Tears clearly struck a chord with a lot of people, as it is among the top 20 selling singles of all time in the UK. In comparison, major acts like ABBA, U2 and, yes, the Rolling Stones don’t have any entries in the top 100.

….oh and both the next two singles to top the UK chart, the Carnival Is Over and We Can Work It Out/Day Tripper, are also among the UK’s biggest sellers of all time.

American, eh ?

Brian C

Does this mean reggaeton will supplant grime after all?

British middle class kid ( with love of American Blues ) becomes rock n roll anti hero to millions and in the process makes a gazillion bucks. And because he’s rich , and finds himself being ripped off left right and centre, gets serious about the business side of his “art”.

In doing so finds himself at helm of big corporation. For many this means he has ” sold out”.

At the same time, his country undergoes much needed yet painful, political overhaul . The emergence of the ” new rich’ puts him at the epi-centre of of reactionary sentiment. Rock and roller as symbol of emergence of thenoveau bourgeiosie ?

Is that it ?

It was first the music then the sex, later the drugs but forever rock n’ roll.

Brian C

Mark, is goals the word you want?

I’ll bet many/most Britpunks wouldn’t've been at home with the old Jagger either, since he wasn’t giving them the nice Us vs. Them that they wanted.

But the real prob so many dullhead punks had with the ’70s Stones was that the Stones hung on to their dirty glamour, didn’t forego the femme and the fame. The problem I had with the ’70s Stones was that they weren’t the Dolls or Stooges, that the sound had lost its punch and its glitter. (But I did like Emotional Rescue, when it came along, a funny little groove band hooking onto a new dance, again.)

But then, I don’t read it, I hear it, which is another universe. Jagger’s words are so smart because they tell you he knows better - knows that his stances won’t hold, that the carpet’s moving, that no stances hold, and he’ll give it a jerk just to watch himself tumble. But the singing and playing are smarter still. They know better than the knowing better, know that you feel your stance, live your pose, even when your contradictory stances rip you to pieces. You stand with conviction while you’re demolishing your own ground. So the world really is crashing in, no joke, and the Stones throw bombs in response, and invite everyone to sing along.

Of course, 40 years later the song is a familiar standby, exceeded in bomb power by a million subsequent pre-fab explosions (though exceeded in intelligence by none), its ka-boom long since muffled.

The political analysis on this thread makes no sense to me (too facile or truncated or cryptic), but perhaps it shows that some of you are still open to being hurt by this music. Good for the music, if it hurts you.

I was going to say that maybe Jagger’s time in economics school (as opposed to art) had something to do with Thatcherism, but then do all well-off rock stars become Tories in the end anyway, no matter where they started? Sigh.

Oh, and thanks to Marcello for giving some idea of what the Dodd parallel would be, as I had no idea…

When I couldn’t get a single form the newsagent and ” smoke” shop next door to our flat, it’d require a trip to downtown Toronto.

And for as long as I remember , and still, there was Sam the Record Man. It was and still is a multi - floored music emporium. I’ve been buying there for at least 35 years ! It’s a shrine in Toronto and I still spend hours there when I go to ” town “.

Sam Sniderman and his brother ran & owned it and were always great supporters of Canadian music. (So I guess we have them partially to blame for Bryan Adams & Sarah McLaughlin )

Sam very nearly went out of business with the technological changes in distribution system but he ( his sons ) are hanging in there.

He’s at http://www.samscd.com/

Brian

Were Harlequin Records around in the 60s? I used to buy a lot of records there in the 70s (as well as Woolworth’s and a guy in North End Road Market who sold singles). I think Our Price bought them out.

What’s the difference between Mick Jagger and a Scottish farmer?

MIck Jagger says “Hey you, get off of my cloud” and a Scottish farmer says “Hey McCloud, get off of my ewe”

In American terms, the success of “Tears” would have been equivalent to, say, Sid Caesar or Milton Berle having the biggest single of ‘65 with a cover of “Mammy” or similar.

I didn’t recognise you with your capitals on.

So, Rumbelows in Welwyn Garden City didn’t have the space to stock significant numbers of LPs with room for browsing (there’s another difference - you asked for your single from a rack behind the counter, but albums were there to be browsed). They went under, to be replaced by Harlequin Records, which was more specialised but considered less cool than Rag Records in Hatfield.

Welwyn Stores, on the other hand, welcomed the album market - they were already equipped for the comparatively few albums that were about, and you could always browse there, I think. Also, if you hung around the Stores’ record department for long enough on a Saturday, all your friends would pass through sooner or later, so it was a hang-out.

Doctor Mod