{"id":498890,"date":"2026-06-18T10:55:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T10:55:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/498890\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T10:55:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T10:55:14","slug":"the-rolling-stones-america-is-not-the-same-place-as-it-was","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/498890\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rolling Stones: \u201cAmerica is not the same place as it was.\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Speaking exclusively in the new issue of MOJO, on sale now<\/a>, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards have discussed the political message behind one of the songs on their forthcoming new album,\u00a0Foreign Tongues, the band\u2019s longstanding relationship with America, and how the pair first started writing songs together in the 1960s.<\/p>\n

Featured on the Stones\u2019 25th album, out July 10, Ringing Hollow is a classic Stones-styled country ballad that serves as both a love letter to America and a lament for what it has become. \u201cLady Liberty don\u2019t look so good when there\u2019s a tear in her gown,\u201d sings Jagger on the track, which, like the rest of\u00a0Foreign Tongues, was recorded with\u00a0Hackney Diamonds<\/a>\u00a0producer Andrew Watt<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about America as an idea,\u201d Jagger tells MOJO\u2019s Will Hodgkinson. \u201cThe American Dream is intact for some people, and I\u2019m sure we can find some wonderful immigrant stories that happened in the last 12 months, but we read about the decline of the American Empire. Is the Iran war America\u2019s Suez moment? Well, it\u2019s not the same at all, but there are a lot of questions about imperial overreach, and the lobbying system. The money spent on an election is absurd \u2013 it\u2019s not corruption per se but unnecessary. Is it indicative of this administration, or is it something has been happening a long time? In any case, it\u2019s not the same place as it was.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a career-spanning interview, Jagger and Richards reflect on how America and its culture have shaped The Rolling Stones, from their earliest days as blues and R&B-obsessed teenagers, to the making of their latest LP. The Stones launched their recording career in 1963 with a cover of Chuck Berry\u2019s Come On, while\u00a0Foreign Tongues\u00a0ends with a recording of Berry\u2019s 1958 song Beautiful Delilah. But, as Jagger reflects, the group have also seen a different side to the American dream than the one presented to them by rock\u2019n\u2019roll when they were growing up amid the dreariness of post-war Britain.<\/p>\n

\u201cI lived in New York for 19 years,\u201d the singer confirms \u201cI\u2019ve seen lots of America that no Americans have seen because people on the coast never go to the clapped-out towns, the middle and the south. Every English band had a love affair with America. The Beatles retained their northern thing, and then John fell in love with New York.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jagger\u2019s bandmate Richards is certainly one of those for whom America, and in particular, its music, has been a lifelong love and source of inspiration.<\/p>\n

\u201cI take Ringing Hollow to be about America when we were growing up in the \u201950s,\u201d says the guitarist. \u201cThe romance of it all: have a cocktail, smoke your cigarettes, play your jukeboxes. We were 14, 15 years old, dying for more black music from America, and slowly you go through the rock\u2019n\u2019rollers and realise that these cats all learned from Muddy Waters. Even now, if I\u2019m stuck for an idea I\u2019ll go back to the blues because the musical form is limited and that makes it all the more intriguing. You\u2019re telling me you can get\u00a0more\u00a0out of this thing? Ringing Hollow is our way of saying: we love you.\u201d<\/p>\n

While The Rolling Stones\u2019 first album<\/a>, released in April 1964, was made up entirely of cover versions of American blues and R&B numbers,\u00a0\u00a0by their 1965 follow-up,\u00a0The Rolling Stones No.2<\/a>,\u00a0Jagger and Richards\u2019 songwriting partnership shifted the dynamic both within the group, who had been formed by doomed guitarist and blues purist Brian Jones, and that of British pop, which until then had been dominated by the more clean-cut image of The Beatles<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Although they only wrote their first song, so legend has it, when their first manager Andrew Loog Oldham locked them in a kitchen and refused to let them out until they came up with an original.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was never expecting to be a songwriter,\u201d reflects Richards. \u201cIt only happened because of the sheer force of the business, to put it crudely.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jagger and Richards\u2019 first original composition As Tears Go By, became a hit for Jagger\u2019s soon-to-be girlfriend Marianne Faithfull<\/a> in 1964 and set in motion a remarkable run of tracks which captured the tone of Britain as it dealt uneasily with the freedoms emerging from the rubble of World War II, from Mother\u2019s Little Helper to Let\u2019s Spend The Night Together: dispatches from an exciting but dangerous new world.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought writing songs was on another plane, another level,\u201d continues Richards. \u201cThen I found out that if you worked at it, you hear melodies, you catch a phrase, and maybe songwriting is simply about being really quick. You find a rhythm or something in the street, like the honk of a horn, so thank you, Andrew Oldham, for that, even though he was doing it for himself\u2026 because we all needed the money.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s nothing like being chased by Scotland Yard to get the juices flowing!<\/p>\n

Get the latest issue of MOJO to read our exclusive interview with Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood in full, in which they reveal the secrets behind The Rolling Stones\u2019 ongoing saga \u2013 from dodging the law, chemical excess, and the loss of Brian Jones and Charlie Watts, to why The World\u2019s Greatest Rock\u2019n\u2019Roll Band aren\u2019t done yet. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to be really tough to survive\u2026\u201d they tell MOJO. More information and to order a copy for delivery wherever you are HERE<\/a>!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Speaking exclusively in the new issue of MOJO, on sale now, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards have discussed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":498891,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[146,85,46,409],"class_list":["post-498890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=498890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/498891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}