AQUARIUS
287
in vain ... and the bodies stank ... hope you guess my name."
Listen over and over, and these key phrases inform both the more
muffled words, and the
music;
this effect, which Jagger has always
controlled precisely, gives the song depth, and moves you into the
center of its mood.
Now he
sings
full throat, with the music swung
into
support,
plus an
incessant
human chorus ("whhoo whhoo") swelling and
whirring. Then the fully committed voice: "I shouted out, 'Who
killed the Kennedys?' When after all it was you and me." Then
the nerves set on edge, in a line, by Keith Richards' high electric–
guitar chords.
In 1969, every great rock music band must speak to the people
on the street. There are many different modes of relevant speech,
ranging from the delicate witchcraft of the Incredible String Band to
the blood roar of the MC5: both disaffect their audience from jobs
and deals, and so, now, are both political. The revolution has no
program; its quality will be judgable in terms only of the quality
of the minds of the revolutionaries. The Acid Test has been taken;
there's no retreating. Ineluctably, the kids are breaking on through
to the other side. The nature of the other side entirely depends on
the focus, strength, humanity and grace of their vision. The maps
of this vision are drawn by rock music.
Beggars Banquet
is crammed
with apt force; with it, Mick Jagger
is
the shaman of the emerging
western world. But the Beatles decided to stay in their hotel and
feign sleep.
