This article was originally published in The Scotsman on 20th October 2012.
MICK
JAGGER
Philip
Norman
HarperCollins,
£20
Paul
Whitelaw
When
Michael Philip Jagger, corporate head of the Rolling Stones empire,
was asked to deliver his autobiography in the early '80s, the
ghost-written results were deemed so irredeemably dull that the
publishers were forced to cancel the £1 million advance and scrap
the entire project. His exasperated editor quipped that it should've
been titled The
Diary of a Nobody.
Contrast
that with the colourful – if not always reliable – content of
fellow Stone Keith Richards' best selling memoir, Life,
from 2010, which, in between hair-raising anecdotes and scholarly
ruminations on open-G tuning, functioned as a kind of frustrated
public letter to his estranged old friend. The Stones are celebrating
their 50th
anniversary this year, with another mega-tour rumoured to follow in
2013, but Richards claims he hasn't set foot in Jagger's dressing
room in over 20 years.
So what happened? How is it possible
that a legendary figure such as Jagger, who's lived a life liberally
festooned with dramatic incident, could think of nothing interesting
to say about himself? And how did it get to the stage where he barely
communicates with the man with whom he wrote some of the world's
greatest rock songs?
Philip Norman's hefty, even-handed
biography seeks to dig behind the studied public façade and bore
into the heavily guarded heart of this paradoxical icon. That he
succeeds in presenting a rounded portrait of such a slippery
character is doubly remarkable given Jagger's predictable refusal to
have anything to do with the book.
And yet, despite this glaring
Jagger-shaped hole, Norman may well have written the only biography
of a living entertainer to actually benefit from the absence of its
subject. After all, the author argues, when have you ever read a
remotely revealing interview with Mick Jagger? From the moment he
strutted onto the world's stage in the mid-'60s, his public
pronouncements have always been couched in feigned indifference and,
in later years, a maddening insistence that he's forgotten the finer
details of his past.
A highly intelligent, shrewd
professional, this is clearly a convenient avoidance technique honed
over the years to reveal as little of himself as possible. Famously,
Jagger is a song-writer who, despite penning countless lyrics, has
provided barely a hint of autobiography in his work.
This diplomatic narcissist obviously
cares deeply about how he's perceived, but his unwavering commitment
– to borrow ex-paramour Marianne Faithfull's choice phrase – to
The Tyranny of Cool prohibits him from ever suggesting otherwise in
public.
Norman repeatedly returns to the
Tyranny of Cool motif throughout the story, as a persuasive way of
deciphering Jagger's often self-defeating and callous behaviour.
Despite pushing 70, this still limber force of nature is arguably the
most vainglorious exponent of the perpetual adolescence enjoyed by
pampered rock stars.
Although Norman rightly celebrates
Jagger's immense talent and historical impact, a portrait emerges of
a selfish, charming, controlling man who's had his every whim,
whether fiscal or carnal, indulged almost without question throughout
his long career. And yet despite his keen sense of self-awareness,
Jagger doesn't seem to realise that his endless series of affairs
with women less than half his age has transformed a one-time cultural
powerhouse into an increasingly pathetic parody of himself. That, I
suppose, is what happens when the word you've heard least in your
life is “no”.
Norman has assembled an addictive
narrative mired in sex and, to a lesser extent, drugs (Jagger was
always too sensible to overindulge), but thankfully he isn't
interested in salacious gossip.
An
esteemed biographer of, among others, The Beatles, John Lennon, and
the Stones themselves (an updated edition of his exhaustive 1984
biography is published this month), his reputation for thorough
research is compounded on virtually every page. Norman is the sort of
detail-hungry biographer who'll delightedly note that an Abbott and
Costello comedy prophetically titled Money
For Jam
was playing at the local cinema in Dartford when the notoriously
stingy Jagger was born.
Having gone back over interviews
conducted for his previous Stones tome, he's also gathered fresh,
record-straightening yet dignified contributions from the likes of
Jagger's former lovers Chrissie Shrimpton and Marsha Hunt (who gave
birth to his first child, which he briefly tried to disown), and
Maggie Abbot, his one-time film agent, who grants fascinating insight
into the numerous film offers that came his way during his thwarted
bid for Hollywood stardom. It's tantalising to imagine what directors
such as Hal Ashby, Steven Spielberg, John Boorman and Franco
Zeffirelli could've done with Jagger's unique charisma.
Despite
his penchant for detail, Norman could never be accused of being a
dry, academic biographer. Adopting a wry tone befitting his
habitually self-mocking subject, he rarely passes up an opportunity
for an ironic aside. Indeed, at times he'd be best advised to avoid a
tempting pun or gag, as they often irritate rather than amuse.
Perverting the title of the Stones' first US album to Europe's
Newest Shitmakers?
Describing ageing groupies as “gurgling matrons”? Really, Philip?
And he does tend to repeat himself as the book goes on. Oh for the
hand of a stricter editor.
Nevertheless, having breathed new
life into familiar material, he's written what must surely be
regarded as the definitive account of Jagger's remarkable life. Its
very existence will, of course, vex and embarrass Sir Mick himself,
who would clearly prefer it if people only wrote about him in the
manner of a glowing press release. But you can be sure that, whenever
the subject inevitably arises during future interviews, he'll
casually dismiss it as an irrelevance. The Tyranny of Cool will never
be vanquished.
Mick
Jagger
by Philip Norman is published 4th
October (HarperCollins, £20)
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