High Life As A Rolling Stone: Keith Richards

Posted in Rolling Stones Experience by john

REAL  ROLLING  STONES  NEWS

(exert from Mail Online
By Graham Smith)
After 50 years as one-half of the most enduring partnership in rock, Keith Richards has finally come clean about his turbulent relationship with Mick Jagger.
Unsurprisingly, the Rolling Stones guitarist isn’t entirely complimentary towards his childhood friend.
But nobody was expecting him to decimate Jagger’s status as a legendary ladies’ man by revealing the singer has a ‘tiny todger’
 
Richards describes the frontman as ‘unbearable’ in his autobiography Life, in entries which lay bare their fraught relationship.

The 66-year-old reveals his nicknames for Jagger are ‘Brenda’ and ‘Your Majesty’.
Richards writes of the distance between the pair, saying: ‘I used to love Mick, but I haven’t been to his dressing room in 20 years.
‘Sometimes I think, “I miss my friend’. I wonder, ‘Where did he go?”‘
Richards uses the book, which is released later this month, to take personal swipes at his bandmate, writing: ‘It was the beginning of the Eighties when Mick started to become unbearable.’
And, in a comment which could infuriate Jagger, who has long been renowned for his sexual appetite, Richards writes about the singer’s relationship with Marianne Faithfull, saying she ‘had no fun with his tiny todger. I know he’s got an enormous pair of balls – but it doesn’t quite fill the gap.’ 
 
But Richards today told The Times the only part Jagger wanted taken out was a section saying that the frontman used a voice coach. Richards refused. ‘I’m trying to say the truth here,’ he explained.

‘We’ve had our beefs but, hey, who doesn’t? You try and keep something together for 50 years.’
He also reveals that he believes his fellow Rolling Stone can be ‘possessive’.
He writes: ‘I’ve no doubt, in retrospect, that Mick was very jealous of me having other male friends.’
He goes on to say: ‘Maybe his exclusivity is bound up with his own siege mentality. Or maybe he thinks he’s trying to protect me: “What does that a****** want from Keith?”
‘But quite honestly, I can’t put my finger on it.’
Richards does concede, however: ‘Because I love the man dearly; I’m still his mate. But he makes it very difficult to be his friend.’
Despite years of drug taking, Richards said he hopes he has many years left to live, adding: ‘Well, I’m not putting death on the agenda.
‘I don’t want to see my old friend Lucifer just yet. He’s the guy I’m gonna see, isn’t it? I’m not going to the other place, let’s face it.’ 

Former junkie Richards gave up his heroin habit in 1978 and eventually stopped using cocaine after an accident in 2006 in which he fell out of a tree, requiring brain surgery and a metal plate in his skull.

He writes: ‘It’s not only the high quality of drugs I had that I attribute my survival to. I was very meticulous about how much I took.
‘I’d never put more in to get a little higher.
‘That’s where most people f*** up on drugs. It’s the greed involved that never really affected me.

‘People think once they’ve got this high, if they take some more they’re going to get a little higher.
‘There’s no such thing. Especially with cocaine…
‘Maybe that’s a measure of control and maybe I’m rare in that respect. Maybe there I have an advantage.’
 Family man: Richards, his then-partner Anita Pallenberg and their son Marlon in the early 1970s
Despite a life lived as the poster-child for rock ‘n’ roll excess, it’s the fractious nature of Richards’ ongoing relationship with Jagger that reveals the most about the Rolling Stones.

Richards, who has frequently been listed by music magazines as one of the top ten rock stars most likely to die, says: ‘I think in a way your persona, your image, as it used to be known, is like a ball and chain.
‘People think I’m still a goddamn junkie. It’s 30 years since I gave up the dope!
‘Image is like a long shadow. Even when the sun goes down, you can see it.’
But, he also admitted: ‘It’s no exaggeration that I was basically living like an outlaw.’
He also said he has no desire to retire. Richards writes: ‘People say: “Why don’t you give it up?” I can’t retire until I croak.
‘I don’t think they quite understand what I get out of this. I’m not doing it just for the money or for you. I’m doing it for me.’