  • Notable lyrics on billionaires and autocrats, e.g. “scuttling billionaires scrambling to their bolt holes in the sky,” “dirty rat autocrats, rubber stamping judges.” (14:48)
  • Jagger prefers social commentary “in small doses” in pop music:

    “Who does it in huge doses? Hardly anybody in pop. It's pop music.” (15:20)

  • Discusses Ringing Hollow as a lament and love song to America, informed by his own extensive time in the country.

• Name-checking Elon Musk

  “I’ve never met him...he’s obviously hugely successful.” (18:35)

  • On “rock star” being applied to business leaders:

    “It’s kind of weird... it’s become a phrase that's thrown around for any form of success... To be called that, it's a big compliment… but it devalues it, but it also... it bigs it up as well.” (19:04 – 19:33)

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Audience, Performance, and Meaning

• Springsteen vs. Dylan: The Performer-Audience Spectrum

  “My job in the live music world is... for two hours… to forget all their problems... and have the best time... It’s similar to a sports event, really.” (20:36 – 23:41)

  • Approaches different audiences/festivals with tailored energy. Recognizes cultural differences.
  • On performing meaningfully for himself:

    “Well, it's a lot of joy for me. First of all, it's a huge buzz, you know, adrenaline... then you're evaluating the audience.” (25:00 – 25:59)

  • Credits mentors (like Little Richard) for teaching him how to create a sense of “community” in a live setting, even in stadium shows.

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Memorable Anecdotes and Quotes

• Rolling Stones and Stevie Wonder at Madison Square Garden

  “We said, come up and we'll play... a mashup of Satisfaction and Uptight... at the end... we’re going to throw custard pies... including Stevie. Everyone ends up covered in custard pies. And I loved it.” (28:33)

• Writing and Playfulness

  • Jagger describes the purest music making:

    “That's what you do when you're writing… you're just doodling… while your mind is free and you're having fun with it... Playful is a better word than fun.” (34:04 – 35:16)

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Philosophical and Personal Reflections

• On Aging (and De-Aging Technology in Videos)

  “There’s nothing good about it.” (36:19)

  • Jokes that you don’t even get wisdom—“I forgot all my wisdom.”

• On Sex, Identity, and Change

  • Jagger gets philosophical:

    “Throughout your life, your attitude to sex changes and your sexual tastes change... sex is not a fixed point... it’s like any other taste... like art, or food, or music.” (39:06 – 42:20)

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Musical Evolution & The Stones’ Sound

• On “the Rolling Stones sound”

  “If we're talking about musicality, that’s what you're best known for... But I could point to lots of other things… Lady Jane, As Tears Go By, Angie… It’s not heavy at all….” (43:30 – 45:07)

  • Wishes he could have explored more genres (e.g., Latin, samba, traditional music), but says being in a rock band lets you “touch on them, but you don’t get to fully explore.”

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The State of Rock & Touring

• On Rock’s Place in Culture

  “Despite the fact that... rock music is not really the mainstream center of music, it still has a lot of supporters... and you hope that it evolves... Rap was kind of the center... 20 years ago, now it's not the force it once was.” (50:27 – 52:03)

• Future of Rolling Stones Touring

  “[On touring:] I hope so. I'm up for doing it. I like touring. But with residencies… it's much more expensive for the people... I love going places, you know, I like meeting people... like going to weird countries and do shows…” (53:44 – 55:35)

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Enduring Mysteries and Lyric Insights

• On “You’re So Vain” (Carly Simon)

  “Why would it be about me when I'm singing on it? ...I was just the backing vocalist... If I did it today, it’d be Carly Simon featuring Mick Jagger.” (55:54 – 56:57)

• On “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”

  “I was very frustrated professionally for years that with the Rolling Stones, [we] never made any new music. That was a huge frustration for me... and I solved it.” (59:55 – 60:25)

• On Philosophy

  “My interest in philosophy is superficial… they're always having so many arguments, these philosophers… I can understand what they're really talking about...” (61:48 – 63:35)

  • Admits his philosophical curiosity outlasts his ability.

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Selected Notable Quotes by Timestamp

• On persona and performance:

  “Of course I’m not really like my stage Persona… To be like that all the time, this overbearing, shouting, ego tripping person… when you're in your late 20s and early 30s, you can be like that all the time.” (11:44 – 12:49)

• On directness of songs:

  “Songs are pretty direct as a method of communication… they’re relatively direct compared to say a movie…” (14:20)

• On changing attitudes to sex:

  “Throughout your life, your attitude to sex changes… sex is not a fixed point… it’s like other tastes.” (39:06 – 42:20)

• On what song lyric still applies:

  “My interest in philosophy is superficial… I’m still sticking with that 1965 quote.” (61:48 – 63:43)

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Conclusion

This episode is an unguarded, witty, and insightful journey through fame, creativity, aging, and the art of performance. Jagger’s candor about the perils of ego, the complexities of songwriting, his love for live performance, and the “permanently damaged” psyche that comes with five decades at rock’s pinnacle makes for a compelling listen—and read.

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Rolling Stones’ new album Foreign Tongues is out now.

Transcript

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[David Marchese]

From the New York Times, this is the interview. I'm David Marchese. Mick Jagger truly needs no introduction. He's the legendary frontman of the Rolling Stones, who are releasing a new album called Foreign Tongues. I've been a fan of the stones since 1994 when I saw them on their Vudu Lounge tour. It was my first ever rock concert and it left a huge impression. Since then, I've listened to just about every song the band has released from undeniable classics like my favorite, you can't always get what you want to more obscure tracks like Sway. And I've always wondered, what's Mick Jagger really like? Here's my conversation with Mick Jagger. Mick.

[Mick Jagger]

Hi, David.

[David Marchese]

Thank you for taking the time to speak with me today.

[Mick Jagger]

That's all right. Fun.

[David Marchese]

I have a bunch of questions about the new album.

[Mick Jagger]

Okay.

[David Marchese]

But I'd like to start with a question that comes from a place of pure personal curiosity.

[Mick Jagger]

Okay.

[David Marchese]

So one of my all time favorite of your songs is Sway from Sticky Fingers. And I always wondered about the first line of that song. Okay. The lyrics, which are. Did you ever wake up to find

[Mick Jagger]

you define a day that broke up your mind, Broke up your mind, destroyed your notions of circular time.

[David Marchese]

I have not. Have you?

[Mick Jagger]

No. So there's a question.

[David Marchese]

Do you remember where that line came from?

[Mick Jagger]

No, I just made it up at this for the moment. I was. We were waiting for Keith to turn up for the session. He was late. And then Mick Taylor and I were there and Charlie and Bill, and we just. I said, oh, let me try this. And I was just making it up as I go along. So that's why it's a bit random.

[David Marchese]

Yeah. But it makes sense that waiting for Keith Richards would destroy your notion of circular time. I thought maybe it was a more philosophical question.

[Mick Jagger]

You could Maybe I. No, maybe I went back afterwards and spruced it up a bit.

[David Marchese]

Well, thank you for solving that mystery. I appreciate it. So the new album. Yeah, so it's coming just maybe two and a half years after Hackney Diamonds.

[Mick Jagger]

We recorded it last year. Last year now, and we did it last this time last year, more or less.

[David Marchese]

But the time span between Hackney Diamonds and the previous album of original material.

[Mick Jagger]

Yeah. Was a long.

[David Marchese]

18 years.

[Mick Jagger]

Yeah. 18 years. This is quick.

[David Marchese]

Yeah. Why did it come together so quickly?

[Mick Jagger]

Well, I think we realized that we could, you know, we had a different method of making records, really. I mean, we've been just not being very lackadaisical and we weren't really getting down to it. And so when we got Andy Watt on board, you know, we. We decided that. I said. I said, but there's a deadline. You know, we used to always have deadlines because we had to go on tour with the record. The tour starts in March of the record hour. You know, I said, the Hackney Diamonds. I said, the. The deadline is Valentine's Day. Are you all going to remember that so that, you know, there's no excuses. It was. You thought it was March, it's Valentine's Day. And we almost made it over four weeks. We recorded probably, I don't know, 14, 15 songs. I mean, a lot of stuff. The way I do things, some of the songs that I write, I mean, I demo a lot of them first. So I go in with a friend of mine, plays with the band, Matt Clifford. We demo a lot of the songs that I write. I demo them and I can see, ah, they could go here, they could go there. They could be this groove, they could be that groove. And then I. So a lot of my version of what I think the song sounds like is already in my head. Everything else you layer on top of that. And you might. Yeah, you might say that bass is great on it. I don't want to change anything or I just want to change just the chorus, or I just want to change this. Or I want to keep the rhythm guitar. Oh, I don't want to keep the rhythm guitar. I'll do it again. You know, it's. It's complex.

[David Marchese]

Some of the songs on. On the new album are. I hear them as relationship songs, songs of regret or. Or insecurity. And it's interesting for me to hear Mick Jagger singing those songs at your age and think about how they land differently than if you were singing them at 42 or 32. And I want to know from your perspective, like, artistically and emotionally. What are the ways that you can inhabit a song now that are different from. From how you used to inhabit songs?

[Mick Jagger]

Yeah, I don't. Well, first of all, I don't really think about it very much. So, you know, songwriter's about imagination. And, you know, it's not all based on true experiences, but you gotta play

[David Marchese]

the character of the song.

[Mick Jagger]

But the character. Yeah, but. And the character. But the character singing the song is. It's a different character for me. So when I'm singing, Mr. Charm is obviously a joke character, you know, and it's supposed to be taken with a sense of humor. And of course, some of the incidents in the verses did happen. And I can draw on my own experiences of talking to women in relationships. But, I mean, the whole thing of. It's not supposed to be taken seriously. You don't really think you're Mr. Charm, you know, not really. But then you might have another song which is more. More heartfelt, you know, more not so much humor. And Back in your life. Back in your life, which is a bit more of a kind of like. It's a classic theme. You know, you meet a woman and then she never calls you back. You know, you have a great time and she never calls you back.

[David Marchese]

Does that happen to you a lot?

[Mick Jagger]

It's happened to me. Of course it's happened to me. So I can draw on that. I'm not saying it happened yesterday, but you can draw on that. On that experience when it did happen to you, when maybe it happened to me when I was 40, you know, but I can still write about it now. Writing's about imagination, you know, it's not only about personal experience. So it's a mixture of personal experience and a mixture of imagination.

[David Marchese]

You know, I wanna maybe put the question in slightly different terms. You know, there's a movie performance of yours that I love. Man from Elysian Fields.

[Mick Jagger]

Oh, yeah.

[David Marchese]

Where, you know, you play sort of like a middle age. He runs an escort service for women. It's kind of like a. But that performance has a lot of real feelings of regret in it. And I assume that you wouldn't have been able to give a performance like that earlier in your life in the same way that it would make no sense for you to sing some girls now?

[Mick Jagger]

No, exactly.

[David Marchese]

But. So are there things that you can do in a song or did on this album that you think, oh, I. I wasn't capable of giving, of inhabiting that lyric?

[Mick Jagger]

That's a good question. I mean, it requires a lot of thought to Give a good answer, that's okay.

[David Marchese]

That's why we're here.

[Mick Jagger]

You know, I can't really. It's hard for me to think of. I'm trying to think of actual, concrete examples of the songs on the record, you know, I mean, you. I mean, I think quite a lot of it. You could say that I wouldn't have done. I wouldn't have written any of these songs when I was 30, maybe. I mean, honestly, I probably wouldn't have done. And then I've also got into this habit of doing songs that are about personal relationships and then I throw a verse about politics in there, you know. But I think that's a trick, you know, that I. That I've learned from other songwriters or I've listened to others, because nobody wants to hear a whole song about politics, or I call it politics, social comment of any kind of politics or something else. Like a song like the blues song, like Rough and Twisted. It's really just like just stream of consciousness, honestly. You talk about a woman and everything, but it's. And then you throw in this stuff. It's obviously about political. And it's obviously, you know, the club was called Conspiracy. All they wanted was tyranny. So you find yourself using these tricks.

[David Marchese]

Did you ever see the John Mulaney special where the comedian John Mulaney, where he does a bit about working with you on Saturday Night Live? Did you ever see that?

[Mick Jagger]

No, I never saw that.

[David Marchese]

So he has this bit where he's talking about working with famous people on the show and specifically about working with you. And people would ask him, I'm paraphrasing, but people would ask him, like, is Mick Jagger nice? You know, and he says, of course Mick Jagger's not nice. Or he's nice for the version of the life that Mick Jagger has led. And he points out that you play to stadiums of people screaming for you for 50 plus years. That's got to change you as a person, of course. Can you articulate how that's changed you as a person?

[Mick Jagger]

I think. Well, obviously you. It's not normal by. It's not like most people's lives.

[David Marchese]

No, no, it's not.

[Mick Jagger]

It's not. But. But yeah, it does affect you. You can become disassociated from other people, other people. And, And a lot of people in show business only hang around with people in show business because. Because they got something in common, you know, they. Because they can relate to each other, you know, and, and. And the. You get disassociated from what. What People might call real life.

[David Marchese]

Do you think you have.

[Mick Jagger]

Oh, yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely. And then you can, I mean, you, you, you can fight. You do fight against it. It's a conscious effort. It takes conscious effort to fight against being disassociated.

[David Marchese]

What do you do to fight against it?

[Mick Jagger]

Well, it's quite easy, really. I mean, you just, you just, you just go out and walk on the street on your own and go and do normal things and go and buy the New York Times, you know, and. But nevertheless, that, that's only temporary. So because you, I think you're. Psychologically, you're. Your actual state of mind is, is permanently damaged by this or affected or. I mean, I think, I think when you're in your late 20s and early 30s is a very tough time for people in this business. Because. Because it's a big ego trip, basically. I mean, it's a huge. You, you have to have a huge ego to do this. If you don't, you have lots of people that do this, that don't have huge egos, have huge problems because they have to manufacture a completely different. Of course, my personality on stage is not my. I have a friend who, who says, you know, the standing joke is that I behave at a dinner party like I behave on stage. So was that friend, right? Yeah, we make jokes about it because it's absurd what you do on stage. Of course, I'm not really like my stage Persona, Jimmy Fallon, which I'm just about to go and do. He, he thinks he's doing me when he does me, but it's, it's completely such a. An exaggerated version of me. But it works for him, you know, his version of me. But I mean, to me, the person to be like that all the time, this overbearing, shouting, ego tripping person is like. It's. Of course you're not really like that, but I think when you're in your late 20s and early 30s, you. You can be like that all the time. And there are people in show businesses that never switch off. A lot of them are comedians. And comedians, sometimes they can't, they can't switch off. They can't stop making jokes or they get depressed. But I mean, it's a bit of a sweeping statement.

[David Marchese]

Did you have to learn to switch off?

[Mick Jagger]

Yeah, I think it comes with age. It's like if you do a movie, you do a character, right? So if you're a method actor and you do this character, you've heard all these stories about method actors, but they take it to the absolute Extreme. So they like the character all the time. And then after the movie's over, they're still in the character for a long time. It takes a long time to laugh off the character. So which character do you go back to? What's the character that you're going to retrieve? Is he always gonna carry some of that character in his true character, whatever that is? So this is, I think the show business like dichotomy. And it's like, it's something you learn to live with. And you always hope, of course it isn't true that you always hope that you're a normal, so called normal person underneath.

[David Marchese]

Yeah. It's nice to have the perks though.

[Mick Jagger]

The perks, yeah. But it's not about the perks. It's about being these several charact. You know, you're the character that plays the theater, you're the character that does the interview, you're the character that goes in on the stadium, you're the character in the recording studio, you're the character writing the song. Not this character. I'll write. No, I'll be another character. Yeah, I'll write a song. Then I'm gonna be this character and I'm gonna wounded love now. I'm gonna be like, fuck you. You know.

[David Marchese]

Do you ever let the world see the person underneath the characters?

[Mick Jagger]

I'm not sure. Probably it's all there. Songs are pretty direct in as a method of communication. They're relatively direct compared to say a movie where you need like a lot of, you know, you've got someone writing a script and you're changing the script and you know you're gonna change your lines and you've got 200 people and then, and then it's all edited and chopped up in bits. Records are relatively simple compared to that.

[David Marchese]

There are a handful of political lines sprinkled throughout the album. There's, you know, you sing about scuttling billionaires scrambling to their BO bolt holes in the sky, about dirty rat autocrats, rubber stamping judges.

[Mick Jagger]

Yes.

[David Marchese]

And I actually find it heartening to know, to know that Mick Jagger sees the same problems out in the world that the rest of us do. So can you just tell me more about why you felt the impulse to include those kinds of lyrics? What are you seeing when you look around the world?

[Mick Jagger]

Well, I mean, it's not the first time I've done songs with social comment. I like doing it, but in small doses, let's put it like that. I mean, who does it in a huge doses? Hardly anybody in pop. It's pop music, you know, I mean, Ringing Hollow is more or less, yes, completely social comment.

[David Marchese]

Right?

[Mick Jagger]

So. But. But even then. So I had to. I had two songs that were on more or less the same subject, which is My Love of America, you know,

[David Marchese]

and what's Gone Wrong is a la.

[Mick Jagger]

Yeah, it's a lament, but it's a love song. But it's. It's a lament and it's my, my. It's about. And all it's about my own experiences which are long and, and varied and, and encompass lots of different places in America and not just being in New York and being in. Living in the Upper west side, you know, that, you know, I've got. I've spent a lot of time in America in places that Americans have never ever been nor were ever likely to go to, you know, because they don't. Not in our world. Living in New York. Well, we're talking, we're talking now living in LA or Chicago, but I spend a lot of time in these weird places. Like what do you see just on touring? You see everything. You see everything. You know, how many people from New York, you know, that we sit around really go to Cleveland very often, you know, and then you're there for five days. It's not very long, but you can see quite a lot. If you go out every day, you see different sides of it. No, I, I'm not saying. I mean, I enjoy it, you know, other wouldn't go out. I mean, New Orleans people. I know people go to New Orleans and it's a tourist place, but I mean, you find things there. And then you, you, you find fantastic music scene. It's a, A unique town of. In the United States. Completely unique. There's not like any other town. It's not. It's not, you know, so you explore these places. You have a love of the country and everything. So in Ring Hollow, so I had another song, but the other song I thought was too down and I rejected it and worked on Ring Hollow instead. It's really a love song to Americans, you know, fell madly in love with you before we ever met. So. But before I ever went to America, I was in love with America. Like a lot of European teenagers, you know, were, you know, see the movies and all this. So it's all about that. And then. So then it talks about, you know, then, then it goes into the America of now and, you know, how can we, you know, ascertain what's going on?

[David Marchese]

What's the last, the last line of the song Right.

[Mick Jagger]

I can't remember. I'm gonna buy a brand new hat.

[David Marchese]

Brand new hat? What's that a reference to?

[Mick Jagger]

Something good is going to happen? I think that's what it means.

[David Marchese]

Yeah, I heard that as like a passive aggressive MAGA reference, but maybe. But you know who. The one person that you. That is named by their actual name on the album. I might be missing one. Do you know the one?

[Mick Jagger]

Elon Musk.

[David Marchese]

Elon Musk, yeah. Mad mogul.

[Mick Jagger]

Mr. Musk.

[David Marchese]

Yeah. What's your impression of him?

[Mick Jagger]

I've never met him, so I don't really. I mean, he's obviously hugely successful.

[David Marchese]

You know, he's someone who. Who the term rock star gets applied to sometimes. And now it's become kind of a common trope where these tech entrepreneurs are called, you know, rock stars. And what does an actual rock star think of the way that that term has now become applied to anybody who has sort of the patina of iconic land?

[Mick Jagger]

It's kind of weird because it's applied to all kinds of people, not just tech people. It's become a phrase that's thrown around for. In any form of success, you know, that, or I think it just means that you're just out there and, you know, in front of thousands of people and you're a huge success. I mean, that's what it means. I mean, to be called that. I think it's a big compliment to be called that. It's also a compliment to rock stars to use that actual.

[David Marchese]

Is it. I think it devalues.

[Mick Jagger]

Rocks, it devalues it, but it also. It bigs it up as well, you know?

[David Marchese]

Yeah.

[Mick Jagger]

So, yeah.

[David Marchese]

Wait, I want to ask something that's sort of related to kind of what you were talking, what we were talking about earlier, how people understand, like the Persona of Mick Jagger. And my question is to do with how you understand your relationship with your audience. This actually maybe speaks to the politics stuff in a way too, because. Let me give two counterexamples to sort of triangulate the question. So on one poll, we have somebody like Bob Dylan where if you go see him live, he's great. It almost feels like the crowd is incidental, like he's going to be doing whatever he's doing, whether or not people showed up. On the other end of the spectrum, you have somebody like a Bruce Springsteen who clearly sees his job as engaging in a meaningful back and forth with his audience. It means something different to him.

[Mick Jagger]

Yeah.

[David Marchese]

What does your relationship to the audience mean to you? What do they represent all those People out there.

[Mick Jagger]

Well, first of all, it depends where you are and what kind of event it is. Like the, the, the one, the New Orleans event. That's a festival. They didn't come to see you necessarily. You know, they, they, they bought their tickets before they knew you were coming.

[David Marchese]

Right. If you play the New Orleans Jazz

[Mick Jagger]

Festival, you know, we played that, then we do Summer in the park in London. You buy those tickets. Glastonbury, you buy those tickets because you like that festival. You always think something's good's gonna happen, but you don't know. So they're not necessarily coming to see. They're not your biggest fans necessarily. I'm not saying that they hate you, otherwise it probably wouldn't be there. There's different levels of these kind of people, and you have to treat them in a slightly different way. The bottom line of my thing is really, is that my job in the live music world is just those people that come is to have the best time they possibly can. And for two hours or whatever it is to forget all their problems and the problems of the world and their mortgages and their whatever. And if they have problems, just to give them, they can have just the best time. It's similar going to a sports event, really, because everything else is shout out. You're just watching that who's going to win, you know, you're not worrying about everything else. You know, those things are out of your mind. I know you're still on that. You're on the phone and everything. Oh, my little Danny has hurt his tooth. But, you know, I know you can still have that. I know you can still have that. But in the old days, you never had that, really. So that's my job, is to make them have the best time they possibly have. And some audiences want to go completely nuts, you know, so then you encourage them to go more nuts and say, you can play to some places in the world, it's different. You know, you play in Finland, it's not the same as playing in Argentina. You know, there's a different. They don't want to go completely so nuts. Maybe they do. I'm just using as possible, you know, but. So you don't want to be trying to churn them up into, get frustrated that they're not being demonstrative, or you don't think they're having a good time because they might be quite relatively calm. They might be relatively, you know, they're having a good time. But in their. I always say to everyone else, they're having a Good time in their own way. But as you go to another place and they're going completely ape shit, you know, so, so. And your job is to make them more apeshit. That's the one that want to go apeshit. Let's go apeshit, you know, so.

[David Marchese]

But I want to dig a little deeper on that question.

[Mick Jagger]

Yeah.

[David Marchese]

So you're. You're talking about what your job is in those events is to make people have a good time, to make, you know, they want to leave the concert feeling like it was worth it and they can forget their trouble.

[Mick Jagger]

And you don't want to lecture them.

[David Marchese]

You don't want to lecture them. Um, but my question is actually about whether, like what meaning the job has to you. Like, I. I have a job that has a basic description. It's very different than yours. Yeah, but my job actually, you know, it means something to me. And, and when it's working best, it allows me to satisfy curiosity I have about the world, meet people I wouldn't normally meet, ask questions of people that I would never get a chance to ask and. And learn things that help, you know, that. That I find are valuable to me as a person.

[Mick Jagger]

Do.

[David Marchese]

Do you, like, what's Mick Jagger's version of that? Am I being naive and Pollyanna ish to think that maybe there is one.

[Mick Jagger]

I have thought about this. I mean, obviously thought about it at the beginning of my career, of course, didn't think about it at all. I was just learning how to do what, you know, it's totally your. About you, you know, and the band and are they going to, you know, what's the next number? And are they going to play it right? And am I going to remember the words? You know, it's like. It's just the basics. You're getting the basics down. Okay, so now after you've got through that accomplishment, which takes a bit of time to do, but then what you're saying is, when I get out there, what does it.

[David Marchese]

What does it mean?

[Mick Jagger]

What does it all mean for you?

[David Marchese]

For you?

[Mick Jagger]

Yeah. Well, it's a lot of joy for me. First off, first of all, it's a huge buzz, you know, adrenaline. It's a huge adrenaline buzz, which must be the same as for a sport. If you're playing sport. If you're playing a football team, you got 50,000 people. Must be the same, similar bus. So, you know, I don't have anyone coming at me, so it's much easier than playing.

[David Marchese]

You don't have to dribble around. I don't have to.

[Mick Jagger]

I don't have to do any of that. But that's where the analogy breaks down. So you get out there and you get. When you get out there, first you get this massive adrenaline buzz, and then your job really is really. You have to control that adrenaline buzz. You know, you've got to look after yourself first. And while you're doing that first five minutes, then you're evaluating the audience. So you evaluate them, you know, in a good way. I mean, but you're evaluating them and how.

[David Marchese]

Taking the temperature, how are they?

[Mick Jagger]

Yeah, what's the temperature? Crowd? How are they feeling? Are they. Is it cold? You know, is it raining? I mean, all these things happen, and, you know, are they already enjoying themselves or they feel a bit listless after they wait too long? Have they had a hard time getting. You know, all these things have contributing factors and all. So. So then you. You evaluate the audience and see how they feel. Yeah. And then a lot of them are very long way away, which is one of the problems you're playing. Because mostly I play stadiums. Right. If you're playing a theater, you don't have these problems. You know, you can. You can. You, You. If you're playing a theater, you can very quickly become a group, you know, and people when I was, you know, starting out, would show me how to do that were like Little Richard I toured with for a long time. He. I had no idea that people even could do what he did. You know, performers didn't do that. They just went out and played their songs and kind of said hello, and that was it. I mean, he. He was embracing them all, getting them all to, you know, go along with his version of the world, stand up, sit down and make jokes, and it becomes a community, you know, so for a small time, it becomes this community. So it's much more difficult to do that in a stadium. You still have to do it. So that's why stages have to be big. That's why you have to get down there. That's why you have to pay attention to all these people, and that's why you have to talk to them, because you want that community for those couple of hours, to be a good community, have fun. That's your job. I mean, I'm not completely answering your question, but, I mean, that's a lot of what I do.

[David Marchese]

You know, I've read a huge amount of interviews with you going back, you know, dec. Poor you. They're interesting. But there are some things that stand out. And one thing that I've noticed that you almost never do in interviews is tell stories about being in the Rolling Stones. And I'm not asking you to be nostalgic or share some intimate details, but there's gotta be some old chestnut that you break out at cocktail parties or that your kids, if they ask you, hey, what was it like being on tour with Stevie Wonder in 1972 or whatever? Yeah, I think like a break glass in case of emergency kind of story that you can tell. Is there one? Here's a funny thing that happened when I was in the role.

[Mick Jagger]

You mentioned Stevie Wonder, so I shouldn't have you mentioned Stevie Wonder. So we were playing here, Master Garden with Stevie Wonder. We said, come up and we'll play. We'll do a. We'll do a mashup of Satisfaction and uptight. And so, because they're both the same beat. So, so he comes on the stage and we do this mash up appetite. And then someone, and I can't remember whose idea it might be mine, decides that we're going to throw custard pies at the end because it's the last day of the tour and it's the last number of the show. Why wouldn't you throw custard pies? Which is rather unfair for Stevie. So, but he. So we go, fuck it. Everyone's throwing a custard pie, including Stevie. He's throwing custard pies and everyone's ends in covered in cut supplies. And I loved it.

[David Marchese]

All right, there you go. Thank you very much for taking the

[Mick Jagger]

time to speak with me.

[David Marchese]

I. I appreciate it.

[Mick Jagger]

Thanks so much for everything. All your questions are interesting.

[David Marchese]

After the break, Mick and I speak again about whether we'll ever see the Rolling Stones back on the road.

[Mick Jagger]

I hope so. I want to do it. I'm, I'm, I'm up for doing.

[David Marchese]

This.

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[David Marchese]

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[Mick Jagger]

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[David Marchese]

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[Mick Jagger]

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[Mick Jagger]

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[David Marchese]

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[Mick Jagger]

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[David Marchese]

Mick. We're officially rolling now.

[Mick Jagger]

Okay, so what are we going to speak about today that we didn't speak about before?

[David Marchese]

Oh, there's so much, there's so many things. But I'd like to start with a question about something that just came to me this morning. So I was, I was watching just clips of you on YouTube and there's a great, it's like a 50 second clip of you. Maybe it's backstage. It's just you at a keyboard trying to work through your, the tune Shine a Light and you're trying to remember the chords. And it's, it's actually just this, it's a really beautiful short clip because you're playing those gospel chords. There's like, to paraphrase the song, there's a little gleam right in your eye and it feels like the apparatus of fame and a crowd or anything like that has fallen away and just a musician playing music and loving it. And it's really very pure and sweet. And I thought, I wondered, can you share a moment or a memory of just when you were playing music and kind of the machinery around the Rolling Stones just fell away and you just had that love and freedom and lost yourself just playing, playing a tune that

[Mick Jagger]

would, that's what you do when you're writing. I mean, the occasion that you describe, I don't really remember, but you said it was backstage, so that's a different thing. You're obviously getting ready for a show and trying to. I don't know what I was doing. I was probably gonna do that song, but maybe I wasn't. Maybe I was just doodling with that song for fun while you're waiting to go on stage. Sometimes, sometimes I always have A piano in the room and a guitar and stuff. And my room's always the quietest because I don't let people in. Like a load of friends and families, they can come in, but it's like. Then you have to leave, you know what I mean? And so. Yeah, so you can like, you have moments where you just doodle around. You know, what you're describing really is when you're writing, I mean you don't. You're not thinking about going on stage or anything. If you're at home or in a studio or in a writing studio or somewhere writing, then you're just doodling. That's how songs get made. You know, really, it's just where you just doodle around and you don't. You're not thinking about anything else. You said the thing about writing songs is because popular songs are really quite. They're obviously really short, so. Which is due to the length of the 78 record Creation.

[David Marchese]

It's completely arbitrary reason that they're about three minutes.

[Mick Jagger]

Yeah, the technology imposed this thing on it. I think that's. Anyway, it doesn't really matter. That's what it is. You know, it's three minutes, four minutes maximum. Something like this. So. So it's not going to be that much. And it can be quite complex musically, but lyrically how much lyrics are you gonna really stick in? So musically, you know, you can just doodle your. Doodle your way through this. So while your mind is free and you're having fun with it, then I think that's the most interesting part of the process. And I think having. Having fun is not like. I don't mean you're all standing around drinking and like shouting and jumping up and down, but I mean your mind is not really being serious. It's. Yeah, it's playful. Playful is a better word than fun. So you can be playful and then. So if you're playful you can, you can just let your mind just go this way, that way and don't be worried if not if nothing happens, nothing happens. Something will happen later or tomorrow.

[David Marchese]

I was watching the video for in the Stars recently, which is the one where they use the D technology for you guys. And I actually thought it was sort of like a conceptually interesting choice for a variety of reasons. One of which is that, you know, I think of one of the sort of life affirming things about the Rolling Stones is that you've been sort of defiant in terms of like what aging means. You know, you're still out there doing it and then Doing the de Aging, I was like, oh, that's kind of an interesting choice to take. But, you know, I think that an opposite view of the band as being, like, defiant, defying aging, and still being out there is that, you know, you guys all have Peter Pan complexes or something like that. But I want to know what you find, like, interesting or hard to reckon with in terms of aging or, like, what's good about getting older, what's less good? And I don't just mean, like. I don't just mean physically, but metaphysically, too.

[Mick Jagger]

There's nothing good about it.

[David Marchese]

Nothing. Wisdom.

[Mick Jagger]

No, nothing. You don't get wisdom. You forget everything. Forgot all my wisdom. I might have had a couple of pearls drop, but I think I probably forgot what they are.

[David Marchese]

Yeah.

[Mick Jagger]

So, no, it's not. No, it's not particularly pleasant. And of course, you can't do things as quickly as you want to and all that sort of thing. And physically. Physically, you can't do things that you would like to do. You've got to be. You have to be more careful. You can still do them, but you have to be more careful when you do them. You know, when. If you're playing goalie in the football team and you, okay, you go in goal. They put you in goal a lot. I'm not really very good at it.

[David Marchese]

It's a metaphor for aging. Being put in goal.

[Mick Jagger]

You put in goal.

[David Marchese]

I have another philosophical question.

[Mick Jagger]

Yeah.

[David Marchese]

And this one is about sex. And I'm not gonna. Don't worry.

[Mick Jagger]

Subject.

[David Marchese]

It's a big subject. I'm not going to ask you for any details, so don't worry. It is sort of. So. So you're. You're. You know, you're. You have publicly been identified with sex for a long time. Like a sex symbol. You write songs that are heavily sexual. You know, you're like an. An avatar of sexiness. You know, I don't think I'm. I'm speaking out of turn by saying

[Mick Jagger]

drugs and rock and roll. We're going into it, right?

[David Marchese]

You have, you know, a reputation as sort of a libertine, maybe, but that's outside perspective. But I wouldn't be surprised if, you know, you also have had, like, sort of put sex as, like, central to your identity over the years. And I wonder, how has your thinking about sex changed over time? Because it changes for everyone. So how has it changed for you, Mick Jagger?

[Mick Jagger]

Well, it's really difficult, and I don't know the answer honestly. It's a very good question. And people always say that when I'm thinking about what the fuck am I gonna say to him? But.

[Apple Card Announcer]

But

[Mick Jagger]

I don't really know. I really don't know the answer. I'd have to. You know, you asked me these questions. That is a really hard question. And I don't know what the answer. If we sat down and we weren't recording this and we weren't doing an interview, we could talk about how that would work. And you'd have to tell me how it worked for you. Because we could compare experiences, but, you know, could we? Yeah, probably. Because that's how you get insights, you know? I mean, if you're just talking about yourself like a public person, it's weird. The only thing I will say is

[David Marchese]

that

[Mick Jagger]

throughout your life, your attitude to sex changes and your sexual tastes change in one's life. Sex is not a fixed point. So that's what I think. Obviously, everybody's different. But I would like. I would say. And I'm not. This is not my sort of area of expertise, honestly, because we're into areas of. Of human psychology, sexual drive. All this stuff is all pop psychology. People, everyone's read a bit about it, but do they know about it? But my observation is that. That your attitudes to sex are different in different parts of your life. I mean, your orientation. Your sexual orientation may change. It may change completely, or it may change, or avenues might open up to you that you hadn't realized, or you might close avenues that have opened up because you don't like them, or you tried something that you liked for a couple of years and then you decide, oh, really? And it's like other tastes. It's like tasting art. You know, that you. When you're very young, you might like these kind of pictures. And then when you're a bit older, you might change your taste in art. So I'm not saying sex is like art. Well, I am. What I'm saying is you're. But that's a question of taste. But why does your taste change? You know what? There's something. Is it because of knowledge or is it just because you're bored with it? You know, do you know? Or is it a combination of all these things? You know, so you're. You're tasting. You're literally tasting food. Changed. So when you're really young and you like alcohol, you drink sweet things normally, you know, when you. You like sweet wine. Oh, that's like, great. And then. Then someone tells you that's not. You shouldn't be drinking that. You know, you should drink this and you Try that and go, I really don't like that, but I'll try it. You know, like when we were really teenage, when we were teenagers, we like rock music, but we. Other. Other more snobbish people say, you should listen to this jazz. You should listen to this jazz, you know? You should listen to jazz, you know, it's more intellectual, you know, than. So. So that in Tom Stoppard's play, the real thing, he's a. He's an intellectual writer, is almost Tom. And. But he's going on this program called Desert Island Disc, which is a program where you choose records to take with you on your desert island. And that's all you. That's the only music you can have. And he. He says, but all I like is, like, to do Ron Ron. And he's. He's an intellectual. So he says, they expect me to choose Schoenberg and Beethoven and. And so. So. So he's an intellectual. So it's this thing of being an intellectual. So you say, but yeah, okay, play me that jazz music, you know? Okay. Dizzy Gillespie. Play me Dizzy. I'm gonna laugh. Okay. Do I really like that, or do I like Chuck Berry? You know what I mean? So, well, I'll start to appreciate it, you know. And we used to, like, play the Modern Jazz Quartet, you know.

[David Marchese]

Oh, yeah, Yeah.

[Mick Jagger]

I used to go and see the. I used to go and see the Modern Jazz Quartet in concert. I mean, it's expensive. Everyone's sitting down very seriously listening to it. No one's, like, standing up, you know.

[David Marchese]

Talk about a rabbit hole. I asked you about sex. We ended up at the Modern Jazz Quartet.

[Mick Jagger]

How do I get out of that question?

[David Marchese]

But I thought you gave a very, you know, I thought you gave a good answer. You said you didn't know how to answer it. Then you gave a good answer. I want to also know a little bit more about sort of how you see your musical evolution, because I think. I think it's fair to say that, you know, probably in that sort of Magical period between 68 and 72 is the period when sort of what people expect a Rolling Stones album to sound like kind of Got Solidified and the new album. People say, you know, this. It sounds like a Stones album. And I think they mean it sort of has the signifiers of the classic Stones album. And I know there's been lots of experimenting with, you know, reggae, funk, disco over the years, but I think it's true that there is a Rolling Stones alone sound. And as a. As a sort of a Creator.

[Mick Jagger]

I could kind of argue against that in a way if I want to.

[David Marchese]

What. What argument would you make? Well, I'm gonna tell you that you're wrong, but.

[Mick Jagger]

No, but I can take another position, you know.

[David Marchese]

Okay.

[Mick Jagger]

I mean, just for the sake of it, I could.

[Apple Card Announcer]

Music.

[Mick Jagger]

Because if we're talking about musicality, that that's what you're best known for, you know, what the most people, if they are not particularly vaguely interested, but not very interested, then you're absolutely right, you know, that that's what you would say. But I could point out to lots of other things. I'm not a huge student of the Rolling Stones over, you know, I mean, I can't. Haven't got it all at my fingertips and lists of it. If I did. I could point at them and say, you see, I could point to, like, miss you so many. Yeah. I could say, well, that was hot stuff. That was. That. Yeah. But then I could point at Lady Jane, you know.

[David Marchese]

Right. Like an Elizabethan poem.

[Mick Jagger]

Yeah. And I could point to as Tears Go By. I could point to Angie.

[David Marchese]

Yeah.

[Mick Jagger]

I could point. I mean, I could point to Painted Black, even like Under My Thumb that someone played to me the other day. I mean, it's. Vocally, it's very me, but instrumentally, and the way it's played is so light and it's so. It's so sort of like. It's not heavy at all. Everyone's playing really lightly. And so there's other versions of the band. And that's what I think makes the band an interesting band. Obviously, it's not the same people either.

[David Marchese]

You know, she Smiles Sweetly is another one from.

[Mick Jagger]

Yeah. Very old.

[David Marchese]

But. But, you know, it's interesting that the songs that you noted are all songs that came before, I guess, with the exception of Angie. Before that period I suggested.

[Mick Jagger]

Yes. But even after that period, I can point out other ones. Ye. But it's just that I don't remember them as well, you know. But there's. There's. And there's not Elizabethan ones, but there's. There's many other ones. And you said angie, that's not in that period. And there's lots and lots of others, you know, Waiting on a Friend. It's a. It's a kind of rumba, you know, ballad rumba. I mean, it's. It's, you know, it's like I'm very light with an alto saxophone lead. It's not really what you would expect,

[David Marchese]

but are there styles of music that just, you know, you maybe wanted to do or sort of like dream projects that you had in the back of your mind that you thought sort of because of maybe audience expectations or what you thought the band would be interested in that you didn't pursue.

[Mick Jagger]

Yeah, well, yes, but you can pursue them, but you don't take them to the. Kind of doing a whole album of them. You know, I can say I like samba music, so I did Sympathy for the Devil, have now never done it, another samba. But I listen to samba all the time, so I could say, well, I mean, but no one's interested in me doing a whole samba record. I can't imagine anyone being interested. I mean, I'd like to do another samba tune, but. But you don't want to pursue your whole interest in samba down so far down the road. I mean, I'm interested. I. I mean, I love Latin music of all kinds, and I. That rhythmically speaking, there's so many different rhythms and. And yeah, I'd. I. I would like to pursue that. And maybe I could have or should have pursued that more because I. I'm really interested in those rhythms, you know, so. So, yeah, so. But if you're in a rock band, you get to touch on them, but you don't get to fully explore them.

[David Marchese]

There's a beautiful version you did of A Long Black Veil with The chieftains probably 30 years ago, and I thought, oh, it would have been. It would be great to hear a Mick Jagger album of like, traditional Irish, British and American oak tunes.

[Mick Jagger]

Yeah, I mean, I've. I've done that. And I. I mean, thing is that the. All the members of the band of Keith and Brian and to some extent, all like that music. Ronnie, also, I mean, we. It's kind of our. Kind of. In a way, it's our home music, you know, and even though the sort of 80% of our music is influenced by black culture, which we have a huge debt to owe to. To black music and everything, we. We also acknowledge our own roots in that. In that other music, you know, by playing those songs. You know, I mean, Long Black Fell I. Longback Viol was. I think I heard Johnny Cash do that first, but it sounds like an Irish or English song. And I did it with the Chieftains, which is an Irish. Was an Irish band. But it's, it's, you know, it could be an English song or Border ballad or, you know, that I was. We were all very interested. We're all brought up to read Border ballads, which are neither English nor Scottish or Irish, but it's. They're they're an amalgam of all of those things. A very, very similar background.

[David Marchese]

I'd also like to ask you about rock a little more broadly and generally. You know, it's this music that you've given your creative life to. And, you know, still, in 2026, the biggest rock concert draws are, like, Gen X bands and baby boomer bands. And I've seen data that actually suggests that catalog music, you know, older music has more streaming market share than younger music and is continuing to trend that way. And I think that even if you think about the buzziest, younger rock band of today, which is a band like Geese, I don't know if you're familiar with them.

[Mick Jagger]

Yeah, I am.

[David Marchese]

Even a band like that still kind of feels like a culturally marginal band to a certain extent. And so my question to you is,

[Mick Jagger]

what do you mean culturally marginal?

[David Marchese]

You know, they're not in the center of the culture. Like, you know, it's. They're. They don't have.

[Mick Jagger]

Well, no, but I mean, I was talked about them in an interview. Someone asked me. Everyone was talking about this band. And when I played them, I thought it was gonna be more like an indie band, you know, but it was much more experimental than I thought, which I thought was great. You know, I mean, I liked it, but it wasn't what I thought from people describing it to me or reading about it. So, yeah, so that's very hard for a band as experimental as that to be to break through big, you know, in a center of a mainstream music, I think, at this. Any time. I mean, Maybe in the 1970s, it might have been, but now, I wouldn't have thought so. But anyway, I mean, maybe there will be. Maybe I'm wrong.

[David Marchese]

Do you have thoughts about the vitality of rock music as a whole or its place in the culture right now, given that the most popular exponents tend to be older artists, kind of, I think.

[Mick Jagger]

But despite the fact that, you know, rock music as a. As a. As a genre is not really the mainstream center of music, it still has a lot of supporters, and it stirs a lot of young teenage people that want to play it, you know, in a. You know, in all kinds of forms of it, you know, and you hope that it evolves. You know, rap was kind of the center of our music, like, 20 years ago, and now it's like rap is not the force it once was, really, but everyone incorporates it. You know, you incorporate it into everything. It's one of the strands of popular music. Like, rock is like, you Know, rap is like straight pop is like all these things. So we have all these strands in popular music that really, I wonder, you know, it's really rather artificial. A lot of times when we describe music. Didn't we touch on this before in our earlier conversation? So it's a marketable. When you have to market things, you want to tell people what they are. So this is mint flavored. Okay. So everyone normally likes that. So it's mint flavored ice creams. Mint flavored this. So you put the genre mint. I'm selling mint flavored products. It's a bit like that music.

[David Marchese]

So people know what they're getting and you can.

[Mick Jagger]

They know what they're getting. So you don't want to scare them. So we've got cut up all our genres in like little slices. But the reality is that most musicians appreciate all kinds of music. So what I'm saying is there's a lot of music has a lot of history and it shouldn't really be by intelligent people, shouldn't be slicing little bits and say, I only like this bit, you know, I don't like folk music. What does that mean? Does it mean anything? What's folk music or these invented things, you know.

[David Marchese]

Right. They're arbitrary distinctions.

[Mick Jagger]

They are, yeah.

[David Marchese]

I saw a quote from Keith the other day saying, you know, the band probably is probably not going to be able to do long tours anymore. That there might be, you know, there's hopes to do residencies and things like that. And who. I don't know how you think, but do you. You must have some doubt about whether or not the Rolling Stones will ever go on a. Yeah, I mean, I've

[Mick Jagger]

doubt about it when I hear that, you know, I have doubt. I don't mind touring at all. I mean, residencies are. If you can't. If you can't do any shows and you can't go anywhere, then you have to do residences. Obviously you can't go. You've got to go to the. We have to go to the arena. You got. You're not going to do it for your bedroom, but I suppose you could. But you've got to go somewhere. So I would say, well, you've got. You can't just do. So if Harry Styles says he's doing residences, but he's doing London, Amsterdam, you know, and so on. And so it is a tour, you know, it's not only London, do you know what I mean?

[David Marchese]

But do you think the Stones will do another, you know, world expanding?

[Mick Jagger]

I hope so. That's all I'm saying I would hope so. I'm very pleased to be able to. I want to do it. I'm up for doing it. I like touring. But the thing is, the only thing about doing residence is it makes it for the people that want to come and see you. It makes it much more expensive. It really does. I mean, think about it. You have to travel, you have to get a hotel, and you have to buy a ticket, which is not going to be cheap, you know, so that. I mean, it'll be less cheap. It'll be cheaper than the World cup in the United States. It was much easier when it was in Germany because Germany's a smaller country.

[David Marchese]

Do you think you'll know when you've walked off the stage with the Rolling Stones for the last time?

[Mick Jagger]

No. No, I don't think you'll ever know. Maybe I have.

[David Marchese]

That's true. Maybe it's happened.

[Mick Jagger]

I don't know. You never know. You could get run over by a bus outside my house. You never really know, do you? You don't know what's going to happen to you in life. But, I mean, I personally hope to be able to tour again. I love touring. I like going places, you know, I like meeting people. I like to go into. I like to go to weird countries, you know, and do shows. I was doing a promotion with Indonesia, and I did a show in Indonesia once on my own, which was so crazy. It was so hot. It was unbelievable. People talk about Europe's heat wave. It was so hot. And I was out there and it was daytime. Cause I didn't have any lights. I said, what am I going to wear? And this guy reminded me of my show in Indonesia. And I said, yeah, I'd do a show in Indonesia. So, you know, it's really. I love doing that. I love going to India. 1. We did two shows in India, you know, now India's a big market.

[David Marchese]

Can I ask you a completely tangential, random question? I was looking, and now. So the fact that I couldn't find it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. But I could not find any quote or record of you commenting on singing backing vocals on Carly Simon's you're so Vain. No, I can't find it anywhere. And I.

[Mick Jagger]

But what you want me to say. I remember doing it.

[David Marchese]

But when did you realize that some people thought the song was about you?

[Mick Jagger]

Why would it be about me when I'm singing on it?

[David Marchese]

I know it doesn't make sense, but people. People think that's what it was.

[Mick Jagger]

But that was a big thing, wasn't it? You know, because she would never reveal who it was about.

[David Marchese]

And then she.

[Mick Jagger]

I never thought to ask. Yeah, I never thought I was just a song. It sounds like a good title. It was just a song. I'm just the backing vocalist. Because I knew the producer whose name I'm now going to forget. Richard Perry.

[David Marchese]

Oh, there you go.

[Mick Jagger]

Yep. Richard Perry. And was a guy I knew, you know, and he. He was in London. He just phoned me up and said, can he do the backing? Because I love doing those sort of things, especially with, you know, if it's a female, you're the male. You know what I mean? Slightly different doing it with men, but I don't care. So I just went along and did it. I thought it was a great song, you know, and it was big hit for her. And I was never credited with a feature. These days, I. It'd be the feature, you know, be Carly Simon featuring Mick Jagger.

[David Marchese]

But you never said to her. You never said to her, who's it going about?

[Mick Jagger]

I'm louder than her on some of it.

[David Marchese]

I know. In the chorus. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, thank you for clearing that up. Now we've now added to the sum

[Mick Jagger]

total why we want to clear things up while we're talking about cleaning things up. So I said to you at the beginning, before we record. I said, well, now the record's been reviewed everywhere. A lot of reviews for it. And I got Louis lots of nice reviews. It's weird how people, though, give you really. I mean, it's gotten some great reviews and I'm really appreciative of that.

[David Marchese]

Something's nagging at you. What is it?

[Mick Jagger]

No, no, I'm not. It's not nagging. It's just that people, they hear some. One word and they don't really listen to the line. So it's like. So Mick Jagger has a go at Elon Musk. Well, you're not listening to the line. You're only listening to Musk. That's all you're hearing. Musk. He must be having a go at him. I do call him mad.

[David Marchese]

And he's the one person you name on the whole album. No other person.

[Mick Jagger]

He's name checked. The only name check.

[David Marchese]

It seems like it would have some importance.

[Mick Jagger]

The funny thing is, when I wrote that, I was like. I was thinking, because of him, they were able to get those astronauts back, you know, that was stuck because he provided the transportation. Cause NASA couldn't provide the transportation. So that line. The line of the song is about when I was a kid, I used to want to go to Mars and everything. And then I said, who would you trust to get you into space? And would you trust Boeing? OR Was it NASA? Or was it mad mogul Mr. Musk? So it's really a side winding compliment because he was the one that I remembered was able to do that when the others couldn't.

[David Marchese]

Yeah, well, that's what you get for using the adjective mad.

[Mick Jagger]

And mogul.

[David Marchese]

And mogul.

[Mick Jagger]

Mogul doesn't always go down well either.

[David Marchese]

No one likes a mogul.

[Mick Jagger]

No one likes a mogul. It's a Persian word, but, you know, nobody likes to be called it.

[David Marchese]

You know, I had asked you about the lyrics to Sway when we spoke the first time. I have another lyric question that I want to ask you. My favorite Rolling Stone song, which I think is also the best Rolling Stone song, is you can't always get what you want.

[Mick Jagger]

Yeah.

[David Marchese]

And I think, I think, you know, it's a simple sentiment, but I actually think there's something profound in the chorus. Right. Which is you can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you just might find you get what you need. And what's something that. Or the last thing that you really tried to get that you wanted to get.

[Mick Jagger]

Oh my God.

[David Marchese]

That you couldn't find and so that you got what you need.

[Mick Jagger]

Leads to a personal. Leads to a personal wish.

[David Marchese]

Sure.

[Mick Jagger]

No, I think I, I, I, I can't recall one that stands out, honestly.

[David Marchese]

Well, that's a good life, my friend.

[Mick Jagger]

I mean, I'm sorry. I mean, obviously there's all kinds of things in daily life that you, that everyone's has frustrations. I mean, I was very frustrated professionally for years that with the Rolling Stones, never made any new music. That was a huge frustration for me.

[David Marchese]

Yeah.

[Mick Jagger]

I mean, and, and, and I solved it, you know. Yeah, I solved it. And I mean, with everyone else's help, obviously, but they had to agree to it. You know, it was like, huh. And I, you know, I mean, it's like, okay. But you know, it's like that was a huge frustration that. I mean, you asked me these really difficult questions. I'm trying to come up with something to say it, but that was a huge frustration. And if you'd have interviewed me four years ago, I would have said that.

[David Marchese]

There's another old clip I saw of you from a press conference.

[Mick Jagger]

Probably really old one, one of those. Cause we don't press conferences for hundreds of years.

[David Marchese]

No, really old. I think maybe Connected to a Madison Square Garden concert in the late 60s, something like that. And someone just asked, you know, just asks you some vague question like, how do you think about being in the Rolling Stones? And you describe the Rolling Stones as financially dissatisfied, sexually satisfied, philosophically trying.

[Mick Jagger]

This is a pat answer to a news conference in New York where he used to say, people used to throw you just really dumb questions, but that was quite a good one.

[David Marchese]

Yeah, that was. But. So don't give me the pat answer in 2026. Where do you stand with those three things?

[Mick Jagger]

My interest in philosophy is superficial. I mean, mainly because I find it a really hard subject. I mean, I really find it difficult because I need a teacher. I can't just do it from reading. I. I can't. And when I was in college, I did some. Some philosophy courses, and that's hundreds of years ago. And. And I didn't really. I don't. I make one reference to the. To. In. In the song. Oh, in Jealous Lover, there's a. There's a Plato reference.

[David Marchese]

Shadows on the wall.

[Mick Jagger]

Yes, you got it. Well done. You got it. So. Yeah, but I. But on my cave, that's even more obvious. But I find it a really hard subject to educate myself into. And I've recently read a couple of books. I'm really finding it hard. And so. And they're always having so many arguments, these philosophers, and. And they're always, like, disagreeing with their masters. And then the master disagrees with then the master. I was reading this book on Kant, and he. So he has this pupil, I can't find his name, who. Then he writes a book. They're attacking his own master, and then Kant replies to him. You know, they're quite rude to each other, and then they have to make up later, and none of it. I can understand what they're really talking about, you know. Was Kant a Christian?

[David Marchese]

I think.

[Mick Jagger]

Was he an atheist?

[David Marchese]

I think it's cool that you're reading Kant.

[Mick Jagger]

Well, it's all vaguely fashionable.

[David Marchese]

Wait, but. But. So let's say Phil's other. Still trying. And let's just, you know, I'm sticking with that one.

[Mick Jagger]

I'm still sticking with that 1965 quote.

[David Marchese]

All right, Mick. You know, this is a corny way to end, but it's been a gas, gas, gas.

[Mick Jagger]

Oh, no. This awful time. That's terrible.

[David Marchese]

That's Mick Jagger. The Rolling Stones new album Foreign Tongues is available now. To watch this interview and many others, you can subscribe to our YouTube [e-mail] podcast. This conversation was produced by Wyatt Orme. It was edited by John Woo, mixing by Sophia Landman, original music by Marian Lozano, photography by Philip Montgomery. The rest of the team is Priya Matthew, Seth Kelly, Paola Neudorf, Joe, Bill Munoz, Eddie Costas, Amy Marino, Mark Zemel, David Herr, Kathleen o' Brien and Brooke Minters. Our executive producer is Allison Benedikt. I'm David Marchese, and this is the interview from the New York Times. Sam.