The Rolling Stones Lyric that Proved Even Mick Jagger Gets Tired of the Road

The Rolling Stones have understandably and deservedly garnered a reputation as standard-bearers for the notion that rock and roll never dies. Even though their lineup has occasionally changed, and some key members have passed away, the fact they’re still going strong after six decades is a marvel.

But even though they like to put on airs of indestructibility, they do get tired. On the 1971 classic ballad “Moonlight Mile,” Mick Jagger even admitted as much, though he cloaked that message somewhat in mystical music and dreamy lyrics.

A “Mile” to Go Before He Sleeps

When The Rolling Stones recorded the 1971 album Sticky Fingers, they were at the absolute top of their game. They had successfully incorporated guitarist Mick Taylor into the band by that time, and his work alongside fellow guitarist Keith Richards elevated their musical output to a skyscraping level. On top of that, the Jagger/Richards songwriting duo had hit upon a rich vein of material.

But that success came out of a period of turmoil in the band. OK, so there’s always been a little bit of turmoil with this band, but the late ‘60s was particularly rife with it. There was the death of Stones founder Brian Jones in 1969, legal issues for band members brought about by drug busts, and the general malaise that seemed to hang over everyone at the end of the decade.

It could catch up to anyone, even a Rolling Stone. Mick Jagger admitted as much in an interview for Marc Myers for the book Anatomy of a Song, suggesting “Moonlight Mile” arrived at a moment of extreme fatigue:

“I’m sure the idea for the song first came to me one night when we were on a train and the moon was out. I don’t recall. I know I didn’t want to literalize how I was feeling. That’s not really a very good thing to do when you’re writing lyrics, you know? The feeling I had at the moment was how difficult it was to be touring and how I wasn’t looking forward to going out and doing it again. It’s a very lonely thing, and my lyrics reflected that.”

Behind the Lyrics of “Moonlight Mile”

With Charlie Watts’ tender toms, Mick Taylor’s soulful lead guitar, and Paul Buckmaster’s stirring string arrangement adding atmosphere to an ethereal melody, “Moonlight Mile” takes on the guise of a waking dream. That’s apropos for the lyrics delivered by Jagger, which loiter somewhere between sad fatigue and hazy wonder.

The narrator, weary and weatherworn on his travels, imagines a human oasis of sorts: In the window, there’s a face you know / Don’t the nights pass slow. Instead of finding a friend, however, he’s beset on all sides by those whom he doesn’t want to see: The sound of strangers sending nothing to my mind / Just another mad, mad day on the road.

But there is a goal in sight for him: I am just living to be lying by your side / But I’m just about a moonlight mile down the road. Until then, he’ll settle for peace and quiet: I got silence on my radio / Let the air waves flow. Jagger unleashes a simple yet profound line that captures the narrator bewilderment: I am sleeping under strange, strange skies.

The song tiptoes drunkenly between melancholy and hope. On the one hand, Jagger sings, My dreams is fading down the railway line. But when he begins to veer away from the melody and do some improv belting, he imagines a reunion with his love is forthcoming soon: I’m riding down your moonlight mile.

“Moonlight Mile” wasn’t a single, so it’s a bit unheralded to casual Stones fans. But they wisely chose it to close out Sticky Fingers, perhaps their finest album ever. It’s a song caught somewhere between fever dream and weary lament, and every moment of it is mesmerizing.

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