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This programme contains some strong language. | 0:00:02 | 0:00:04 | |
From the moment it first fell on alarmed, old ears, | 0:00:04 | 0:00:07 | |
it was clear that rock and roll was a young person's game. | 0:00:07 | 0:00:10 | |
Music made by young people for young people that never intended to grow up or grow old. | 0:00:10 | 0:00:16 | |
And yet, it did. | 0:00:16 | 0:00:18 | |
So what happened as the music refused to die, and its performers refused to leave the stage? | 0:00:18 | 0:00:25 | |
What happens when rock's youthful rebelliousness is delivered wrapped in wrinkles? | 0:00:25 | 0:00:30 | |
These are the stories of Britain's first rock and roll generations | 0:00:30 | 0:00:34 | |
and their struggle to stay forever young. | 0:00:34 | 0:00:37 | |
# You know I'm born to lose And gambling's for fools | 0:00:44 | 0:00:47 | |
# But that's the way I like it, baby I don't want to live forever... # | 0:00:47 | 0:00:51 | |
The secret of longevity is not dying. | 0:00:51 | 0:00:54 | |
It's easy, really. You know, just keep breathing at all times. | 0:00:54 | 0:01:00 | |
Look at Keith. Dear old Keith. | 0:01:02 | 0:01:04 | |
He looks like he's been dead for 40 years. Do you know what I mean? | 0:01:04 | 0:01:09 | |
But everybody loves him. They say, | 0:01:09 | 0:01:12 | |
"Is he still alive?" | 0:01:12 | 0:01:14 | |
"Yeah." "Is he alive now?" | 0:01:14 | 0:01:15 | |
"I'm not sure." | 0:01:15 | 0:01:17 | |
When I walk on stage and I still put the capes on and I go out, | 0:01:19 | 0:01:24 | |
age suddenly goes out the window. | 0:01:24 | 0:01:26 | |
I am not 60 years old anymore. | 0:01:26 | 0:01:30 | |
Admittedly, when I come off, it's slightly different. | 0:01:32 | 0:01:35 | |
I don't go to a party, I normally go back to my hotel room | 0:01:35 | 0:01:39 | |
and order a hot chocolate and watch the late night movie. | 0:01:39 | 0:01:42 | |
I had a pair of leather trousers. I called them rubber trousers. | 0:01:45 | 0:01:49 | |
And I wore them for the first time as a joke | 0:01:49 | 0:01:52 | |
because I thought it was really amusing, this 50-year-old guy | 0:01:52 | 0:01:55 | |
wearing leather trousers and I got all embarrassed. | 0:01:55 | 0:01:58 | |
It probably looks like I think I'm a bit of a rock sausage guy. | 0:01:58 | 0:02:02 | |
And they were...got rid of. | 0:02:02 | 0:02:05 | |
Now I go out there in sensible clothes. | 0:02:05 | 0:02:07 | |
We are the first generation who I think has cocked a snook at age. | 0:02:13 | 0:02:16 | |
We have carried on being the oldest swingers in town | 0:02:16 | 0:02:19 | |
and none of us are showing any signs | 0:02:19 | 0:02:21 | |
of wanting to not go to rock concerts, | 0:02:21 | 0:02:24 | |
not want to stay up all night, not want to take a lot of recreational drugs if we feel like it. | 0:02:24 | 0:02:31 | |
We want to rock out but we've all got weak bladders now, | 0:02:31 | 0:02:36 | |
so we don't want to be stuck in a long queue for the toilets like it was back in the 70s or 60s. | 0:02:36 | 0:02:41 | |
# People try to put us d-down | 0:02:41 | 0:02:44 | |
# Talkin' 'bout my generation | 0:02:44 | 0:02:46 | |
-# Just because we get around -# Talkin' 'bout my generation | 0:02:46 | 0:02:50 | |
# Things they do look awful c-cold | 0:02:50 | 0:02:53 | |
# Talkin' 'bout my generation | 0:02:53 | 0:02:55 | |
# I hope I die before I get old... # | 0:02:55 | 0:02:57 | |
If the world wants them to come and sing, | 0:02:57 | 0:03:01 | |
"I hope I die before I get old", | 0:03:01 | 0:03:03 | |
35 years after they first recorded it, | 0:03:03 | 0:03:07 | |
I think Pete Townshend is more than happy to do so | 0:03:07 | 0:03:10 | |
and have a bunch of fans screaming, "Pete". | 0:03:10 | 0:03:13 | |
-# Why don't you all f-fade away? -# Talkin' 'bout my generation | 0:03:16 | 0:03:20 | |
# Don't try and dig what we all say... # | 0:03:20 | 0:03:22 | |
They were actually saying, "Hope I die before I get old". | 0:03:22 | 0:03:26 | |
# Not trying to cause a b-b-big sensation | 0:03:26 | 0:03:28 | |
# Talkin' 'bout my generation | 0:03:28 | 0:03:30 | |
# Talkin' 'bout my g-g-g-generation. # | 0:03:30 | 0:03:34 | |
Guys, you're old. What happened? | 0:03:34 | 0:03:38 | |
What happened started in the 50s, when an entirely new species emerged with its very own music. | 0:03:39 | 0:03:46 | |
They were called teenagers and their music was called rock and roll. | 0:03:46 | 0:03:50 | |
The jazz critic Brian Case once said | 0:03:52 | 0:03:55 | |
before teenagers, there was just this transition between boy and man | 0:03:55 | 0:04:01 | |
and he called it, Brian called it, junior man. | 0:04:01 | 0:04:04 | |
And there was suddenly a group called youth. | 0:04:06 | 0:04:11 | |
When you're between the age of 12 and 18, | 0:04:14 | 0:04:17 | |
that's where music in general is going to have its most powerful impact on you. | 0:04:17 | 0:04:22 | |
You're going through a rather treacherous path with puberty and post-adolescence. | 0:04:22 | 0:04:28 | |
The music that they latch onto, it represents who they are or who they want to be. | 0:04:28 | 0:04:35 | |
Pop music started a lot of things. | 0:04:35 | 0:04:37 | |
It's spurred that wonderful thing, which is the joy of every young person, of their | 0:04:37 | 0:04:42 | |
parents shouting up the stairs, "Turn that bloody racket down". | 0:04:42 | 0:04:47 | |
One of the social functions of rock has always been defiance of the older generation | 0:04:50 | 0:04:55 | |
and fencing off a particular kind of experience | 0:04:55 | 0:04:59 | |
that young people have for themselves. | 0:04:59 | 0:05:03 | |
Elvis certainly loved his mum, but... | 0:05:03 | 0:05:06 | |
his every gesture, his every note, | 0:05:06 | 0:05:08 | |
was all about social disenfranchisement and rebellion. | 0:05:08 | 0:05:12 | |
Here's this guy who wears weird clothes. | 0:05:12 | 0:05:14 | |
He wears pink and black, for heaven's sake, like a pimp. | 0:05:14 | 0:05:17 | |
Um...great. | 0:05:17 | 0:05:19 | |
I think what rock and roll invented was a teenager as an end in itself. | 0:05:19 | 0:05:23 | |
As a kind of final product. | 0:05:23 | 0:05:26 | |
As a flower of human life. | 0:05:26 | 0:05:28 | |
Some of these wild young flowers | 0:05:29 | 0:05:31 | |
were picked for rock and roll stardom | 0:05:31 | 0:05:34 | |
by a business now trading in youth. | 0:05:34 | 0:05:36 | |
You always heard these stories that people in English showbusiness were sort of discovered. | 0:05:36 | 0:05:41 | |
Someone was driving along in a car | 0:05:41 | 0:05:43 | |
and they saw this really good-looking kid on the side of the street and they said, | 0:05:43 | 0:05:47 | |
"Get in the car, I'll make you a star". | 0:05:47 | 0:05:49 | |
Well, none of my friends would have got in the car. | 0:05:49 | 0:05:52 | |
Unless they had really good sweets. | 0:05:52 | 0:05:54 | |
The man with the best sweets in town was impresario Larry Parnes, | 0:05:58 | 0:06:03 | |
who ran a stable of hopeful performers. | 0:06:03 | 0:06:06 | |
All you needed to gain entry was to be young, male and good looking. | 0:06:06 | 0:06:10 | |
Once in, Uncle Larry re-christened you for the new youth market. | 0:06:10 | 0:06:16 | |
Hello, Larry Parnes speaking. | 0:06:16 | 0:06:18 | |
Marty Wilde was Reggie Smith. | 0:06:18 | 0:06:21 | |
Vince Ego, Duffy Power, Billy Fury. | 0:06:21 | 0:06:25 | |
He wanted to change my name, would you believe, to Elmer Twitch. | 0:06:25 | 0:06:29 | |
Honest. And I said, "I don't think so, Mr Parnes." | 0:06:29 | 0:06:34 | |
Thank you too, mate. | 0:06:34 | 0:06:36 | |
Well, that just about wraps it up, doesn't it? | 0:06:36 | 0:06:38 | |
Georgie Fame, Lance Fortune, Dickie Pride, | 0:06:38 | 0:06:44 | |
and if you saw them when you were a young, as I did, | 0:06:44 | 0:06:46 | |
they were the only musicians that could play rock in the country, the people that played with them. | 0:06:46 | 0:06:51 | |
They were all sort of handsome, pure-skinned guys that all the girls screamed at. | 0:06:51 | 0:06:56 | |
It was very much aimed at the girls. | 0:06:56 | 0:06:59 | |
The music wasn't taken seriously and it wasn't meant to last. | 0:06:59 | 0:07:03 | |
It was only the soundtrack to growing pains, | 0:07:03 | 0:07:06 | |
temporary and disposable, just like the people who made it. | 0:07:06 | 0:07:10 | |
The newspapers gave rock and roll, as it were, "We give this six months". | 0:07:10 | 0:07:14 | |
A hit or a miss? | 0:07:14 | 0:07:16 | |
There they are. They've said undoubtedly that it's a... | 0:07:16 | 0:07:20 | |
All right. Onto the next. | 0:07:20 | 0:07:22 | |
Nobody ever thought that the pop thing ever had more than, like, a quick innings. Like a short... | 0:07:22 | 0:07:30 | |
"We'll have a look at it and then we'll get rid of them." | 0:07:30 | 0:07:33 | |
Do you think that you've got a good chance of being on stage still at 45, say? | 0:07:33 | 0:07:39 | |
I hope to. I don't know about my chances. | 0:07:39 | 0:07:42 | |
They probably thought, "This will last for a couple of years | 0:07:42 | 0:07:46 | |
"and then I'll go back on the coal". | 0:07:46 | 0:07:49 | |
I think Hank and I wanted desperately to have a career somehow. | 0:07:51 | 0:07:55 | |
Didn't know how. | 0:07:55 | 0:07:57 | |
We just wanted to be up there. | 0:07:57 | 0:07:59 | |
Hank was the first real, young, | 0:08:05 | 0:08:07 | |
talented, seriously talented, player | 0:08:07 | 0:08:11 | |
that came up with exciting, fresh stuff, solos and stuff, | 0:08:11 | 0:08:16 | |
and we were British, so we were the British rock and roll bit. | 0:08:16 | 0:08:21 | |
We started writing, Hank and I, at 16, which was really... | 0:08:25 | 0:08:30 | |
it was crap. But we were writing. | 0:08:30 | 0:08:32 | |
Like, I was 15 and I was in a band and we had a number one record | 0:08:32 | 0:08:36 | |
and I went to the bank and, you know, I thought, "I'll get a loan and maybe buy a car and everything". | 0:08:36 | 0:08:42 | |
"Well, what is your income for next year"? | 0:08:42 | 0:08:46 | |
"Income for...I don't know." "Next." | 0:08:46 | 0:08:49 | |
The grown-ups remained doubtful | 0:08:59 | 0:09:01 | |
that the Beatlemania gripping British youth in the early 60s | 0:09:01 | 0:09:05 | |
was a fever that would last. | 0:09:05 | 0:09:06 | |
# Twist and shout | 0:09:06 | 0:09:08 | |
# C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, baby... # | 0:09:08 | 0:09:10 | |
Even The Beatles accepted the idea of their own in-built obsolescence. | 0:09:10 | 0:09:14 | |
There's a great interview with the Beatles around 1964 or 1965 | 0:09:16 | 0:09:19 | |
where Lennon and McCartney are saying, "Well..." | 0:09:19 | 0:09:22 | |
Obviously we can't keep playing the same sort of music until we're about 40 | 0:09:22 | 0:09:26 | |
because when we're old men playing From Me To You, | 0:09:26 | 0:09:29 | |
nobody's going to want to know at all about that sort of thing. | 0:09:29 | 0:09:32 | |
"Another couple of years and then John and I will write songs for other people, younger people". | 0:09:32 | 0:09:39 | |
The new tyranny of youth meant that by 1963, The Shadows already seemed middle-aged. | 0:09:41 | 0:09:46 | |
By the time the Beatles came, we'd been going nearly five years then. | 0:09:47 | 0:09:51 | |
We were like the Rat Pack because we were in tuxedos, silk shoes, | 0:09:51 | 0:09:56 | |
frilly shirts, bow ties. | 0:09:56 | 0:09:59 | |
It was like Dean Martin on lead guitar, Frank singing. | 0:09:59 | 0:10:05 | |
Whereas all the new stuff, the Beatles with their hair | 0:10:05 | 0:10:07 | |
and the funny collars, they were cool, they were young. | 0:10:07 | 0:10:10 | |
We were like, we were the establishment. | 0:10:10 | 0:10:13 | |
When the Manfreds formed, I was the youngest one in the group. | 0:10:15 | 0:10:19 | |
Manfred said, as we were rehearsing | 0:10:19 | 0:10:24 | |
in his terrifyingly cold flat in south-east London... | 0:10:24 | 0:10:29 | |
.."Man, we're going to be bigger than The Shadows". | 0:10:30 | 0:10:34 | |
And I thought, "Well, of course we are. | 0:10:34 | 0:10:38 | |
"Because they're old." | 0:10:38 | 0:10:39 | |
And of course, they were two years older than me. | 0:10:39 | 0:10:42 | |
# And tonight, you would hear | 0:10:42 | 0:10:46 | |
# The saddest song of the year | 0:10:46 | 0:10:50 | |
# And you'd be mine once again come tomorrow. # | 0:10:50 | 0:10:56 | |
In 1965, The Who recorded one of the ultimate anthems to youth. | 0:11:01 | 0:11:06 | |
One that damned growing up and growing old. | 0:11:06 | 0:11:09 | |
The young went on the offensive, claiming their territory through guitar, bass and drums. | 0:11:09 | 0:11:14 | |
With me, it was like, bam, OK. | 0:11:22 | 0:11:25 | |
You either like it or you don't. | 0:11:25 | 0:11:27 | |
Rock was full impact music | 0:11:27 | 0:11:30 | |
for young people who wanted to go out, have a good time, | 0:11:30 | 0:11:34 | |
have sex, spend a bit of money, | 0:11:34 | 0:11:38 | |
create tribes for themselves, whether it was the mods and the rockers, you name it. | 0:11:38 | 0:11:43 | |
They wanted music that related to their condition | 0:11:43 | 0:11:47 | |
and was on the cutting edge | 0:11:47 | 0:11:50 | |
of the youth experience in whatever era they lived through. | 0:11:50 | 0:11:54 | |
The older generation were still recovering from a world war and just wanted some peace and some quiet. | 0:11:57 | 0:12:02 | |
To the younger generation, old age just seemed boring. | 0:12:02 | 0:12:06 | |
Our image of it was our image of our parents and so that's what we thought age was, | 0:12:08 | 0:12:13 | |
a father who was coming up for retirement, | 0:12:13 | 0:12:16 | |
certainly by the middle-late 60s they would be retired. | 0:12:16 | 0:12:20 | |
The extent of their activity would be going fishing, pottering in the garden. | 0:12:20 | 0:12:24 | |
So, it was very much a kind of a life that had folded down | 0:12:24 | 0:12:28 | |
and had stopped being in any way innovative | 0:12:28 | 0:12:31 | |
and in any way full of changes. | 0:12:31 | 0:12:33 | |
I think the whole point about the baby boom generation | 0:12:33 | 0:12:36 | |
was that we made it up from the beginning | 0:12:36 | 0:12:38 | |
and we've been making it up ever since | 0:12:38 | 0:12:41 | |
and we've been pushing those barriers forward | 0:12:41 | 0:12:43 | |
and refusing to accept the idea of being old. | 0:12:43 | 0:12:46 | |
# Hope I die before I get old. # | 0:12:46 | 0:12:48 | |
How long do you think audiences are going to go on accepting this music that hasn't got any quality? | 0:12:48 | 0:12:53 | |
Don't you think people are going to suddenly come to the conclusion... | 0:12:53 | 0:12:56 | |
What has got quality in the pop business? | 0:12:56 | 0:12:58 | |
What's got quality in anything? It's just a matter of standard. | 0:12:58 | 0:13:02 | |
In the pop business, we're lucky that there are no standards, you know. | 0:13:02 | 0:13:06 | |
In My Generation, you wrote, "I hope I die before I get old". | 0:13:06 | 0:13:09 | |
-Do you in fact mean this? -Yes. | 0:13:09 | 0:13:11 | |
He wasn't saying that, "That is the case", he was saying that that is how young men feel. | 0:13:11 | 0:13:17 | |
He was reflecting a kind of new confidence in being young. | 0:13:17 | 0:13:24 | |
Ironically, the British beat boom of the mid-60s was, to a large extent, based on music that was already old. | 0:13:25 | 0:13:33 | |
Bands like The Stones, The Animals and Manfred Mann worshiped American blues of the 20s, 30s and 40s. | 0:13:33 | 0:13:40 | |
# I'm in a mood, baby... # | 0:13:41 | 0:13:45 | |
Their recording heroes were still alive, but were, by rock and roll's new standards, old men. | 0:13:45 | 0:13:51 | |
The first music I listened to was jazz | 0:13:53 | 0:13:57 | |
and then when I started to listen to blues, people were all mature. | 0:13:57 | 0:14:02 | |
Miles Davis was born in 1925. Charlie Parker, likewise. | 0:14:02 | 0:14:08 | |
Muddy Waters was born in 1914 or something. | 0:14:09 | 0:14:12 | |
I thought, "I don't care about young people, anyway." | 0:14:12 | 0:14:16 | |
Youth culture, youth movement, | 0:14:17 | 0:14:19 | |
youthful-isation of pop and all that, | 0:14:19 | 0:14:23 | |
has always been mostly complete shit. | 0:14:23 | 0:14:27 | |
It's just been about seizure and marketing of a folk movement | 0:14:27 | 0:14:35 | |
by the same old commercial and industrial forces that take anything | 0:14:35 | 0:14:41 | |
and try to just identify the most defenceless consumer. | 0:14:41 | 0:14:47 | |
# I'll satisfy your every need | 0:14:47 | 0:14:51 | |
# Every need... # | 0:14:51 | 0:14:52 | |
The narcissistic rebelliousness of British rock and roll, | 0:14:52 | 0:14:56 | |
young, gifted and white, gathered speed with The Rolling Stones. | 0:14:56 | 0:15:00 | |
# Let's spend the night together... # | 0:15:00 | 0:15:03 | |
While The Who were busy burying the older generation, | 0:15:03 | 0:15:07 | |
The Stones were singing about finding their satisfaction in sex. | 0:15:07 | 0:15:12 | |
-# Let's spend the night together. -# Come on, baby. # | 0:15:14 | 0:15:17 | |
'Obviously, you know, rock and roll, especially when you're a young band,' | 0:15:17 | 0:15:22 | |
there's a lot of testosterone flying around. | 0:15:22 | 0:15:24 | |
It has all those great sexual connotations. | 0:15:24 | 0:15:27 | |
Largely, the rock and roll myth has been built up around that sexual thing as well, which is very true. | 0:15:27 | 0:15:35 | |
I'm meeting audiences today that probably, | 0:15:36 | 0:15:39 | |
even with the help of Viagra, they're not going to be into sex, but they still love the music. | 0:15:39 | 0:15:45 | |
# Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm 64? # | 0:15:45 | 0:15:53 | |
The arrival of album culture in the late 60s | 0:15:53 | 0:15:55 | |
proved that rock and roll was now thinking more in the long term. | 0:15:55 | 0:15:59 | |
It didn't sound disposable any more. | 0:15:59 | 0:16:01 | |
It was growing up, just like the people who made it. | 0:16:01 | 0:16:06 | |
The Beatles' Sgt Pepper's album dared to imagine what life would be like at 64, | 0:16:06 | 0:16:11 | |
completely unthinkable for My Generation. | 0:16:11 | 0:16:14 | |
People did think Sgt Pepper was going to last. | 0:16:16 | 0:16:18 | |
They might not have thought that Beatles For Sale was going to last, | 0:16:18 | 0:16:22 | |
cos that was still a pop record, | 0:16:22 | 0:16:23 | |
but I think by the time they'd spent £13,000 recording Sgt Pepper's, | 0:16:23 | 0:16:28 | |
they weren't expecting that to be toast by Christmas. | 0:16:28 | 0:16:31 | |
It went serious. | 0:16:34 | 0:16:36 | |
Quite a bit serious. | 0:16:36 | 0:16:39 | |
The 20-year-old experienced musicians | 0:16:39 | 0:16:43 | |
started to take things a bit seriously and think, "Where can we go, what's different?" | 0:16:43 | 0:16:47 | |
Of course, it dragged along the kids as well, but only of a certain age. | 0:16:47 | 0:16:54 | |
People were able to... They were growing up with these bands | 0:16:54 | 0:16:58 | |
and they were able to sort of | 0:16:58 | 0:17:01 | |
appreciate a bit more depth lyrically and musically. | 0:17:01 | 0:17:06 | |
# That her face at first just ghostly | 0:17:08 | 0:17:13 | |
# Turned a whiter shade of pale. # | 0:17:13 | 0:17:18 | |
I always did think that "Somebody is going to be listening to this | 0:17:18 | 0:17:21 | |
"in five years' time", you know, ten years' time. | 0:17:21 | 0:17:24 | |
If rock and roll was attempting to grow up, the grown ups weren't having it. | 0:17:31 | 0:17:36 | |
They're response to this more mature form of musical expression was just as parental. | 0:17:36 | 0:17:40 | |
These new, better educated kids on the block should still be seen but not heard. | 0:17:40 | 0:17:44 | |
Daddy had spoken. | 0:17:44 | 0:17:47 | |
I remember seeing the Pink Floyd when Syd Barrett was in the group being interviewed. | 0:17:51 | 0:17:55 | |
It was the only televised interview with Syd Barrett, in fact, | 0:17:55 | 0:17:59 | |
and Roger Waters is sitting next to him | 0:17:59 | 0:18:02 | |
and here's some crusty old kind of Swiss, | 0:18:02 | 0:18:05 | |
bad classical composer saying, "Well, it's all too loud. It's all too...I can't...". | 0:18:05 | 0:18:10 | |
For me, frankly, it's too loud. I just can't bear it. | 0:18:10 | 0:18:13 | |
I happen to have grown up in the string quartet, which is a bit softer. | 0:18:13 | 0:18:17 | |
So, why has it got to be so loud? | 0:18:17 | 0:18:20 | |
Just being totally condescending and they're sitting there | 0:18:20 | 0:18:23 | |
and they're trying to defend themselves at the same time. | 0:18:23 | 0:18:25 | |
I mean, everybody listens. We don't need it very loud to be able to hear it. | 0:18:25 | 0:18:29 | |
Some of it is very quiet, in fact. Personally, I like quiet music just as much as loud music. | 0:18:29 | 0:18:34 | |
The end of the 60s saw the beginning of the rock and roll casualty list. | 0:18:37 | 0:18:40 | |
The death of Brian Jones in 1969 seemed to crystallise a live fast, die young attitude, | 0:18:40 | 0:18:48 | |
and brought a new reality to, "Hope I die before I get old." | 0:18:48 | 0:18:52 | |
There has long been in human culture the tradition of sacrificing the young men. | 0:18:54 | 0:19:01 | |
It's a recurring theme. | 0:19:01 | 0:19:03 | |
Mozart, Jesus and Charlie Parker all died in their mid-thirties. | 0:19:03 | 0:19:09 | |
If you really want to be a rock star, die young, because then you've fulfilled your role. | 0:19:11 | 0:19:16 | |
Your only role was to be young. | 0:19:16 | 0:19:19 | |
Yeah, I was thinking of writing a song called 27 Forever | 0:19:22 | 0:19:26 | |
cos Jimi died when he was 27, Janis and Jim Morrison, you know. | 0:19:26 | 0:19:33 | |
that will be the chorus, | 0:19:33 | 0:19:34 | |
# 27 forever! # | 0:19:34 | 0:19:39 | |
I tried living fast and dying young and it just didn't work. | 0:19:41 | 0:19:47 | |
The closest I got to death was on LSD and I realised it was the drug. | 0:19:47 | 0:19:52 | |
It wasn't real. | 0:19:52 | 0:19:54 | |
I was only living for the moment, that's for sure. | 0:19:56 | 0:19:58 | |
And, in fact, I had the youth ideology. I didn't expect to live long. | 0:19:58 | 0:20:03 | |
I didn't even learn to do anything properly. I couldn't see the point, | 0:20:03 | 0:20:06 | |
since I had no intention of living long enough to need to know anything very much. | 0:20:06 | 0:20:09 | |
The 1960s were a vertiginously steep learning curve for me. And I didn't get anything right. | 0:20:14 | 0:20:21 | |
In a way, I suppose people expected casualties at that point | 0:20:32 | 0:20:36 | |
because it still was a risky business, | 0:20:36 | 0:20:38 | |
even if you were only a risk to yourself. | 0:20:38 | 0:20:40 | |
When Syd Barrett had his LSD-induced breakdown, there hadn't been any LSD-induced breakdowns. | 0:20:40 | 0:20:48 | |
Even Jimi Hendrix or Jim Morrison, with all those people, | 0:20:48 | 0:20:52 | |
I feel like their demise was part of their trajectory. | 0:20:52 | 0:20:56 | |
They weren't cut off. | 0:20:56 | 0:20:57 | |
Basically, my youth was... | 0:20:57 | 0:21:00 | |
I consider it a failure as an event in itself. | 0:21:00 | 0:21:04 | |
I had to live longer to get anything done. | 0:21:04 | 0:21:07 | |
That's all I know. I had to live this long | 0:21:07 | 0:21:10 | |
in order to just to get every third or fourth track on every third or fourth record I make spot on. | 0:21:10 | 0:21:18 | |
# You'll be different in the spring | 0:21:18 | 0:21:23 | |
# I know you're a seasonal beast | 0:21:23 | 0:21:26 | |
# Like the star fish that drift in with the tide | 0:21:28 | 0:21:34 | |
# With the tide | 0:21:34 | 0:21:37 | |
# So until your blood runs | 0:21:37 | 0:21:41 | |
# To meet the next full moon | 0:21:41 | 0:21:45 | |
# Your madness fits in nicely | 0:21:45 | 0:21:49 | |
# With my own, with my own | 0:21:49 | 0:21:53 | |
# Your lunacy fits neatly with my own. # | 0:21:53 | 0:22:00 | |
It's perfectly accepted for everyone, from poets to politicians, that they mature as they get older. | 0:22:00 | 0:22:06 | |
This is expected. | 0:22:06 | 0:22:08 | |
Especially in really important things like wine and brandy and...serious stuff. | 0:22:08 | 0:22:13 | |
The Stones themselves seemed determined to mature. | 0:22:17 | 0:22:19 | |
After the death of Brian Jones, they picked themselves up and went back on the road. | 0:22:19 | 0:22:24 | |
For the band, it wasn't over yet. | 0:22:24 | 0:22:26 | |
The Stones had been in serious decline at least three or four times, | 0:22:28 | 0:22:31 | |
where, musically, they've been at a dead end | 0:22:31 | 0:22:35 | |
and I don't know if it's Jagger or Richards or whoever, | 0:22:35 | 0:22:38 | |
but someone has picked them up by the scruff | 0:22:38 | 0:22:41 | |
and said, "OK, now we're going to be this." | 0:22:41 | 0:22:43 | |
# Oh, get down brown sugar | 0:22:43 | 0:22:47 | |
# Just like a young girl should | 0:22:47 | 0:22:50 | |
# Oh, get down, get down, brown sugar | 0:22:50 | 0:22:54 | |
# How come, how come, how come... # | 0:22:54 | 0:22:58 | |
If The Stones had discovered the secret of survival, at least for now, The Beatles didn't. | 0:23:07 | 0:23:13 | |
As if to prove that longevity in rock and roll was still a struggle | 0:23:15 | 0:23:19 | |
for a group of young men growing up together, they split in 1970. | 0:23:19 | 0:23:24 | |
You know, I was a kid, I was a young kid | 0:23:27 | 0:23:30 | |
and I saw the Beatles go to London | 0:23:30 | 0:23:32 | |
and one meets Jane Asher and one meets Patti Boyd | 0:23:32 | 0:23:35 | |
and then they stop hanging around together | 0:23:35 | 0:23:37 | |
because you probably don't want to hang around with Ringo | 0:23:37 | 0:23:41 | |
when you've got Patti Boyd or Jane Asher waiting, you know what I mean? | 0:23:41 | 0:23:45 | |
So, I was there. They hung out together, seriously. | 0:23:45 | 0:23:49 | |
They'd be in the dressing room behind at Top of the Pops, | 0:23:49 | 0:23:53 | |
writing Paperback Writer, two of them, you know, two lads, | 0:23:53 | 0:23:58 | |
and bit by bit they were separated by their careers and the money | 0:23:58 | 0:24:03 | |
and they moved to another city, they weren't exposed to the same... You see it all the time. | 0:24:03 | 0:24:08 | |
You know, people make it and they leave behind what it was that made them what they are. | 0:24:08 | 0:24:15 | |
I mean, Paul McCartney, it was a very gentle slope down, if you like. | 0:24:15 | 0:24:21 | |
Lennon never really recovered from Primal Therapy. | 0:24:21 | 0:24:24 | |
Even Harrison, who had been desperate to get out of the Beatles, | 0:24:24 | 0:24:27 | |
once there were no Beatles to compete against, somehow, | 0:24:27 | 0:24:30 | |
didn't seem to have anything to compete with. | 0:24:30 | 0:24:32 | |
The Fab Four would go on to enjoy successful solo careers for many years to come. | 0:24:35 | 0:24:39 | |
But would the surge of creativity that fed them in their youth | 0:24:39 | 0:24:43 | |
prove more elusive for them and their generation as they grew older? | 0:24:43 | 0:24:47 | |
Mick Jagger and Pete Townshend and Paul McCartney can go play arenas 40 years after they first had hits. | 0:24:52 | 0:25:00 | |
Great. | 0:25:00 | 0:25:02 | |
But...they ain't writing good songs. You know. | 0:25:02 | 0:25:07 | |
The outpouring of creativity that creates this career | 0:25:07 | 0:25:12 | |
is a factor of youth. | 0:25:12 | 0:25:14 | |
I don't think it's depressing to admit | 0:25:14 | 0:25:16 | |
that you're probably going to do your best stuff | 0:25:16 | 0:25:19 | |
by the time you're 30 as a musician. | 0:25:19 | 0:25:20 | |
I think most people get it right in their first and second albums. | 0:25:20 | 0:25:25 | |
# Something tells me I'm into something good | 0:25:25 | 0:25:31 | |
It's rare that beyond that, people don't just do another version of the same stuff. | 0:25:31 | 0:25:38 | |
# Something good Oh yeah, something good... # | 0:25:38 | 0:25:42 | |
You don't need the hardening of the synapse to be a great musician, | 0:25:42 | 0:25:48 | |
you know, or to write a good song. | 0:25:48 | 0:25:50 | |
No performer of the early 70s demonstrated rock and roll's | 0:25:53 | 0:25:56 | |
reliance on youthful invention and raw power more than Iggy Pop. | 0:25:56 | 0:26:01 | |
As I'm older, | 0:26:03 | 0:26:04 | |
I don't think I can write a rock song like I used to. | 0:26:04 | 0:26:08 | |
I can sing it good. | 0:26:08 | 0:26:11 | |
I can sing one of my own songs better than anybody else, | 0:26:11 | 0:26:15 | |
but to write a new one, it is hard to get them that good | 0:26:15 | 0:26:19 | |
because you don't have the animal energy to work with. | 0:26:19 | 0:26:23 | |
You don't have the same amount of animal energy. | 0:26:23 | 0:26:27 | |
I find. I'm being honest. | 0:26:27 | 0:26:28 | |
But not all rock and roll of the early 70s was an expression | 0:26:31 | 0:26:35 | |
of sexual energy and youthful physicality. | 0:26:35 | 0:26:38 | |
By now, prog rock was plundering the classical music collections | 0:26:40 | 0:26:44 | |
so beloved of its middle class parents | 0:26:44 | 0:26:46 | |
as proof of its intention to last, | 0:26:46 | 0:26:49 | |
while its perpetrators contemplated careers beyond the age of 30. | 0:26:49 | 0:26:53 | |
I remember when I started in the 60s and doing things. | 0:26:56 | 0:26:59 | |
People said, "What are you going to do when you're in your 20s?" | 0:26:59 | 0:27:02 | |
I said, "Don't know". | 0:27:02 | 0:27:03 | |
And then when you're still doing it in your 20s, they say, | 0:27:06 | 0:27:08 | |
"What are you going to do in your 30s"? I said, "I don't know". | 0:27:08 | 0:27:11 | |
Then you find you're in your 30s and people say, "What are you going to do in your 40s? You go, | 0:27:13 | 0:27:18 | |
"There's a reasonable chance I could still be doing this". | 0:27:18 | 0:27:21 | |
As a result, performers found themselves living with their songs and growing into their material. | 0:27:24 | 0:27:32 | |
I go through stages where there's certain songs | 0:27:35 | 0:27:38 | |
that it's, "Oh, no, I cant do that again". | 0:27:38 | 0:27:41 | |
And then, I've been doing it so long, it goes around in a circle | 0:27:41 | 0:27:46 | |
and it comes back into fashion again, you know. | 0:27:46 | 0:27:50 | |
We Got To Get Out Of This Place has been, like, so successful at different times and spaces. | 0:27:50 | 0:27:55 | |
It was the most successful song that troops requested constantly for 10 years in Vietnam. | 0:27:55 | 0:28:02 | |
# We got to get out of this place, baby | 0:28:02 | 0:28:05 | |
# If it's the last thing we ever do... # | 0:28:05 | 0:28:07 | |
And then it faded away and went away again. | 0:28:07 | 0:28:11 | |
And then Iraq, all the troops requested We Got To Get Out Of This Place. | 0:28:11 | 0:28:15 | |
# We got to get out of this place... # | 0:28:15 | 0:28:19 | |
It's a written in the contract. "We want him to come down here | 0:28:19 | 0:28:22 | |
"but he's got to sing We Got To Get Out Of This Place". | 0:28:22 | 0:28:24 | |
It's written in the contract. It's weird. | 0:28:24 | 0:28:27 | |
And there's a wonderful, wonderful version by Joni Mitchell | 0:28:27 | 0:28:32 | |
of a song that she did when she was young, Both Sides Now. | 0:28:32 | 0:28:35 | |
It's an eye wateringly wonderful song. | 0:28:35 | 0:28:38 | |
# Bows and flows of angel hair | 0:28:38 | 0:28:42 | |
# And ice cream castles in the air... # | 0:28:42 | 0:28:47 | |
And she sang it began in her 50s, I think about an octave lower, with an orchestra. | 0:28:48 | 0:28:55 | |
# I've looked at clouds that way | 0:28:55 | 0:28:57 | |
# But now they only block the sun... # | 0:28:58 | 0:29:02 | |
It's so moving because you think it's taken her three decades | 0:29:02 | 0:29:08 | |
and now she understands the song she wrote when she was in her youth. | 0:29:08 | 0:29:11 | |
# So many things I would have done | 0:29:11 | 0:29:15 | |
# But clouds got in my way | 0:29:18 | 0:29:20 | |
# I've looked at clouds from both sides now | 0:29:23 | 0:29:28 | |
# From up and down and still somehow | 0:29:28 | 0:29:33 | |
# It's cloud illusions I recall | 0:29:33 | 0:29:37 | |
# I really don't know clouds | 0:29:40 | 0:29:43 | |
# At all. # | 0:29:48 | 0:29:49 | |
In 1976, before the 60s generation had a chance to mature, | 0:29:54 | 0:29:58 | |
they were rudely thrust aside by punk. | 0:29:58 | 0:30:00 | |
Either you make a punk record or we don't know what to do. | 0:30:01 | 0:30:05 | |
You have to just pack up, go, go and do something else. | 0:30:05 | 0:30:08 | |
It was a three-chord reign of terror. The ultimate Oedipal act, | 0:30:08 | 0:30:11 | |
snarling, spitting and clawing its way to the stage. | 0:30:11 | 0:30:16 | |
It was best to just keep a low profile for a while. | 0:30:16 | 0:30:21 | |
These weren't kids of the optimistic 60s, but a new, young generation who felt abandoned. | 0:30:21 | 0:30:28 | |
Everyone was in their way, and, as always, no-one understood them. | 0:30:28 | 0:30:33 | |
-I know what I would do with them. -What would you do with them? -Give them a bloody good hiding. | 0:30:33 | 0:30:37 | |
I went to the Roxy Club when I was about 16, | 0:30:38 | 0:30:40 | |
which was the big punk club, and there was a band on called Eater. | 0:30:40 | 0:30:44 | |
I think the average age of them was 14. | 0:30:44 | 0:30:46 | |
So, yeah, there was a definite feeling that it was a time for young people. | 0:30:46 | 0:30:50 | |
Punk represented the kind of reckless joy | 0:30:52 | 0:30:55 | |
that I remembered that we had at that age, when we were young. | 0:30:55 | 0:31:00 | |
That recklessness of youth, I think, is a great, valuable contribution of new youth culture. | 0:31:00 | 0:31:06 | |
You think, "Blimey, I've forgotten to be that brave." | 0:31:06 | 0:31:09 | |
When punk came along, I felt too old. | 0:31:09 | 0:31:11 | |
I thought, I can't pretend the Beatles never happened. | 0:31:11 | 0:31:15 | |
I don't think music began with Siouxsie and the Banshees. | 0:31:15 | 0:31:18 | |
All of the main people in punk, John Lydon, The Sex Pistols, | 0:31:20 | 0:31:24 | |
The Clash, The Damned, they had a big thing for the Rolling Stones. | 0:31:24 | 0:31:29 | |
Joe Strummer, huge fan of the Stones. | 0:31:29 | 0:31:31 | |
The Who, all those groups, they loved them. | 0:31:31 | 0:31:35 | |
It was just a pose on their part to say, you know, they're passed it. | 0:31:35 | 0:31:39 | |
# No Elvis, Beatles or the Rolling Stones... # | 0:31:39 | 0:31:43 | |
One of the problems is, when you're young, you're part of that group. | 0:31:45 | 0:31:50 | |
You run things. | 0:31:50 | 0:31:52 | |
It's very easy to forget that coming up underneath is the next lot and then one day, you sort of, like, | 0:31:52 | 0:31:59 | |
fall of the end of the cliff and drop down and they take over | 0:31:59 | 0:32:02 | |
and when you look back up at the cliff, you think, | 0:32:02 | 0:32:04 | |
"Oh, shit, is this what's going on"? What happens is, | 0:32:04 | 0:32:08 | |
they'll just pelt stuff down. They'll just drop rocks on you. | 0:32:08 | 0:32:12 | |
# No more heroes any more No more heroes any more... # | 0:32:12 | 0:32:18 | |
I suppose it was an easy target in those big punk rock groups. | 0:32:18 | 0:32:22 | |
They just were, because, if you had no money and you were playing in your local pub, | 0:32:22 | 0:32:26 | |
you weren't going to be wearing a great big cape and have 44 keyboards, of course. | 0:32:26 | 0:32:30 | |
Now you see punks who are 40 years old, plus, | 0:32:31 | 0:32:35 | |
and time is a great leveller and you look at these guys | 0:32:35 | 0:32:39 | |
who've still got the sort of things through their nose and stuff | 0:32:39 | 0:32:43 | |
but, you know, time has made them more mature | 0:32:43 | 0:32:48 | |
and given them some perspective on who they are as human beings. | 0:32:48 | 0:32:52 | |
I sort of like that. I think that's nice. | 0:32:52 | 0:32:54 | |
I like to see old punks. It warms my heart. | 0:32:54 | 0:32:58 | |
This should've been our next single, but they wouldn't play it on the radio. | 0:32:58 | 0:33:01 | |
It's called Too Much, Too Young. | 0:33:01 | 0:33:03 | |
# You done too much, much too young | 0:33:05 | 0:33:07 | |
# You're married with a kid When you could be having fun with me | 0:33:07 | 0:33:11 | |
# Oh, no, no gimme no more pickni. # | 0:33:11 | 0:33:16 | |
The bands of the post-punk era, though less dismissive of the past, | 0:33:16 | 0:33:20 | |
still believed that rock and pop music were part of an essentially young experience. | 0:33:20 | 0:33:24 | |
Only now, that experience was of Thatcher's Britain, | 0:33:24 | 0:33:28 | |
one that the older generation of established bands seemed to ignore. | 0:33:28 | 0:33:32 | |
When I was 16, my favourite act was Elvis Costello, | 0:33:35 | 0:33:37 | |
and you're just talking about five years' difference. | 0:33:37 | 0:33:40 | |
It's big when you're young. | 0:33:40 | 0:33:42 | |
So he seemed like an old geezer to me | 0:33:42 | 0:33:44 | |
and I don't think that it was so much that you were looking for someone who had a similar age, | 0:33:44 | 0:33:48 | |
I think you were looking for someone that could speak for you, really. | 0:33:48 | 0:33:52 | |
When you're 14, you do think someone who is 28 is really old, and certainly 30 is way past it. | 0:33:52 | 0:33:57 | |
I think I remember saying at the time is, even when I wrote Baggy Trousers when I was probably about 19, saying, | 0:33:57 | 0:34:03 | |
"I will never sing this song when I'm 30, because I'll be too old". | 0:34:03 | 0:34:07 | |
# The headmaster's had enough today | 0:34:07 | 0:34:09 | |
# All the kids have gone away Gone to fight with next door's school | 0:34:09 | 0:34:12 | |
# Every term, that is the rule | 0:34:12 | 0:34:14 | |
# Sits alone and bends his cane Same old backsides again | 0:34:14 | 0:34:17 | |
# All the small ones tell tall tales | 0:34:17 | 0:34:18 | |
# Walking home and squashing snails... # | 0:34:18 | 0:34:20 | |
But no, the feeling was that if you were over 25, | 0:34:20 | 0:34:23 | |
you were too old to be in a band, certainly when I started. | 0:34:23 | 0:34:26 | |
# Oh what fun we had But at the time it seemed so bad | 0:34:26 | 0:34:30 | |
# Trying different ways to make a difference to the days... # | 0:34:30 | 0:34:33 | |
I do believe I'm a better act older than I was younger. | 0:34:33 | 0:34:38 | |
That doesn't mean to say that you haven't already written the best song you're going to write, | 0:34:38 | 0:34:43 | |
but I think there's a greater depth to being a performer than just the writing part. | 0:34:43 | 0:34:48 | |
# All I need was the love you gave | 0:34:48 | 0:34:52 | |
# All I needed for another day | 0:34:52 | 0:34:56 | |
# And all I ever knew | 0:34:56 | 0:35:00 | |
# Only you. # | 0:35:00 | 0:35:02 | |
It's having a greater understanding of emotion, of sex, | 0:35:02 | 0:35:06 | |
of all of those things | 0:35:06 | 0:35:07 | |
that allow you to put a message across, or to communicate. | 0:35:07 | 0:35:11 | |
To communicate, I think, you know. I've become a better communicator. | 0:35:11 | 0:35:15 | |
In the early '80s, The Stones were back, again, having been absent from the stage for six years | 0:35:18 | 0:35:24 | |
while punk and its aftermath had been the centre of attention. | 0:35:24 | 0:35:27 | |
They were proving that they were in for the long haul. | 0:35:27 | 0:35:30 | |
No-one was going to call, "Time, gentlemen, please" on them. | 0:35:30 | 0:35:33 | |
# Under my thumb | 0:35:33 | 0:35:35 | |
# There's a woman | 0:35:35 | 0:35:37 | |
# Who once had me down... # | 0:35:37 | 0:35:40 | |
Knocking on 40. How old are you now? | 0:35:40 | 0:35:42 | |
I'm 38, so I'm not 40. | 0:35:42 | 0:35:44 | |
Er, I think I could do this particular kind of physical show | 0:35:44 | 0:35:48 | |
for about another...say five years. | 0:35:48 | 0:35:53 | |
So, I said to myself last year, | 0:35:53 | 0:35:57 | |
I figure I can only do it for five years, this kind of show. | 0:35:57 | 0:36:00 | |
After that it's going to look like Barry Manilow, | 0:36:00 | 0:36:02 | |
or, I can still sing, but you know, I can't do all this other nonsense. | 0:36:02 | 0:36:06 | |
How would you feel if it suddenly all started to fade | 0:36:06 | 0:36:08 | |
and suddenly they'd had enough? | 0:36:08 | 0:36:09 | |
It doesn't happen like that, does it? | 0:36:09 | 0:36:11 | |
It sort of slowly, slowly they sink into oblivion. | 0:36:11 | 0:36:19 | |
It doesn't all stop and no-one comes, you know what I mean? | 0:36:19 | 0:36:23 | |
But I can understand your fears for me, but still, | 0:36:23 | 0:36:26 | |
you know, we'll soldier on, you know? | 0:36:26 | 0:36:29 | |
Thank you. Good evening. It's so nice to be back. | 0:36:29 | 0:36:36 | |
In July 1985 the benefits of soldiering on | 0:36:36 | 0:36:39 | |
reached unexpected and unprecedented heights with Live Aid. | 0:36:39 | 0:36:44 | |
The international event sometimes looked like a rock and roll Dads Army | 0:36:44 | 0:36:48 | |
as acts like Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, The Who | 0:36:48 | 0:36:51 | |
and The Beach Boys joined pop stars of the '80s on stage. | 0:36:51 | 0:36:55 | |
Watched by more than 400 million viewers in 60 countries, | 0:36:58 | 0:37:02 | |
this was the rock and roll survivors' finest hour. | 0:37:02 | 0:37:06 | |
Suddenly, being 40 no longer meant being uncool. | 0:37:06 | 0:37:09 | |
These were the masters, the legends, | 0:37:11 | 0:37:15 | |
the acts deemed capable of feeding the world. | 0:37:15 | 0:37:18 | |
Now some years ago within spitting distance of the stadium, | 0:37:18 | 0:37:22 | |
four Londoners formed a band to speak for their generation. | 0:37:22 | 0:37:26 | |
They eventually spoke for two. Now they sing to save a third. | 0:37:26 | 0:37:31 | |
Please welcome The Who! | 0:37:31 | 0:37:33 | |
The previous establishment, did come back in. | 0:37:35 | 0:37:38 | |
They did poke their heads above the parapet again. | 0:37:38 | 0:37:42 | |
And, of course, it was ideal for anybody that was still capable | 0:37:45 | 0:37:49 | |
of playing and singing from an older school. | 0:37:49 | 0:37:52 | |
What was your... Your opposition now was the New Romantics. | 0:37:52 | 0:37:57 | |
I mean, easy job. | 0:37:57 | 0:37:58 | |
I have the pleasure of introducing to you a group that's been together for 25 years. | 0:37:58 | 0:38:05 | |
A lot of young people heard some bands for the first time, | 0:38:05 | 0:38:12 | |
some older bands, and went, "These are fantastic!" | 0:38:12 | 0:38:16 | |
And then the most hated people in their musical vocabulary, their parents, said, | 0:38:16 | 0:38:23 | |
"We love them, too." | 0:38:23 | 0:38:26 | |
I'd like to welcome Alison Moyet! | 0:38:26 | 0:38:29 | |
I was picked up in a helicopter with Bono and David Bowie, which was, like, you know. | 0:38:31 | 0:38:35 | |
When I get out of the helicopter I've got Roger Daltrey waving at me | 0:38:35 | 0:38:39 | |
and Freddie Mercury blowing me kisses and it's like, these are, you know, bona fide stars. | 0:38:39 | 0:38:45 | |
I mean, these are the real deal, do you know what I mean? | 0:38:45 | 0:38:48 | |
And, um, so that was kind of a, blew me away, but maybe all it does, | 0:38:48 | 0:38:53 | |
putting those people back on the stage again, | 0:38:53 | 0:38:55 | |
is just reminding people that they really loved those acts. | 0:38:55 | 0:38:58 | |
# Someone still loves you. # | 0:38:58 | 0:39:04 | |
There were, of, course, no rules yet in place for how the older generation of rockers should behave. | 0:39:09 | 0:39:14 | |
How to grow old gracefully or disgracefully, | 0:39:14 | 0:39:17 | |
especially given their essentially youthful, often rebellious back catalogue. | 0:39:17 | 0:39:23 | |
The notion that an artist would be unsettled, | 0:39:27 | 0:39:32 | |
or even disturbed by the fact that having been a rebel in his youth | 0:39:32 | 0:39:37 | |
that he finds himself re-enacting it 10, 20, 30, 40 years thereafter | 0:39:37 | 0:39:43 | |
is, you know, an intellectual critic's construct that has no meaning in real life. | 0:39:43 | 0:39:49 | |
Real life happens in a series of nanoseconds that get strung out, you know, one after the other. | 0:39:50 | 0:39:56 | |
And moment by moment by moment... | 0:39:56 | 0:40:00 | |
people like to survive. | 0:40:00 | 0:40:02 | |
I mean, did these guys, you know, like their fathers, my father as well, | 0:40:02 | 0:40:07 | |
spend six years of the Second World War in a foxhole, you know, dodging bullets? | 0:40:07 | 0:40:13 | |
I mean, now that's something to survive, OK? | 0:40:13 | 0:40:17 | |
Taking a lot of drugs and lying on a ratty old mattress, | 0:40:17 | 0:40:21 | |
it's a lot easier to survive that. | 0:40:21 | 0:40:23 | |
# I can see it in your eyes Take one look and die. # | 0:40:23 | 0:40:27 | |
And survive they did, some despite the booze, the drugs | 0:40:28 | 0:40:32 | |
and a life spent almost entirely on the road. That's why we love them. | 0:40:32 | 0:40:36 | |
Motorhead's Lemmy may not have had to dodge bullets, | 0:40:40 | 0:40:43 | |
but by any reasonable standards he should be dead. | 0:40:43 | 0:40:46 | |
I've been on the road now, man and boy, for almost three years. I'm actually only 17. | 0:40:49 | 0:40:56 | |
I mean there's some days you don't feel like it as much as others, | 0:40:57 | 0:41:00 | |
but I'm sure that's much the same in plumbing, you know? | 0:41:00 | 0:41:03 | |
Some days you don't feel like standing up to your arse in cold water, you know? | 0:41:03 | 0:41:07 | |
Do you think it's a bit weird though? | 0:41:07 | 0:41:09 | |
There was all that, you know, live fast, die young thing in rock music earlier on. | 0:41:09 | 0:41:13 | |
A lot of them did, you know. It's fair enough. I didn't think of much of a plan really. | 0:41:13 | 0:41:18 | |
You know, I thought live fast, keep going. Much more fun. | 0:41:20 | 0:41:23 | |
My hair is not having a good day already. | 0:41:25 | 0:41:29 | |
I dye my hair. I don't understand why people keep their hair grey. | 0:41:29 | 0:41:32 | |
You're all right. Look at the job you're in. You're not in my job, | 0:41:32 | 0:41:35 | |
you know what I mean? I'm talking about people in my job. | 0:41:35 | 0:41:38 | |
There are people that get on stage and it looks like, I don't know, | 0:41:38 | 0:41:42 | |
Rip Van Winkle times four, you know? | 0:41:42 | 0:41:46 | |
But the lifestyle isn't a great one for surviving. | 0:41:46 | 0:41:50 | |
-It depends on how you approach it. -How have you approached it? | 0:41:50 | 0:41:53 | |
From the side, usually. | 0:41:53 | 0:41:55 | |
On tiptoe, so it doesn't know you're there | 0:41:55 | 0:41:57 | |
and then you get your hands round the throat. | 0:41:57 | 0:42:00 | |
I, you know, I just, you have to be careful about what's offered, | 0:42:00 | 0:42:05 | |
you know? You can't do it all cos it'll kill you. | 0:42:05 | 0:42:07 | |
But, as I say, some people... are in the basket weavers hotel and some of us aren't, you know? | 0:42:07 | 0:42:14 | |
Do you think in the '60s people just thought, well, we don't care cos we don't want to get old anyway? | 0:42:15 | 0:42:21 | |
There was a sense of that, but then again, | 0:42:21 | 0:42:24 | |
you don't know if you want to get old until you get almost old. | 0:42:24 | 0:42:29 | |
That's when you decide on that one. "Oh, it doesn't look so bad now!" | 0:42:29 | 0:42:33 | |
-How is it possible to do what you do? -How is it possible to stop? | 0:42:33 | 0:42:39 | |
It's what I am, you know? It's what I am, it's not what I do any more. | 0:42:40 | 0:42:44 | |
A long time ago it became what I am. | 0:42:44 | 0:42:46 | |
What had begun with Live Aid in the '80s continued into the '90s with projects like War Child. | 0:42:50 | 0:42:56 | |
Performers from three generations of rock and roll, Paul McCartney, Paul Weller and Noel Gallagher, | 0:42:56 | 0:43:02 | |
came together to record Come Together in the new spirit of multi-generational tolerance. | 0:43:02 | 0:43:10 | |
It was no longer a case of "my generation", but "your generation, too". | 0:43:10 | 0:43:15 | |
# Come together | 0:43:15 | 0:43:18 | |
# Right now | 0:43:18 | 0:43:21 | |
# Over me. | 0:43:21 | 0:43:22 | |
# Over me | 0:43:22 | 0:43:25 | |
# Over me. # | 0:43:25 | 0:43:27 | |
It wasn't only on stage that this spirit was at work. | 0:43:27 | 0:43:30 | |
Audiences for the music also began to span generations. | 0:43:30 | 0:43:33 | |
Every major band I know that reformed | 0:43:37 | 0:43:39 | |
said that if they had a pound for every time someone came along | 0:43:39 | 0:43:42 | |
and said, "There's two generations of the family here" | 0:43:42 | 0:43:45 | |
or "Three generations. There's the grandchildren, my kids and the wife and I." | 0:43:45 | 0:43:51 | |
And it's the only thing they've got in common. It's the only thing that links them together. | 0:43:51 | 0:43:55 | |
They're as old as your parents, but they don't exactly look or behave like them. | 0:43:57 | 0:44:02 | |
Rock and roll survivors can't act their age. | 0:44:02 | 0:44:05 | |
It just wouldn't work. | 0:44:05 | 0:44:07 | |
# Now last year I was 21 | 0:44:10 | 0:44:14 | |
# I didn't have a lot of fun | 0:44:15 | 0:44:17 | |
# Now I'm going to be 22 | 0:44:19 | 0:44:21 | |
# Well I say oh, my and boo-hoo | 0:44:22 | 0:44:25 | |
# Now I'm going to be 22 | 0:44:27 | 0:44:30 | |
# Oh my, boo-hoo. # | 0:44:30 | 0:44:32 | |
It's just, this has been the most comfortable and free part of my life | 0:44:32 | 0:44:37 | |
and I suppose this is the only part of my life | 0:44:37 | 0:44:40 | |
in which I've attained possession of all the cliches | 0:44:40 | 0:44:45 | |
that young rock stars are supposed to have. | 0:44:45 | 0:44:49 | |
Beautiful sexy chick, long legs, check. | 0:44:49 | 0:44:54 | |
A fantastic hot convertible car, check. | 0:44:55 | 0:45:00 | |
House in the country, check. | 0:45:02 | 0:45:04 | |
Place in the islands, check. | 0:45:04 | 0:45:07 | |
Really good band, check. Fans, check. | 0:45:07 | 0:45:11 | |
So, you know, so what if my knee hurts? | 0:45:16 | 0:45:19 | |
I don't give a fuck! I don't care. | 0:45:19 | 0:45:22 | |
Yeah. | 0:45:22 | 0:45:23 | |
It's the travelling that's the bad part, you know, especially today. | 0:45:27 | 0:45:32 | |
But the thing is is that you put up with that | 0:45:32 | 0:45:35 | |
and you make sure you've got a good book | 0:45:35 | 0:45:37 | |
and you do your homework for the next gig | 0:45:37 | 0:45:40 | |
and you get up and walk around and moan and groan about your breaking back | 0:45:40 | 0:45:46 | |
and then when you get off and take a pill, fall asleep and wake up and you're in Budapest! | 0:45:46 | 0:45:52 | |
Hey-hey, you know. You get over it. | 0:45:52 | 0:45:54 | |
You're just swept along with it, you know, | 0:45:55 | 0:45:59 | |
until you either fry or sometimes die. | 0:45:59 | 0:46:03 | |
# I love you only | 0:46:03 | 0:46:05 | |
# I never have thought about any other woman | 0:46:05 | 0:46:08 | |
# Any other woman no... # | 0:46:08 | 0:46:09 | |
I don't practise. I don't rehearse. | 0:46:09 | 0:46:12 | |
# Some foolish thing Some simple thing I've done, girl! | 0:46:14 | 0:46:18 | |
I'm not a home going, "La, da, de, da, da", you know. | 0:46:18 | 0:46:22 | |
# Oh, please don't let me be misunderstood... # | 0:46:23 | 0:46:28 | |
My voice is right there when I call it up, | 0:46:29 | 0:46:34 | |
-it's -never, ever not -there. | 0:46:34 | 0:46:36 | |
We do think it's kind of peculiar that Mick Jagger | 0:46:47 | 0:46:50 | |
still snakes across the stage doing that wriggly hip dance. | 0:46:50 | 0:46:54 | |
You then, you look at the body and then you look at the face | 0:46:56 | 0:46:59 | |
and there's a kind of moment of disconnect. | 0:46:59 | 0:47:02 | |
But there's also a sort of, "Wow, gosh, well, that's great", you know. | 0:47:02 | 0:47:06 | |
He's 67 and he's still able to do that. | 0:47:06 | 0:47:11 | |
I think Mick Jagger is a better performer nowadays than he was in the '70s. | 0:47:13 | 0:47:18 | |
He goes out there and he really pulls out the stops. | 0:47:18 | 0:47:23 | |
He's an amazing performer, | 0:47:23 | 0:47:25 | |
and it's the same with Iggy. I mean, you're dealing with great performers. | 0:47:25 | 0:47:29 | |
You're dealing with some of the greatest performers of the 20th century. | 0:47:29 | 0:47:33 | |
It's one of those things that when you think about it a lot, | 0:47:33 | 0:47:36 | |
the more you think about it actually the odder it gets | 0:47:36 | 0:47:39 | |
that you're singing Let's Spend The Night Together and you're 67. | 0:47:39 | 0:47:43 | |
There's an uncomfortableness, I suppose, that people feel | 0:47:43 | 0:47:46 | |
when they think that somebody is, er, acting, | 0:47:46 | 0:47:51 | |
or their act asks you to pretend that they're still young. | 0:47:51 | 0:47:58 | |
I mean, there's nobody in the world that us old lefties admire more than Arthur Scargill, | 0:47:58 | 0:48:03 | |
but as his personal advisers we would have said, "Ditch the haircut." | 0:48:03 | 0:48:08 | |
And in the same way I think that Arthur Scargill and Mick Jagger have a similar, | 0:48:08 | 0:48:12 | |
create a similar slightly embarrassing frisson. | 0:48:12 | 0:48:17 | |
# I'll see you in my dreams | 0:48:17 | 0:48:22 | |
# Hold you in my dreams... # | 0:48:24 | 0:48:30 | |
I'll do anything that is actually applicable to a 68 year-old bloke | 0:48:30 | 0:48:37 | |
cos I've seen bands go out there and they just think they are teenagers. | 0:48:37 | 0:48:41 | |
They just go out performing teenage songs and they're old men | 0:48:41 | 0:48:45 | |
and I think it's undignified, you know? | 0:48:45 | 0:48:48 | |
Know what I mean? How can you do that? | 0:48:48 | 0:48:51 | |
How can you wear leather trousers when you're incontinent? | 0:48:51 | 0:48:54 | |
You can't get them off quick enough. | 0:48:54 | 0:48:57 | |
Especially when the wigs are all doing that! | 0:49:00 | 0:49:04 | |
# ..Were mine | 0:49:04 | 0:49:05 | |
# Tender eyes that shine... # | 0:49:08 | 0:49:12 | |
One particular song of mine that I don't perform called That's What Love Will Do. | 0:49:12 | 0:49:19 | |
It's all about a bloke sitting up the back row of the pictures with his 18 year-old bird. | 0:49:19 | 0:49:23 | |
I keep reminding myself I haven't been up the back row of the pictures | 0:49:23 | 0:49:27 | |
with an 18-year-old bird since I was, what? 18. | 0:49:27 | 0:49:33 | |
I think as you get older, you should be reflecting, you know, | 0:49:34 | 0:49:37 | |
just as a film-maker would reflect or a poet would reflect or a novelist would reflect, your age. | 0:49:37 | 0:49:43 | |
You should be, I think. | 0:49:43 | 0:49:44 | |
# Well come and do your worst, boy That's the way, that's the way | 0:49:44 | 0:49:49 | |
# Hit me where it hurts, boy That's the way, that's the way | 0:49:49 | 0:49:53 | |
# Come and do worst, boy That's the way, that's the way | 0:49:53 | 0:49:58 | |
# But I'll never give it up I'll never give it up... # | 0:49:58 | 0:50:01 | |
I write more songs about death, about losing friends. | 0:50:01 | 0:50:06 | |
I mean, you just can't help it. It's, er, death isn't that far ahead, you know? | 0:50:06 | 0:50:11 | |
It's closer than looking back the other way at this point. | 0:50:11 | 0:50:15 | |
# Hey, hey, hey, hey. # | 0:50:15 | 0:50:18 | |
While many acts soldiered on regardless, | 0:50:18 | 0:50:21 | |
others had slipped from view into semi-retirement. | 0:50:21 | 0:50:24 | |
But the new millennium witnessed the entirely new phenomena of the revival and the comeback. | 0:50:24 | 0:50:30 | |
Leonard Cohen, now in his 70s, had already decided to stop recording and performing altogether. | 0:50:35 | 0:50:42 | |
At least, that was his plan. | 0:50:42 | 0:50:43 | |
# Well he talks like this You don't know what he's after | 0:50:46 | 0:50:51 | |
# When he speaks like this you don't know what he's after... # | 0:50:51 | 0:50:57 | |
He goes to a Buddhist monastery | 0:50:57 | 0:51:00 | |
and retires from the world. He's never going to sing. | 0:51:00 | 0:51:03 | |
# Beneath the bridge that they are building on some endless river... # | 0:51:03 | 0:51:08 | |
While he's in the monastery, his manager steals all his money and he comes out and he's broke! | 0:51:08 | 0:51:15 | |
And, "What am I going to do?" | 0:51:15 | 0:51:16 | |
"You've got to go on the road, Leonard. That's what you've got to do." | 0:51:16 | 0:51:20 | |
-And now he turns up, he loves it. | 0:51:20 | 0:51:22 | |
# You can hear the birds go by You can spend the night beside her | 0:51:22 | 0:51:29 | |
# And you know she's half crazy | 0:51:29 | 0:51:33 | |
# That's why you want to be there | 0:51:33 | 0:51:35 | |
# And she feeds you tea and oranges | 0:51:35 | 0:51:39 | |
# That come all the way from China... # | 0:51:39 | 0:51:41 | |
He's making more money than God. | 0:51:41 | 0:51:44 | |
He's filling the O2 Arena for a week, or whatever it is, | 0:51:44 | 0:51:48 | |
and the Albert Hall for three nights and going and doing the same thing all over the world. | 0:51:48 | 0:51:54 | |
# You've always been her lover. # | 0:51:54 | 0:51:57 | |
And you can just tell by looking at this he's like a pig in shit! | 0:51:58 | 0:52:02 | |
He's just loving it. | 0:52:02 | 0:52:03 | |
It's like, "Why didn't anybody tell me I could have fun doing this?" | 0:52:03 | 0:52:07 | |
Audiences who had grown up and grown old with their heroes wanted them back. | 0:52:12 | 0:52:17 | |
Age had invested their favourite bands with a new authenticity. | 0:52:20 | 0:52:25 | |
Performers couldn't believe their luck. | 0:52:25 | 0:52:27 | |
Even Brian Wilson returned from the wilderness to be a Beach Boy once again. | 0:52:27 | 0:52:31 | |
# And God only knows what I'd be without you. # | 0:52:34 | 0:52:38 | |
Here's one called God Only Knows. | 0:52:38 | 0:52:40 | |
It was like the zeitgeist, understood. | 0:52:47 | 0:52:51 | |
"Ah, OK. That's how you do it." | 0:52:51 | 0:52:54 | |
You get the personality of the most important person who wrote the songs, who did the singing. | 0:52:54 | 0:53:01 | |
You put them in front. You've got a bunch of young virtuosi | 0:53:01 | 0:53:04 | |
to fill in the rest of the parts. | 0:53:04 | 0:53:06 | |
You don't worry about trying to get the rhythm guitar player out of rehab. | 0:53:13 | 0:53:18 | |
You just, you know, get the best young kids you can | 0:53:21 | 0:53:25 | |
and go out there and do it exactly the way it was on the record. | 0:53:25 | 0:53:29 | |
# The world could show nothing to me... # | 0:53:29 | 0:53:31 | |
You've got to have been away for quite a bit. | 0:53:31 | 0:53:34 | |
Have not done particularly much | 0:53:34 | 0:53:36 | |
and at the same time have a lot of myth around you. | 0:53:36 | 0:53:39 | |
Did he have psychedelic drugs and went off his head? | 0:53:39 | 0:53:43 | |
Did he write all that stuff? | 0:53:43 | 0:53:45 | |
Did he do it all himself? So, you know, there's a great big mystery surrounding the man. | 0:53:45 | 0:53:49 | |
He looked like Brian Wilson in some strange way. | 0:53:51 | 0:53:55 | |
Brian looked like a deer in the headlights, but he did everything and he was great. | 0:53:55 | 0:53:59 | |
A lot of the people that are of my age group that go to see these groups, | 0:54:00 | 0:54:04 | |
they want to be transported back to a time when they were young. | 0:54:04 | 0:54:07 | |
They want that. I could give a toss about being young. | 0:54:07 | 0:54:11 | |
Being young just got me into trouble. | 0:54:11 | 0:54:15 | |
The struggles of youth, you know. I mean, they're overrated. | 0:54:15 | 0:54:19 | |
This whole talk of youth, youth, youth, it's overrated. | 0:54:19 | 0:54:22 | |
Being a young just isn't that hot any more. | 0:54:22 | 0:54:25 | |
That's what it is. | 0:54:25 | 0:54:27 | |
# Cos when you're 15 | 0:54:27 | 0:54:29 | |
# And somebody tells you they love you | 0:54:29 | 0:54:33 | |
# You're going to believe them... # | 0:54:33 | 0:54:37 | |
But the struggles of youth still find their most perfect expression in music. | 0:54:37 | 0:54:43 | |
The pop business is now younger than ever. | 0:54:43 | 0:54:46 | |
Kids are singing to kids again, | 0:54:46 | 0:54:48 | |
and the market has refocussed its attentions on young girls as its main consumers. | 0:54:48 | 0:54:53 | |
# Baby, no | 0:54:53 | 0:54:55 | |
# Baby, baby, baby, oh... # | 0:54:55 | 0:54:59 | |
It's a wrinkle-free Disneyfied world populated by beautiful performers. | 0:54:59 | 0:55:03 | |
Like their predecessors, | 0:55:03 | 0:55:05 | |
they're probably thinking that they won't be singing | 0:55:05 | 0:55:08 | |
about the problems of being 15 when they're 64. | 0:55:08 | 0:55:11 | |
But stranger things have already happened. | 0:55:11 | 0:55:14 | |
# Thought you'd always be mine. # | 0:55:14 | 0:55:17 | |
A hit or a miss? | 0:55:17 | 0:55:19 | |
There they are. They've said undoubtedly it's a... | 0:55:19 | 0:55:23 | |
All right. On to the next. | 0:55:23 | 0:55:26 | |
When McCartney, Dylan and The Stones | 0:55:28 | 0:55:30 | |
and Paul Simon and Crosby, Stills and Nash are unable to play any more, | 0:55:30 | 0:55:36 | |
when that generation goes, will classic rock continue, or will that be the end of it? | 0:55:36 | 0:55:44 | |
Or will people be sitting around in, you know, aquatic shopping malls | 0:55:44 | 0:55:48 | |
in 200 years time listening to Comfortably Numb? | 0:55:48 | 0:55:52 | |
I mean it's just, I don't know. Wait and see. | 0:55:52 | 0:55:54 | |
I haven't seen my birth certificate in years. | 0:55:54 | 0:55:58 | |
Get a life! Get swiftcovered. | 0:55:58 | 0:56:01 | |
Rock and roll is now revelling in a long life. | 0:56:01 | 0:56:05 | |
What was about risk and youth is now about enjoying a grand old age. | 0:56:05 | 0:56:09 | |
It's about longevity, survival, nostalgia and refusing to grow up, give up or shut up. | 0:56:09 | 0:56:17 | |
You ain't playing soccer for Manchester United when you're 64, | 0:56:17 | 0:56:21 | |
but you can play the stadiums when you're 64 in a rock band. | 0:56:21 | 0:56:24 | |
You really can. | 0:56:24 | 0:56:25 | |
Hank and I are on the way to 69. | 0:56:25 | 0:56:28 | |
And every night we're laughing, I'm looking across at Hank and thinking, | 0:56:30 | 0:56:34 | |
"I've been playing with him for 52 years. Since I was, you know." | 0:56:34 | 0:56:39 | |
You're looking across and he's laughing and me and we're doing a solo or something | 0:56:39 | 0:56:44 | |
and we're bouncing off each other and I think, "This is unbelievable, this is." | 0:56:44 | 0:56:48 | |
# Move it, move it, move it Move it, move it, move it | 0:56:48 | 0:56:54 | |
# Move it, move it, move it. # | 0:56:54 | 0:56:56 | |
I would never have quit. | 0:56:57 | 0:57:00 | |
That's the only attitude that's going to work, | 0:57:00 | 0:57:04 | |
and for a real artist it's that you're just not going to do anything else. | 0:57:04 | 0:57:10 | |
You're just not. | 0:57:10 | 0:57:12 | |
Why stop now when I have the best band that I've had in a long time? | 0:57:12 | 0:57:18 | |
That's my job, innit? | 0:57:18 | 0:57:21 | |
It's a job. | 0:57:21 | 0:57:23 | |
I signed up for it, I've got to do it, you know? | 0:57:23 | 0:57:26 | |
One, two, three, four. | 0:57:26 | 0:57:29 | |
I would like to live to a ripe old age because, er, | 0:57:31 | 0:57:35 | |
I've already said to my missus that after I've been burnt and slung somewhere | 0:57:35 | 0:57:41 | |
that if there's a gravestone anywhere it just has to read, "This isn't fair, I've not finished yet." | 0:57:41 | 0:57:49 | |
# Did your dreams die young? | 0:57:49 | 0:57:53 | |
# Were they too hard work? # | 0:57:53 | 0:57:57 | |
I've got about three years to go before I become a living legend. | 0:57:57 | 0:58:01 | |
They give you a special pass for the buses and things. | 0:58:01 | 0:58:07 | |
But suddenly your fee doubles and, um... | 0:58:07 | 0:58:11 | |
and people start noticing all that work you've been doing for years. | 0:58:11 | 0:58:16 | |
# Non, rien de rien... # | 0:58:16 | 0:58:19 | |
There was this movie came out just recently about Edith Piaf | 0:58:19 | 0:58:24 | |
and that put me on fire again and made me realise, like her, | 0:58:24 | 0:58:30 | |
please let me get to the stage just one more time! | 0:58:30 | 0:58:37 | |
And if you fuckers out there, if you've come to see me die, | 0:58:37 | 0:58:41 | |
well, it's not going to be tonight! | 0:58:41 | 0:58:45 | |
# Forever young | 0:58:45 | 0:58:51 | |
# Forever young | 0:58:52 | 0:58:58 | |
# May you stay | 0:58:59 | 0:59:06 | |
# Forever young. # | 0:59:06 | 0:59:10 |