Mick Jagger Quotes & Sayings

Samba rhythm is a great one to sing on, but it's also got some other suggestions in it, an undercurrent of being primitive - because it is a primitive African, South American, Afro-whatever-you-call-that rhythm. So to white people, it has a very sinister thing about it. — Mick Jagger

I came into music just because I wanted the bread. It's true. I looked around and this seemed like the only way I was going to get the kind of bread I wanted. — Mick Jagger

I love country music, but I find it very hard to take it seriously. I also think a lot of country music is sung with the tongue in cheek, so I do it tongue in cheek. — Mick Jagger

I think, like most people, my moral values tend to be pretty fuzzy. — Mick Jagger

I love America, but I can't spend the whole year here. I can't afford the taxes — Mick Jagger

Rock & roll mostly is a very butch thing, and it appeals to one hard side of the masculine character. But I don't think the Rolling Stones are only a rock band. They can be other things. They can be very feminine. — Mick Jagger

I, personally, have a lot of energy, so I don't see it as an immediate problem. — Mick Jagger

I never really studied business in school. I kind of wish I had, but how boring is that? — Mick Jagger

I used to play Saturday night shows with different little groups. If I could get a show, I would do it. I used to do mad things - I used to go and do these shows and go on my knees and roll on the ground - when I was 15,16 years old. And my parents were extremely disapproving of it all. Because it was just not done. This was for very low-class people, remember. Rock & roll singers weren't educated people — Mick Jagger

The elusive nature of love ... it can be such a fleeting thing. You see it there and it's just fluttering and it's gone. — Mick Jagger

You have to sing every day so you can build up to being, you know, Amazingly Brilliant — Mick Jagger

Don't you think it's sometimes wise not to grow up. — Mick Jagger

Thanks to everyone in Israel for the wonderful welcome. It was a great show and we'll remember it forever. — Mick Jagger

The music's rehearsed a lot. All people think about is, they think, in rock 'n' roll, they get the music off right and they think it's okay standing, looking macho. Well, it's not. That's boring. If you want to be a performer you've got to do a lot more work than that. — Mick Jagger

People also like partnerships because they can identify with the drama of two people in partnership. They can feed off a partnership, and that keeps people entertained. Besides, if you have a successful partnership, it's self-sustaining. — Mick Jagger

I think it's very important that you have at least some sort of inner thing you don't talk about. That's why I find it distasteful when all these pop stars talk about their habits. — Mick Jagger

I don't want to be singing Satisfaction when I'm 40. — Mick Jagger

If you're really on some heavily addictive drug, you think about the drug, and everything else is secondary. You try and make everything work, but the drug comes first. — Mick Jagger

Always as a musician you must have one thing you do well. — Mick Jagger

People have different personalities when they're drunk or take heroin, or whatever drugs. — Mick Jagger

I like to have a peek, see what the audience is doing during the opening act, because it gives you a clue and gives you a good feeling of where you are - the air can be different in different places. — Mick Jagger

I'm interested in feedback and learning what people want. It's a tricky thing for me when I do a set list. You get bored doing the same songs. Let's say we do one ballad in two hours, and it's "Wild Horses." If you say, I'm tired of that, let's try something less well known, and then you're out there stumbling through this song you just relearned at sound check, and you realize people probably want "Wild Horses" instead of this (laughs). You do need to do some songs that aren't so well known. The question is how many? I'm open to people posting their requests. — Mick Jagger

Drug use makes you snappy, and you get very bad-tempered and have terrible hangovers. — Mick Jagger

Don't take life too seriously and always remember: it is just a passing fad. — Mick Jagger

I have to get up the fitness level, sing a lot, practice, get in the mood, and generally do lots of rehearsal. Get your body and mind ready. — Mick Jagger

Normally I am not so violent. Everything comes from the question: Where will I die? It is a strong concern. — Mick Jagger

There's no absolutes in life - only vodka. — Mick Jagger

Anarchy is the only slight glimmer of hope. — Mick Jagger

If you're the singer in the band, you always get more attention than anyone else. — Mick Jagger

There's hundreds of different ways of writing songs. — Mick Jagger

Starting off in music, the purpose of it was not to become like well known on the street and be famous. You know, I didn't even think about that part of being famous. Famous for making records, yes, but famous face in a woman's magazine, I never thought of that. I didn't want that. — Mick Jagger

I don't watch much ESPN. Unless they have soccer on. — Mick Jagger

I wasn't understanding enough about drug addition. No one seemed to know much about drug addiction. Things like LSD were all new. No one knew the harm. People thought cocaine was good for you. — Mick Jagger

People get very thoughtful when they are in cars. I no longer care for cars. I don't collect them. — Mick Jagger

I don't think people care about the mechanics of songwriting. — Mick Jagger

When Gimme Shelter was recorded, early '69 or something, it was a time of war and tension, so that's reflected in this tune. It's still wheeled out when big storms happen, as they did the other week. It's been used a lot to evoke natural disaster. — Mick Jagger

I'd done a very long project on Bridges To Babylon. I was on the road for ages with that. When I came off the road, I thought, the next thing I want to do on my own. — Mick Jagger

You better stop
Look around
Here it comes, here it comes, here it comes, here it comes
Here comes your nine-teenth nervous breakdown. — Mick Jagger

You never really know what's going to happen. You never know what the audience is going to be like or how they're going to behave. — Mick Jagger

It's a real buzz, even in front of 20 people, to make a complete fool of yourself. But people seemed to like it. And the thing is, if people started throwing tomatoes at me, I wouldn't have gone on with it. — Mick Jagger

Killing for ideas is the most dangerous form of killing at all. Being willing to die for your ideas rather than your country is another concept, but dying for an idea, like in religion, is absurd. — Mick Jagger

I didn't really like being at college. It wasn't like it was Oxford and had been the most wonderful time of my life. It was really a dull, boring course I was stuck on. — Mick Jagger

I am conservative with a small 'c.' It's possible to be conservative in fiscal policy, and tolerant on moral issues or questions of freedom of expression. — Mick Jagger

I would like to reach a balance and forget a few things. — Mick Jagger

Thank you for leaving us alone but giving us enough attention to boost our egos. — Mick Jagger

A lot of times songs are very much of a moment, that you just encapsulate. They come to you, you write them, you feel good that day, or bad that day. — Mick Jagger

I wasn't taking so many drugs that it was messing up my creative processes. It was a very good period, 1968 - there was a good feeling in the air. It was a very creative period for everyone. — Mick Jagger

I liked John a lot. He was the one I really got on with the most. We weren't buddy-buddies but we were always friendly. But after the Beatles and the Stones stopped playing clubs, we didn't see each other that much until he separated from Yoko, around 1974. We got really friendly again. And when he went back with Yoko, he went into hibernation ... when I went to visit someone in the Dakota, I'd leave him a note saying: 'I live next door: I know you don't want to see anyone, but if you do, please call.' He never did. — Mick Jagger

I don't really like using guns too much, you know, even for sport. — Mick Jagger

I didn't have any inhibitions. I saw Elvis and Gene Vincent, and I thought, "Well, I can do this." And I liked doing it. — Mick Jagger

I don't really mind criticism in music or in shows and stuff like that at all. I mean, it doesn't really worry me even if it's like out of place. At least it's relevant. — Mick Jagger

I see songwriting as having to do with experience, and the more you've experienced, the better it is. But it has to be tempered, and you just must let your imagination run. — Mick Jagger

People love talking about when they were young and heard Honky Tonk Women for the first time. It's quite a heavy load to carry on your shoulders, the memories of so many people. — Mick Jagger

They're so boring. They're so pathetic, all those journalists. Most of them are. Most of those kind that write gossip stuff, and most of it's gossip. Things are just invented about your personal life and you just have to take that. It's bullshit. People believe it, though. They just believe everything they read. — Mick Jagger

Lets drink to the hard working people
Lets drink to the salt of the earth — Mick Jagger

Right now I can't be sure that I will be back on stage. We have been touring for two years and that is way too much. — Mick Jagger

I remember when I was very young, I read an article by Fats Domino which has really influenced me. He said, 'You should never sing the lyrics out very clearly. — Mick Jagger

Time is on my side, yes it is. — Mick Jagger

Taking drugs on a recreation level is one thing. But taking them while you're working on a stage is, I don't think it was that great. It's the control factor. And the thing about being on stage, you really want to feel that you're sort of in control a lot. It's not a place where you want to be out of control. — Mick Jagger

A good thing never ends. — Mick Jagger

Polarization affects families and groups of friends. Its a paralyzing situation. A civil war of opinion. — Mick Jagger

Writing a song is like - you're writing a song all the time. It's just when it pops out. It's been there all the time. It's not something that suddenly you do it. It's always there. Suddenly, it's in the right mixture inside you to come out. Usually when you're writing on the piano or a guitar, you don't write in lyrics, on their own. To me it's very boring. — Mick Jagger

Boys, as far as England was concerned, were always the hard core. And you just know the guys like it. They want to be you. Some might be attracted to you without knowing it. — Mick Jagger

Lose your dreams and you might lose your mind. — Mick Jagger

As long as my face is on page one, I don't care what they say about me on page seventeen. — Mick Jagger

Rock has to absorb other rhythmic forms, because the underlying rhythm of music changes with fashion, and people like to move differently, and the underlying rhythms have to be the ones that people want to dance to. — Mick Jagger

I haven't had the time to plan returning to the scene because I haven't left it. — Mick Jagger

We have a lot of secondary market problems in the U.K.; it's really bad there. And lots of artists are starting to participate in it, because they put the tickets up at a certain price, then the tickets get marked up by the secondary sellers, and someone else gets twice as much as you. — Mick Jagger

I've managed to avoid tattoos so far. — Mick Jagger

I have never wanted to give up performing on stage, but one day the tours will be over. — Mick Jagger

It's like everyone I have dinner with, I'm having an affair with. Who was it I met the other day? Minnie Driver! She seems charming, but that's the only time I've met her. — Mick Jagger

I don't want to be a rock star all my life.
I couldn't bear to end up like Elvis Presley in Las Vegas with all those housewives and old ladies coming in with their handbags — Mick Jagger

You have to realize that everyone in a band is all more or less together, and everyone has their own niche, and some people lead in some ways, and some people lead in others. — Mick Jagger

I don't hate journalists. You can't hate a class of people. It's wrong to say that. But I do think they're a bit like poison. Never trust them. You can't trust them as a class of people. It's their job not to be trusted. — Mick Jagger

When you write songs, you have to like them yourself first, but then you have to make everyone else like them, because you can force them to play it, but you can't force them to like it. — Mick Jagger

You have to write a song around this specific character or to enhance a specific scene. A lot of other craft goes on. — Mick Jagger

Goddess was made in my home in France. The material retained an integrity whit it would have lost in Los Angeles studio. — Mick Jagger

I don't find it easy dealing with people with drug problems. It helps if you're all taking drugs, all the same drugs. — Mick Jagger

Life's just a cocktail party - on the street. — Mick Jagger

I don't think enjoying life is an exclusive prerogative of young people. — Mick Jagger

Most people in England don't live in the North, and people are snobby in England, so they wanted a band from the South. — Mick Jagger

I can't get no satisfaction. — Mick Jagger

Many Americans have no idea of what has been the foreign policy of their country. If you don't know about something, you can't understand what is going on. — Mick Jagger

I think that people taking drugs occasionally are great. I think there's nothing wrong with it. But if you do it the whole time, you don't produce as good things as you could. — Mick Jagger

The terrible attack in Manhattan has given place to a burst of patriotism in the United States. — Mick Jagger

He stole my music but he gave me my name. — Mick Jagger

I don't like being completely isolated. I need the energy from other people. — Mick Jagger

I should think that being my old lady would be all the satisfaction or career any woman needs. — Mick Jagger

I really don't see myself being apart from music. I like doing lots of different things. I've been involved in film for quite a long time and I just like doing film. — Mick Jagger

I have a lot of songs, and I'd love to do some more recording with the band. — Mick Jagger

The Spice Girl Victoria Beckham has just published the story of her life. I confess that it is not in my reading table. — Mick Jagger

Americans get very simple explanations of what happens to them. — Mick Jagger

Everyone in the movie industry wants to win an Oscar. I don't think that's why you make movies. But winning an Oscar is not just about making a great movie, unfortunately. It's also having a good Oscar campaign. — Mick Jagger

I don't know if rock is dying. I wouldn't want to say that, but the world does change. Nothing stays the same. — Mick Jagger

You've got to have fresh wardrobe. You can't just go out there looking like you did last time. That helps your transformation. — Mick Jagger

For some people it's real therapy to talk to journalists about their private lives and inner thoughts. But I would rather keep something to myself. — Mick Jagger

I think people are afraid to express their opinions half the time. — Mick Jagger

In England you're skewered on the altar of pop culture if you become pretentious. — Mick Jagger

I don't only like rock music. There are other forms of music that I find interesting. I would want to do everything, every kind of music. I wouldn't want to be limited to like playing heavy metal or whatever. — Mick Jagger

Well, don't we all feel like jumping to the end of the world sometimes? — Mick Jagger