The grass is always greener on the other side, and that’s true whether you’re looking out across the lawn from a mansion terrace or the sidewalk. During a 1989 interview with CBC’s The Journal, The Rolling Stones reflected on some of the harder aspects of their musical career. While they had certainly achieved the dream of rock ‘n’ rollers everywhere, themselves included, life at the top hasn’t always been a walk in the park. In many ways, it is. But not all.
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While speaking to the CBC, guitarist Keith Richards commented on how tired he was from working so hard. The CBC pushed back, suggesting that many people would think that what he does isn’t hard work at all. (A very “Money For Nothing” type of setup, in this writer’s humble opinion.) Richards’ face dropped slightly at this protest, to which he replied, “Oh, yeah, sure, you know—try it some time.”
For the most part, Richards said that his time on stage never feels like work. “You don’t work music, do you? You do play it.” The real grind, he argued, came from the months of traveling through different climates, away from loved ones and routine. Still, there were some struggles to get over on stage, including one feature of live rock ‘n’ roll shows that he never experienced as a young player.
Keith Richards Compares Early Rolling Stones to the 1980s
Keith Richards continued to tell the CBC that another major source of exhaustion was their set lengths. “I’m doing the longest show we’ve ever done in our lives,” the guitarist said during his 1989 interview. “When I was twenty years old, a rock ‘n’ roll show was twenty minutes long. Now, I’m nearly 46, and it’s two-and-a-half hours long. I can’t figure out how I tricked myself into working more.”
Richards said that last bit with a smile because, obviously, most of us would jump at the chance to ditch the humdrum of day jobs and become a globetrotting rockstar. Indeed, becoming rock royalty is a double-edged sword, and that fact has never been lost on Keith Richards or Rolling Stones vocalist Mick Jagger.
In the same 1989 interview, Jagger said, “It’s quite funny when you think, you know, it’s the same group of people more or less that was in the back of this van trying to get a gig for a Tuesday night in a freezing cold suburb of London. But unfortunately, that does seem an awful long time ago. It is amusing. Here you are, doing this, but…it’s not a good thing to be totally questioning yourself all the time. It probably isn’t so good for you. So just, you know, take it as it comes. Don’t try to analyze the rights and wrongs and wherefores and whyfores.”
Heavy is the head that wears the crown, so they say. Or, in Keith Richards’ case, heavy is the finger that wears the massive silver skull ring.
Photo by Paul Natkin/Getty Images
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