The Rolling Stones Quotes

“To play a wrong note is insignificant,” he’d said. “To play without passion is inexcusable.”
― Bob Spitz, The Rolling Stones: The Biography

“What had become of the saber-toothed rebels, the band that mined outrage and excess and caught the essential sound of the streets? They’d grown up and were on the verge of growing stale. The last three albums—Goats Head Soup, It’s Only Rock and Roll, and Black and Blue—failed to connect. The Stones seemed to be following trends rather than starting them. They’d grown rich and sated playing to distant audiences in arenas and stadiums, where the intensity was more dependent on the staging and the PA system than on the music.”
― Bob Spitz, The Rolling Stones: The Biography

“One of Little Walter’s sidemen urged him to use cocaine from a needle. “Dip it in and put it on the head of your dick,” the guy explained, “you can fuck for three hours.” Marshall was twelve at the time. “I didn’t know what fucking was,” he says.”
― Bob Spitz, The Rolling Stones: The Biography

“Mick would never have countenanced a defeatist attitude. Even in the face of such an ordeal”
― Bob Spitz, The Rolling Stones: The Biography

“What to make of the singer, Mick Jagger? Giorgio thought the singer was atrocious—and fabulous. The kid’s voice wasn’t exactly soothing, he didn’t so much sing as “punch out words and syllables,” not quite holding notes. Really, it wasn’t even a voice. It landed just this side of offensive: a white boy imitating a Black man’s primal lament. When he threw his head back and bellowed “Oh, baby, Mama, please don’t dog me ’round,” it was all Giorgio could do to stop himself from howling. A pasty-faced kid from Dartford going on about paying a dollar for gas during “Too Much Monkey Business,” and phoning Memphis, Tennessee, from north Kent—it was a scream. Still, you had to hand it to the kid. He let it all hang out. Those skinny arms windmilling, hips jiggling, strutting like a rooster. How did he know how to do this? Was he hardwired to project himself, almost as if he were on strings, a marionette, with someone above at the controls? Maybe it was the showboat in him.”
― Bob Spitz, The Rolling Stones: The Biography