The Grotesequely Comical yet Flattering Comparison Keith Richards Used To Describe The Beatles

In the 1960s, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones had a bit of a rivalry. Though it seemingly wasn’t a super serious one and never affected the mutual admiration they had for each other. While there was a bit of competition between the bands, they both drove in separate lanes. The Beatles were the guys you’d be okay introducing to your parents. The Rolling Stones were not, and consequently, they provided their mutual fanbases with different flavors.

Thanks to the friendly rivalry, The Beatles and The Stones seemingly joked around with each other more than they actually viewed one another as a threat. That being said, jokes were said, pranks were pulled, and now, we have the history books to thank for lending us a laugh, and here is one joke between the two crafted by none other than Keith Richards.

Long-Haired Misfits vs Clean-Cut Men: The Inspiration of Keith Richards’ Joke

As stated previously, The Rolling Stones and The Beatles had two very different styles, and in the early 1960s, the general population preferred The Beatles’. Well, for this reason, The Beatles’ early career was more successful than The Stones, and here is what Keith Richards had to say about it.

Regarding their early career with manager Andrew Loog Oldham, Richards wrote in his book, Life, “We were the dynamite, Andy Oldham the detonator.” “The irony is that Oldham, at the start, the great architect of the Stones’ public persona, thought it was a disadvantage for us to be considered long-haired and dirty and rude. He was a very pristine boy himself at the time. The whole idea of the Beatles and the uniforms, keeping everything uniform, still made sense to Andrew. To us it didn’t.”

“The Beatles are all over the place like a f—ing bag of fleas, right?” “And you’ve got another good band. The thing is not to try and regurgitate the Beatles. So we’re going to have to be the anti-Beatles. We’re not going to be the Fab Four, all wearing the same s—”, added Richards.

Frankly, Keith Richards’ comment is spot on. In their early days, The Beatles were like a “bag of fleas”, a four-headed monster, a set of quadruplets, and essentially, a group of four that was one. However, as we all know, by the late 1960s, they grew away from that. Regardless, Richards’ description, while grotesquely comical, was also flattering and pretty true.

Photo by Eyles/Mirrorpix/Mirrorpix via Getty Images