Keith Richards - The Origin of the Species

This programme contains very strong language

This is the BBC Home Service.

Here is the first news for today, Sunday the 3rd,

The fourth anniversary of our entry into the war opens with more news

of German defeats in the west, east and south.

The Belgian frontier has now been crossed by two American spearheads.

And it was on the 18th of December 1943 that you were born.

The label on your cot said "Keith Richards".

Born in a hospital near Dartford, England.

Thousands of babies were born the same day and you were one

You're alive, you're healthy, you've got parents that will take

AIR RAID SIREN BLARES PLANES FLY OVERHEAD

For around you is being fought the worst war ever known.

We'd kept on at it to save our skins.

And also because we had a feeling deep down inside us

that we were fighting for you, for you and all the other babies.

You didn't know anything about this, of course.

But you were part of the war, even before you were born.

Are you going to have greed for money or power,

ousting decency from the world as they have in the past?

Or are you going to make the world a different place,

Doris, my mum, the family, everybody's scrambling

According to Mother, the sirens were going off

MUSIC: We'll Meet Again by Vera Lynn

much about that, except that I have a complete hatred

AIR RAID SIREN BLARES DOG WHIMPERS

I wasn't there, of course.

I mean, I was smart enough not to be at home at the time, apparently.

MUSIC: Gimme Shelter by The Rolling Stones

Luftwaffe pilots got chicken halfway up the river, turned round

They weren't going to go any further into London.

It's not something that you dwell on because it's just

what happened to you and you managed to squeak out the other end,

Every experience that you go through from the minute you're born

You're hearing things, you're taking in information

and you're especially feeling other people's emotions.

That does have an effect, even though you don't

If I walk down a hotel corridor and there's some old war movie

playing and I hear it through the door and

..the hair on the back of my

MUSIC: Street Fighting Man by The Rolling Stones

Dad enlisted, you know, and got blown up in the army.

He got mortared D-Day, or soon after.

Mum was driving bread vans and she had never

You know, "Here's another locking loaf of Hovis."

MUSIC: Factory Girl by The Rolling Stones

WINSTON CHURCHILL: At 2.41am, Grand Admiral Doenitz,

the designated head of the German state, signed the act

MUSIC: The Last Time by The Andrew Oldham Orchestra

The minute the war was over, Churchill was voted out.

Security from war, food, houses, clothing, employment,

leisure and social security for all must come before

We have shown that we can organise the resources of the

There was a feeling that there was a need for change and you kind

My dad's side of the family were staunch socialists,

Apparently arrived out of the West Country

My grandfather was a mate of Keir Hardie.

And my grandmother was a mayor of Walthamstow on the Labour ticket.

Let's go forward into this fight in this year it of William Blake.

For a couple more years, we must go short.

Here's the ration for one book being readied.

And there's your ration spread out in all its glory.

So many babies have been born lately, they've had to get busy

You'll go there one day and meet Mick.

I lived in different parts of Dartford.

I think I would say I had a real affection for the joint.

It's a stick-up joint and it still is.

They have a tunnel now and guys with uniforms who take the money,

but in the old days, you had to come down East Hill,

There'd be a bunch of guys with stagecoaches.

They would routinely have a bag and toss it beside the toll because,

if they didn't do that, there'd be a flare shot up, they'd

MUSIC: You Got The Silver by The Rolling Stones

The trouble is, it isn't always pleasant to have to be a good boy.

A little guy - I mean, he was only about five foot five,

# A poor man's made out of muscle and blood

# Another day older and deeper in debt...

I had to do leap frogs, do this, you know,

# Whoa, you've been digging my potatoes...

He wanted to teach me certain, you know, little

# Well, you've been digging my potatoes...

Even though he'd got his leg half blown off in the war, he recovered

There was a massive scar that went right up the thigh.

He said, "The war, I don't want to talk about it, boy."

When I was growing up, he played it straight

as straight as straight as straight, you know.

He worked for General Electric, Osram's, you know, making tubes.

His mentality came from the Depression in the '30s.

There was a certain distance between us.

But I also knew he had a very deep heart and I also knew that he had

I mean, I got very few, "Well done, son."

But then I realised that he's working so damn hard,

My mum, on the other hand, was very subversive.

# I met a cowboy riding the range one day...

From her remarks and her piss-taking, I got some

Mother loved to sing around the house, she was like a warbler.

She knew the dials, she could go from, like,

the Light Programme, Ella Fitzgerald,

# ..really get the feeling of romance...

# And watch the door and in-between our dreams...

Pretty much filled the day with good music in my

So, I grew up with this, like, music, music, music.

Sometimes I remember feeling a little jealous with other families

and kids that had brothers and sisters, you know,

Adult problems, Mum and Dad arguing about the rent...

When you grew up, you didn't really think about it, you just

You'd find bits of shrapnel and, you know, you could make a deal

on a bit of shrapnel or a cartridge case, you know.

What I remember about my favourite bomb hole was some farmer had put

A beautiful old horse, you know, put-out,

And she'd let us ride and she'd trot us around the bombsite.

I know it's a bomb hole and it nearly killed me.

I also remember the white horse, you know, and its gentleness.

It probably makes you more introverted and you go more into

books. I was big on aircraft for a while.

He had broken the sound barrier, what is that? It is a big deal, all

right? I was always going for Airfix, I tried my best. I liked the

glue! And what would you have liked for your birthday? I wanted to break

the sound barrier! I thought there was something inside that everybody

else would recognise. Don't they realise they have a genius on their

hands? My mum's side of my family,

the Duprees, were spinners, they were master weavers

of silk...and brocade, apparently, in the 17th

and 18th century - Basically, all performers

of one kind or another. Very strong personalities,

very ribald sense of humour, Maybe just runs in the Dupree

family. To go there and visit

the Duprees was like going to another world,

compared to, like, Aunt Joy, she was really

larger than life. She was...filled the room

when she walked in. I mean, most people visit

their aunties and it's the most Yep, up the Seven Sisters Road,

seven daughters, and with the wife, So it was a house full

of women all the time, which is probably one of the reasons

that made him and me so close. The Duprees and the Richards

were absolutely two I really enjoyed summer holidays

with Mum and Dad. I really liked to watch my mum

and dad relax for a few days Because otherwise it

was grind, you know, # Ain't got a Cadillac or a big

automobile # I'm just a little guy

Not a big-time wheel # On my rocking bicycle

that's built for two... # We don't care if we're

a little bit late... # On my rocking bicycle that's built

for two I've got a little iron crate

on the back of a tandem. Yeah, they left me too long

with the western sun on the back # On my rocking bicycle

that's built for two. There was another village right

next called Hallsands It was no longer inhabitable,

it had collapsed into the sea. But, for a young kid,

it was kind of I mean, I make friends

pretty easily, you know. I used to get the accent down

in a couple of days and I'd pretend WEST COUNTRY ACCENT:

"Where you be going?" You were aware that there was a

class difference but whether it mattered not was a different thing.

It didn't bother mum and dad too much, they just liked to do what

they wanted to do. They liked to play tennis. Tennis is a

middle-class game. Oh, I say, smashing cricket stroke! I never had

any feeling at Bexley tennis club that there was any class difference

just because you had a car rather than a bike. In fact, sometimes the

other way around, they admired us biking in. My game and set! The

phrase when I was growing up was, before the war... Like the Golden

age. Everybody was missing the kind of

camaraderie that they had during the war. Friendship and, we are all in

this together. In a way they almost missed the damn thing. You got a lot

of love and affection but not a lot of things.

My birthday being 18th December, this is a week before Christmas Day.

I remember aunties, because they had a great sense of humour,

they'd send me a left sock for my birthday...

..and I'd get the right one for Christmas, you know.

You couldn't stuff yourself with sweets

Probably why we're still so skinny, the Stones, you know.

You treasured your half an ounce of humbugs, aniseed balls.

But if it's not there, you don't miss it.

The last thing to come off British rationing was sugar.

# Happy days are here again...

Everybody had been saving up pennies and stuff for ages.

So you'd go rushing round every possible sweet shop in town.

"I've got money!" you know.

So it was kind of like rationing again, for a few days.

MUSIC: You Can't Always Get What You Want by The Rolling Stones

If you ban something, you want it.

There's an automatic reaction in human beings.

You say you can't do this and then I got to do it, you know.

Careful watch is kept on the children's teeth for any

decay or irregularities, and, when necessary,

# All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth...

You couldn't scare me if you come to me with a gun.

They were pretty rough when we were growing up.

They were all out of the Army, and it was just like

Mine were ripped out with an old wrench.

We used to bicycle to the bank of the Thames.

We used to go down there, very dangerous area, very fascinating.

It's not called Gravesend for nothing!

One day we got to this pillbox, a lot of flies buzzing in there.

So we got out and we thought nothing of it.

Now, I sort of say, "Why didn't we, sort

There were also army deserters still living down there by the banks. I

got shot in the ours with a BB gun. You would go to the station, Penny

for the guy. A measly amount, wouldn't get much for that! But it

was a good try. Anything to set fire to something. There was a fireball

at the fireworks factory? The whole damn thing blew up, massive

explosion. It was just gunpowder and it all went up in one Big Bang. All

of the fumes... Nothing to do with me!

We used to live at the back of a greengrocer's store

A couple of mates and me, we just got into it,

you know, and got covered in it, we covered the walls,

we covered the whole bloody garden in it.

My grandmother, she's furious when I get back and she pretended

to go out and make a phone call and said, "I'm calling

I'm on my knees, I'm it's him...

I'm dying.

It is sometimes a terrible thing to be a little boy.

At that moment, the idea of being separated and torn

away and put in a home or something was like...

And she kept at it for an hour or two.

It was the most horrific day of my life.

When Dad came home, he said, "I've calmed her down,

My mum wasn't big on pets, she killed my mouse. And the cat. I put

a sign on her bedroom door saying murderer!

Pets were not in the game and I loved them.

Let's look at the neighbourhoods and see how that is arranged.

At least that's my feeling, you know, from Mum and Dad.

It had only just been built and it was like

Suddenly, you're with this bunch of people you don't know

and you all have to sort of form a community of some kind.

So, yeah, I won't say that you felt particularly secure there.

But you did feel that everybody else was in the same bloody boat.

Now that you're seven, you'll be going to this school.

Because of the time of year I was born, I was always in a class

So I was always three inches shorter than everybody else.

So I always had to deal with bigger boys.

Half the time I ran away like a yellow...

And then I got smart and made friends with a big bloke

And he'd walk home with me and beat the sods off.

I know how terrifying it can be to expect

All I could concentrate on was, "How do I get out of taking a beating?"

Keith grazed his knee badly last night.

Why's everybody always pickin' on me?

Some teachers gave you a feeling of openness and that things could get

better. Luckily some teachers made you feel good about knowing things

rather than shoving it down your throat. Then you had other guys out

of the Army who saw the kids as another bunch of people to push

about. Square bashing, not the most sympathetic bunch of people to learn

things from. I wasn't happy with my education even as a kid, I thought

it was shabby and just going through the motions. I always got grades C

and D, they didn't like my attitude. I always wanted to know more than I

was being taught. And I found out far more by going to the public

library. Ain't nobody teaching me nothing

that I didn't know already. I was into the Dandy and obviously

the Eagle. Dan dare, the Mick on. I was heavily into that. -- Dan Dare,

the Mekon. The whole idea of space travel. You thought it would be

another thousand years but in actual fact it would only be ten or 20.

Saturday morning pictures, big deal. Down at the Dartford Beaumont.

Frisking pagans were concealed weapons is an art the manager has

picked up after years of watching well blessed melodramas. Roy Rogers,

I've got to say, if I had a kilo that has got to be it. She is riding

this beautiful pony and he's got a guitar. And he rips everybody's as.

I'd like to be right. Captain Marvel. A bad episode, you can see

why. Always loved a good sea adventure, I

still do. And then you realise you could

almost be won, free of normal constraints, but either I Bell I

take my chances. And it sort of give you some fortitude to take your

chances. I had to wait and see, it was always an option. It was

escaped, when they are not looking I'm going to run away! The merchant

Navy were there, you could jump a boat has a cabin boy. You would have

to grow up the hard way. Sundays were like an expanse of

boredom and death. Boredom is a sin and I'm not a big one for sin. There

has got to be something you can do to think of. I've got to go to

church. I was very cynical about it, quite

honestly. I just didn't get that Christian feeling. Basically because

I wasn't brought up that way. None of my family were at all interested

in the established religions, they despise them. In the name of Jesus

Christ of Nazareth, I pray you to behold now, amen. Do you feel any

better now? You'll make the job as witnesses would come round on

knock-on outdoor. And I would be the one to open it and my mum says we

don't want none, and buying. What do you want to do on your

school holidays? Stay with grandad. I seem to have been the only boy he

didn't have, so for me he was more like a friend than a grandfather. I

loved him for his humour, he was just generous. Sometimes he would

take me out just to get away from all the women. He was a saxophone

player. But in the First World War he got gassed. My father says that

he got gassed that he couldn't go any more and he didn't have the win

for the sax Swede at the violin. He can does pick up the violin and

plate. He had a dance band. He used to rock the US places with the code

and stuff, they saw him coming with a little neckerchief on, pretending

to be a cowboy. He loved to perform. When was the first time you saw live

music? You'll might probably a wedding. There was a live band

playing in front of you. First off the guys at the foot taller than

everybody because there is a stage. That helps! To be three feet taller

than everybody else. And it gives you a certain sense of

possibilities. Member when you were a kid? You would look in the shop

window and the puppies. Gus had a dog called Mr Thompson, in fact the

filming was Mr Thompson works because every time you said Mr

Thompson the dog would work. He just took me about London, one

minute I would be in Oxford Street, the next minutes chatting cross and

the next minute we would be in hybrid. He was -- it was an

education. You would see the funniest thing on any street corner.

I know a lot about all London. Folk just wondering about. My vision and

my senses of London are called tar and washing. Bill Shippen was worth

money. My dad would pay me to follow the Gypsy carts. They were still

burning coal could call, absolutely filthy. The whole place. Covered in

grime. And there was a lot of fog, green

and hazy. That was London for me. He would take me into music shops

but we would always going round the back, we never went in the front

door. It was being like -- it would be like getting led into Aladdin 's

cave. And he would just sit and perch me on a shelf with a cup of

tea and a basket and I would watch people build medical instruments.

-- musical instruments. Glue bubbling and they are sticking

together. And then he would do his business.

Once it was a beautiful summer night, we were on Primrose Hill

where you could look over the city. And we went under this tree and he

said why don't we just sit there for a minute? And we both just crashed

out! What that you all over us and going bloody hell we have got to get

home. He teased me with a guitar. I couldn't reach it. He said you keep

looking at that. It is beautiful. When you can reach it, then you can

try and plate. And he did this for, I don't know, two or three or four

years until one day I got smart and pull the chair up! And took it down.

Figured it out. And he showed me the first few notes of Malluch winner.

When he came back I was playing it to him and he looked down at me with

a big smile on his face and he said let me play at. And then he let me

have the guitar. To me it was the prize of a century.

One day, this Billy came up, and he was the big boy in school.

..Bruce Lee sort of moves that made it.

I was lucky, I think he slipped, and I just saw red.

And shoved his neck into the flower beds.

After that, I was a protector of other, more vulnerable kids.

I never capitalised on my fame on that.

I just took care of kids that were scared of other

bullies and went, "You're with me, you're cool."

Because I suddenly became, "Don't screw with that man."

I always feel sorry for the building and away. The guy has a problem. --

for the bully in the way. For the first time in history,

through the medium of television, the coronation will be witnessed on

television sets. We did not have one. Very kind neighbours would

leave the curtains open and let us kids, we couldn't hear anything, it

was all silent. Martha and you'll and stuff like that. Thanks to Mr

Steadman. Anybody there? I am Julie and this is my friend Sam. Something

about audio comedy. I like the girls who do... It is still one of my

favourites. The construct, they would blast

fresh air. How many sexes are there? To! That kind of humour was around

on the streets but had never been expressed in the media before. Or

actually allowed. He will go to school the next day after the show

and everybody would have the line down and everybody would say, you

can get the word, you know! It was a collective feeling throughout the

whole country. You could join in and laugh. Just as independent

television came. Cubicle, kicked, Master control. Robin Hood was

great. Ronnie Wood, Ronnie Wood, with his band of men! Everybody

reacted to the billboards. By this, by that. They were checking it out

here. The Milky bars are only! It was capitalism. Suddenly it was

staring you in the face. The mass of consumption. 1212. -- want, want.

Get, get. Daz. The Daz white knights are

coming your way with big cash prizes. It could be at your house,

we're off! My mum was at Hotpoint, she was amazing at flogging off

Hotpoint. She would do a demonstration and when I was at

school I would do mums accent. It was a performance. Mum was actually

a sterner one dress for a while. Because they want it was piling up.

I got a message from my mum saying he must be filthy by now, send me

your clothes back! And so Mick and Brian, we centre the call was so she

could watch the in front of all these people in the court! She was a

great mum. If mum wasn't great, it must be a rough way to grow up.

I am proud of my old mum and she ain't half proud of me! You know I'm

almost grown, yet I'm doing right school. They said I broke the rules.

I never been in trouble, I don't read around too much. Dartford Tech

was strictly male, I was good at subjects because the teacher was

good. Carpentry, yes, metalwork I hated. Some people just get the hard

on against you. Take it nice and steady. What are you waiting for?

Don't get your finger stuck in there. The girls Grammar School was

the opposite of our school. There has been a bridge over the at one

time. We got the message. Also, we all expected to go in the

bloody army. Conscription was still on. You are all expected to go and

peel potatoes. You has to factor that into your own life at 18, you

went in the Army. All orders must be obeyed without question at all

times. Ludicrous, the waste to get out of it. Get back, get back, get

back! Forward, March! Pretends to be gay or something, they would say

you're out! There was out of a friend of mine

who said I am donning the Scouts and I said I will come along. Follow me,

follow me! I got all the knocks and had got bad as all over me, with an

armoured. I know how to light a fire, I could set you on fire right

now! Suddenly I am a patrol leader. And that is where I realised that

I could pull other cats into it I could motivate them,

give them a feeling, You know, if we're going to do this,

it's got to be the best. It's part of running a band

and being in a band. It was a transitional

period, really. You know, I'd go home

at night and play guitar. Our choirmaster, Jake Clair,

he'd been at Oxford or Cambridge, He was a damn good teacher

about music, about singing. We had another guy called Terry,

we had perfect sopranos. We could "hallelujah"

with the best, man, you know? But we were also the biggest

reprobates in school. Hallelujah with the

cassock and everything. # You were part of this team

and you got to go to London and sing # Believe it or not,

I sang in front of the Queen. # You can't always get

what you want. # You know your voice

is going to break and then... HE IMITATES VOICE BREAKING

I still remember old Jake Clair, a tear in his eye

that he had to fire us. We'd won him all these goddamn

medals and shields and stuff... The voice breaks and you get put

down a year because you haven't done enough math, you haven't

done enough physics. So that the thanks you get -

sitting in a class full of kids a year younger than

you for another year. That was the first thump

of authority and what they can do There you developed a hatred

for the Establishment. MUSIC: The Last Time

by The Rolling Stones You had to reassess, even at that

age, a whole new way 'That's when it started to ferment.'

Either you're going to do as you're told for the rest of your life

or you're going to I'm getting out of here,

one way or another. This is Radio Luxembourg,

your station of the stars. That was the signal that,

if you positioned the damn thing in the right place,

you'd suddenly get Little Richard. # I'm ready Ready, ready,

ready, teddy, I'm ready # Ready, ready, teddy # I'm ready, ready,

# It expressed everything you wanted to express but didn't

A sense of freedom, a sense that there was another life

between going to school and going to locking work.

It was like the world went Technicolor.

This motion picture was photographed in gorgeous,

Before rock and roll, it was all black-and-white.

These boys have reached the stage of adolescence.

We sometimes find adolescents rather irritating but they're

The need tactful handling and a good deal of sympathetic guidance.

Suddenly, everything was aimed at teenagers.

Music: The Spotnicks Theme by The Spotnicks The first time that

money had realised what a market there was there.

Suddenly the eyes lit up in some advertising agent. At the time you

saw that it was just something new. We weren't saying about some wicked

desire. Before that they didn't bother.

You were either a kid or you were grown up

and there was this space in-between that seemed to be ignored when,

in actual fact, it's probably the most important

Spike was my mate and we were just determined to get expelled.

Cross-country, we used to take a smoke and work our way

in for the last third of a mile, and I'd come in around a sort

of comfy fifth, but they knew what we were up to.

You know, we thought for sure you'd get expelled for, like,

tripping up a teacher and going, "Whoops."

I would be called to the headmaster's office

and they'd go, "Well, Richards...

GIRLS SCREAM The first live act I remember going to see was Joe

# No-one else could catch me # On the hop # Baby,

you're the only one # Who ever made me blow my top.

The all thought they had some kind of gimmick. Billy Fury made a great

record. I got somebody new, and she ate me

like you, wait back in those days they were warned by Bill Schechter

promoters. They would break you are a student turn up. But at least he

was up there playing! And that's all you wanted to do.

You wanted to be up there, three feet higher than anybody else

and have people say, "Yeah, I like that."

Then there was the stuff about Teddy boys, they always look like

grown-ups to me. They were a little older. I was interested in the

switchblades. They were ripping up cinema seats and a lot of that was

just yobs. But at the same time, you can have

admired them because they were expressing something. Rather than

just playing the game. Have an elephant trunk and you forget. I

couldn't afford the club anyway, but the tight pants.

I used to wear two pairs of trousers to school.

Very uncomfortable all day, I'll tell you.

But one skin-tight and then the regulation flannel baggies over

the top and the minute you got out the school gate,

go behind a tree and then you could walk home like...

We went to begin up teachers! -- beating up teachers. And for that

they did expel us. Eventually we made it. Getting expelled then was

about the worst thing that could happen in a man's life. Getting the

piece of paper and all, look. I knew I had disappointed very much. I had

to redeem myself. My voice broke and I was longer in the choir. I

suddenly needed another musical outlet. And I plunged into guitar

playing, I dived the deep, deep dive. At the same time, they threw

me the biscuit which was like the big one, you expelled, but you're

welcome to go to school. MUSIC: Painter Man by The Creation #

Went to college, studied art # To be an artist, make a start # Studied

hard, gained my degree # But no-one # Art school was a real

eye-opener because suddenly you were with people

who were artistic in mind. It was a totally different

atmosphere and in those two, There was a freedom

about art school that was, Suddenly you can wear whatever

you want and you can go to life Painting, I wouldn't

say, came into it much. I did realise, after the first year,

we're not churning out You're being taught

how to advertise. # Here was where the money lay #

Classic art has had its day. # You can call it art school

but really you're being trained You don't really need how to put

a nice angle on the gin. There was a bunch of people that

came from advertising agencies for, like, one day a week,

usually loudmouth BLEEP. Mac, could you emphasise

the last word just a little, bring out the fact that

the product is good? Guys with bowties and shit,

you know. A white-collar and

striped blue shirt. By then, you're starting to be able

to sense a phony when you see one. Mac, don't lose that

nice, easy approach. And you realise that these people

are only there to pick up What I did learn

was about friendship. Very pleased to make your

acquaintance, madam. # YODELLING Everybody

was experimenting with their looks. Bam - they just pulled the button

and said, "No more conscription." We went bananas, I mean,

the whole day. Suddenly, these years

opened up for you. A sense of relief that,

you know, is really hard to imagine. If you didn't want to go

to life classes, you know, Wizz Jones used to come round

and play, which was like a miracle, There was a sort of network

within the art school world. MUSIC: Transit Blues by Wizz Jones

Werner Lammerhirt A lot of good musicians came out of art school

but not many good artists. MUSIC: Boogie In My Bones

by Laurel Aitken I knew that the music I'd always listened

to was black people. # Well, I feel so good # I've got

the boogie in my bones... # Well, I feel so good # I've got

the boogie in my bones... # Black people would be like, "Hey,

you're all right, brother. Without a knowledge of the blues,

if you want to be a player and if you want to work with other

guys, without that knowledge and without that enthusiasm,

you just become a pop BLUES MUSIC I found out

there was a really deep, deep blues and the older cats

and I started to research back to Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson,

Blind Lemon Jefferson, And of course, being young,

people tried to come up with more obscure blues

than you've ever heard. MUSIC: Cool Drink Of Water Blues

by Tommy Johnson # I asked for water # RADIO EFFECT ON VOICE:

This one's from 1926. HE IMITATES WHITE NOISE Very nice,

the white noise MUSIC: Detroit Jump

by Big Maceo There was Kim this I was young, and some

of it is pretentiousness. I always hoped that music should be

classless and should be MUSIC: Child Of The Moon

by The Rolling Stones It was a feeling, late '50s, early '60s,

that there was a change coming. Harold Macmillan actually said

it but he didn't mean I felt that too but

from a different angle. BABY CRIES MUSIC: Jumpin' Jack Flash

by The Rolling Stones I certainly felt that my generation

and what was happening I was three years of art school,

I take this bloody portfolio up I wasn't interested any

more in illustration My portfolio was a piece

of crap, quite honestly. They look at it and either they're

sniggering or muttering... "By the way, Mr Richards,

can you make a good cup of tea?" And that's where the hair went up

and I went, "Yeah, I can. And I just walked out and threw

the fucking whole thing in the rubbish bin downstairs

and that's it, you know. PUNCHING AND GRUNTING

The guitar just looked at me and I looked at it and I said,

"Either you and me get along or I've TRAIN HORN He was on the train

with the records. "I know you, "but what you've got

under your arm is worth robbing." # Pleased to meet you Hope

you guessed my name... # It's only the fact

that he was carrying Muddy Waters and Chuck Berry under his arm

that we re-hooked, you know, because I've known Mick

since I was about four years old... ..but we don't talk

about that a lot. MUSIC: Stray Cat Blues

by The Rolling Stones # I hear the click-clack of your feet

on the stairs # I know you're no scare-eyed honey # There'll be

a feast if you just come upstairs # But it's no hanging

matter. Suddenly, the Stones were making

some bread. I was going to buy them...

And I set Mum up in a nice house that she likes

and dah-dah... And the weirdest thing

being that,