Did Mick Jagger really send a Slate.com journalist a "response" to Keith Richards’ memoir "Life"? No. The Rolling Stones' publicist told me today that the story is "complete fabrication." And before the rumor mill gets out of control, consider that the Slate.com story is filed under "Dubious and Far-Fetched Ideas." In other words, even the website is saying it’s a satire.
The only reason I’m writing about this story is because many Rolling Stones fans will be taking this supposed Jagger "response" literally. It’s important that common sense prevails in this matter.
The Slate.com article says that journalist Bill Wyman (no relation to former Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman) received, on a typewritten letter sent by UPS, Jagger’s "response" to Richards’ autobiography. In the book, Richards makes several unflattering comments about Jagger.
The Slate.com article, published on November 5, 2010, has the headline: "Please Allow Me To Correct a Few Things" with the sub-headline "Mick Jagger responds to Keith Richards about his new autobiography."
The article has this introduction:
Editor's note:On a recent morning, the journalist Bill Wyman received a UPS package containing a typed manuscript. On reading it, he saw that it seemed to be the thoughts, at some length, of singer Mick Jagger on the recently published autobiography of his longtime songwriting partner in the Rolling Stones, Keith Richards. A handwritten note on an old piece of Munro Sounds stationery read: "Bill: For the vault. M."
From this, Wyman surmised that the package was intended for Jagger and Richards' former bandmate, the bassist Bill Wyman, who has assiduously overseen the band's archives over the past five decades and with whom Wyman the journalist coincidentally shares the same name.
I won’t quote the rest of the article, nor will I post a link to it, because it’s silly nonsense that reeks of a juvenile prank. But the letter in the article is a long, rambling criticism of Richards’ memoir "Life." Anyone who has seen and read enough interviews with Jagger knows that the letter (which is filled with grammatical errors) doesn’t sound like him at all. In fact, the letter reads like it was written as a satire by an American who doesn’t know Jagger but constructed these sentences based on how he or she thinks a British rock star like Jagger would write a letter.
The other thing that common sense would tell you is that Jagger and his representatives obviously know the difference between former Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman and American journalist Bill Wyman. Does anyone honestly think that Jagger or his representatives would confuse the address of a former Rolling Stone with that of a journalist who doesn't even live in the same country?
Unfortunately, a lot of people are easily fooled by something they read on the Internet, even if the story goes against common sense. After all, way too many people readily believed that Richards might be dropped from the Disney movie "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" because (sarcastic gasp) Richards said in his memoir that he did drugs — as if Disney didn’t know about Richards’ well-documented drug history before the book was published. The story about Disney possibly dropping Richards from the movie turned out to be a false rumor that got started on the Internet.
This Slate.com article wasn’t published on April Fool’s Day, but let’s hope that people will see it for what it obviously is.
Comments
Anyone with an I.Q. higher than a sieve could see the piece was not written by Mick Jagger for no other reason than the subtitle itself - i.e. "Imagine if Mick Jagger responded..." and the Editor's note which starts out "On a recent morning...", which reads in the same spirit as "Once upon a time".
It's a great read, nevertheless, and will generate a heck of a lot of publicity. I'm sure sales of the book will skyrocket as a result of this piece, something no dry, boring, media reviews could ever accomplish.
P.S. You need to lighten up a bit. The piece is getting excellent reviews from other media sources.
Tito, you sound like Bill Wyman (the writer) or someone who is close to him. No one else would hype the article that way as if it's an influential work of art. It's so delusional and egotistical to say that Bill Wyman's article is going make sales "skyrocket" for Keith Richards's book.
You're also wrong about everyone being able to figure out straight away that the Mick Jagger response was a satire. A lot of people on Rolling Stone message boards were fooled until more astute readers pointed out how it was a a fake response.
The Wyman article just looks like a pathetic attempt for the writer to get attention for himself.
It's not a "satire" (of what? do you know what that word means?), or a hoax. or a joke. It's a rock critic's serious rumination on Richards, Jagger, their relationship, and their respective contributions to the Stones's career. I have no idea what grammatical errors you think you've identified--if anything, the piece almost lacks verisimilitude because I don't know whether I believe Jagger is that good a prose stylist. The device of speaking in Jagger's voice is not deceptive--it's a way to make the case in Jagger's defense more engaging, so that everything doesn't have to be prefaced with "in response to this, Jagger might say..." I have no idea whether it will affect sales of the book. One thing it did do was inspire this reader to go back and listen to the Stones's discography in chronological order to get a sense of the evolution he describes. If you care about the group and their music, the piece is well worth reading. If Carla can point to a better review essay on the Stones (perhaps one that she's written? that has fewer "errors"?), I'd be obliged to her for doing so, as I'd like to read it. I fail to understand, though, why she is so hostile to this one.
"Tito" and "CMN," you seem to desperately want people to believe that the Bill Wyman article is an important essay. Well, no, actually it is not. The only people who think that it's an important essay are Wyman and his friends.
The Rolling Stones and their associates are not endorsing it as an “important, serious essay” about the Rolling Stones. If people want to read a great history lesson on the Rolling Stones, they should read Keith Richards's book, not the fantasies of a geeky journalist.
The "essay," "book review" or whatever Wyman wants to call it is nothing more than a cheap publicity stunt. And it's now a blogosphere footnote that got some attention for a few days but will not be significant in the long run.
And it's a lie to say that Wyman's essay wasn't written to fool people. It did fool many people, including Rolling Stone editor-in-chief/publisher Jann Wenner, who probably knows Jagger better than most people in the media. Wyman wrote a very smug follow-up piece saying that his "Mick Jagger manuscript" article had fooled many people in the mainstream media, such as Wenner.
And by the way, Wyman's article on Slate's Web site was revised from its original posting by adding the disclaimer "Imagine if Mick Jagger responded ..." or something like that, to make it make it clear that it was not really a Mick Jagger manuscript. It sounds like the people who work for the Stones were getting fed up with Wyman's nonsense so Slate had to add that disclaimer.
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