Sucking in the Seventies?
The Rolling Stones and the aftermath of the permissive society
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/pomh.v7i1.5Keywords:
Britain, celebrity, libertarianism, permissiveness, permissive society, rock music, seventies, The Rolling StonesAbstract
This article explores how the Rolling Stones, as the most famous sixties rock band to survive the seventies, capture the changing nature of permissiveness across the two decades. The first section examines their continued opposition to what they perceived to be the anti-permissive forces of church, state and censorship in the seventies, though they moderated their antipathy to the music industry. The second section assesses how the Stones attempted to fashion their private lives along libertarian lines. It argues that, although they relished the unprecedented freedoms afforded to them as seventies rock stars, they risked becoming the victims of their own excess. The Stones therefore exemplify how permissiveness at once expanded in the seventies and lost much of its radical charge.
References
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Bronstein, Carolyn. 2011. Battling Pornography: The American Feminist Anti-Pornography Movement, 1976–1986. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511975929
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Carrington, Rychard. 2007. ‘“Questioning and Dancing on the Table”: The Ludic Liberalism of Richard Neville’. In The Permissive Society and Its Enemies, ed. Marcus Collins, 145–54. London: Rivers Oram.
Charone, Barbara. 1979. Keith Richards. London: Futura.
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Hagerty, Neil, and Jennifer Herrema. 1995. ‘Keith Richards Interview’. RAYGUN 22. http://pierresetparoles.blogspot.com/2004/09/keith-richards-1995.html (accessed 1 February 2012).
Hansard. 1965. H.L. vol. 264, col. 283, 16 March 1965.
Harrison, Brian. 2009. Seeking a Role: The United Kingdom, 1951–1970. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Harron, Mary. 1990. ‘McRock: Pop as a Commodity’. In Facing the Music: A Pantheon Guide to Popular Culture, ed. Simon Frith, 173–220. London: Mandarin.
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Hunt, Leon. 1998. British Low Culture: From Safari Suits to Sexploitation. London: Routledge.
Huss, John. 2012. ‘The Head and the Groin of Rock’. In The Rolling Stones and Philosophy: It’s Just a Thought Away, ed. Luke Dick and George A. Reisch, 57–66. Chicago: Open Court.
Jenkins, Philip. 1992. Intimate Enemies: Moral Panics in Contemporary Great Britain. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
Jones, Mark. 2007. ‘Down the Rabbit Hole: Permissiveness and Paedophilia in the Sixties’. In The Permissive Society and its Enemies, ed. Marcus Collins, 112–31. London: Rivers Oram.
Kent, Nick. 2007. The Dark Stuff: Selected Writings on Rock Music, 1972–1993. London: Faber.
Loewenstein, Dora, and Philip Dodd, eds. 2004. According to the Rolling Stones. London: Phoenix.
Marwick, Arthur. 1998. The Sixties: Cultural Revolution in Britain, France, Italy and the United States, c.1958–74. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
McPherson, Ian. 2005. ‘The Rolling Stones Chronicle: 1978’. http://web.archive.org/web/20051230192838/http://www.timeisonourside.com/chron1978.html (accessed 23 July 2012).
—2006. ‘The Rolling Stones Chronicle: 1989’. http://web.archive.org/web/20061028052841/http://www.timeisonourside.com/chron1989.html (accessed 23 July 2012).
Melly, George. 1970. Revolt into Style: The Pop Arts in Britain. London: Allen Lane.
Mill, John Stuart. 1859. On Liberty. Rev. edn. London: John W. Parker.
Moore, Allan. 2002. ‘Authenticity as Authentication’. Popular Music 21(2): 209–223. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0261143002002131
Mort, Frank. 2010. Capital Affairs: London and the Making of the Permissive Society. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
National Deviancy Conference, ed. 1980. Permissiveness and Control: The Fate of the Sixties Legislation. London: Macmillan.
Newburn, Tim. 1992. Permission and Regulation: Law and Morals in Postwar Britain. London: Routledge.
Oldham, Andrew Loog. 2001. Stoned: A Memoir of London in the 1960s. London: Vintage.
—2003. 2Stoned. London: Vintage.
Pallington West, Jessica. 2009. What Would Keith Richards Do? Daily Affirmations from a Rock and Roll Survivor. London: Bloomsbury.
Paytress, Mark. 2003. The Rolling Stones Off the Record: Outrageous Opinions and Unrehearsed Interviews. London: Omnibus.
Press, Joy, and Simon Reynolds. 1995. The Sex Revolts: Gender, Rebellion and Rock’n’Roll. London: Serpent’s Tail.
Richards, Keith, and James Fox. 2010. Life. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
Salewicz, Chris. 2002. Mick and Keith. London: Orion.
Sandford, Christopher. 1993. Mick Jagger: Primitive Cool. London: Victor Gollancz.
Wawzenek, Bryan. 2010. ‘Keith Richards Revisits Bad Times for Autobiography’. http://www.gibson.com/en-us/Lifestyle/News/keith-richards-0603 (accessed 1 February 2012).
Weeks, Jeffrey. 2007. The World We Have Won: The Remaking of Erotic and Intimate Life. London: Routledge.
Wenner, Jann. 1994–95. ‘The Rolling Stone Interview: Jagger Remembers’. http://www.jannswenner.com/Archives/Jagger_Remembers.aspx (accessed 1 February 2012).
Whiteley, Sheila. 1992. The Space between the Notes: Rock and the Counterculture. London: Routledge.
—1997. ‘Little Red Rooster vs. the Honky Tonk Woman: Mick Jagger, Sexuality, Style and Image’. In Sexing the Groove: Popular Music and Gender, ed. Sheila Whiteley, 67–99. New York: Routledge.
Wilde, Jon. 1995. ‘Keith Richards Interviewed’. http://www.sabotagetimes.com/people/keith-richards/ (accessed 1 February 2012).
Wood, Ronnie, Jack MacDonald and Jeffrey Robinson. 2007. Ronnie. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Wyman, Bill, and Ray Coleman. 1990. Stone Alone. New York: Viking.
Aldgate, Anthony. 1995. Censorship and the Permissive Society: British Cinema and Theatre, 1955–1965. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Altham, Keith. 1966. ‘This is a Stone Age!’ http://www.rocksbackpages.com/article.html?ArticleID=9003 (accessed 23 July 2012).
Appleford, Steve. 1997. The Rolling Stones: It’s Only Rock and Roll—Song by Song. New York: Schirmer Books.
August, Andrew. 2009. ‘Gender and 1960s Youth Culture: The Rolling Stones and the New Woman’. Contemporary British History 23(1): 79–100. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13619460801990104
Baker, Andrea J. 2009. ‘Mick or Keith: Blended Identity of Online Rock Fans’. Identity in the Information Society 2(1): 7–21. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12394-009-0015-5
Barnes, Tim. 1999. ‘Loosen Up: The Rolling Stones Ring in the 1960s’. In Living Through Pop, ed. Andrew Blake, 15–30. London: Routledge.
Bennett, Andy. 2007. ‘The Forgotten Decade: Rethinking the Popular Music of the 1970s’. Popular Music History 2(1): 5–24. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/pomh.v2i1.5
Bingham, Adrian. 2009. Family Newspapers?Sex, Private Life, and the British Popular Press, 1918–1978. Oxford: Oxford University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199279586.001.0001
Bokris, Victor. 1992. Keith Richards: The Unauthorised Biography. London: Hutchinson.
Booth, Stanley. 1994. Keith: Till I Roll Over Dead. London: Headline.
—2000. The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones. New York: A Capella.
Bronstein, Carolyn. 2011. Battling Pornography: The American Feminist Anti-Pornography Movement, 1976–1986. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511975929
Burke, Patrick. 2010. ‘Rock, Race, and Radicalism in the 1960s: The Rolling Stones, Black Power and Godard’s One Plus One’. Journal of Musicological Research 29(4): 275–94. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01411896.2010.513322
Carr, Roy. 1976. The Rolling Stones: An Illustrated Record. London: New English Library.
Carrington, Rychard. 2007. ‘“Questioning and Dancing on the Table”: The Ludic Liberalism of Richard Neville’. In The Permissive Society and Its Enemies, ed. Marcus Collins, 145–54. London: Rivers Oram.
Charone, Barbara. 1979. Keith Richards. London: Futura.
Christgau, Robert. 1972. ‘The Rolling Stones: Can’t Get No Satisfaction’. http://beatpatrol.wordpress.com/2010/02/25/robert-christgau-the-rolling-stones-cant-get-no-satisfaction-1972/ (accessed 1 February 2012).
Coates, Norma. 2006. ‘If Anything, Blame Woodstock: The Rolling Stones—Altamont, December 6, 1969’. In The Performance of Popular Music: History, Place and Time, ed. Ian Inglis, 58–69. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Coelho, Victor. 2011. ‘Through the Lens, Darkly: Peter Whitehead and the Rolling Stones’. Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media 52(1): 170–91. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/frm.2011.0010
Collins, Marcus, ed. 2007. The Permissive Society and its Enemies. London: Rivers Oram.
Collins, Marcus, compiler. 2012. 'Stones Interviews'. http://stonesinterviews.weebly.com (accessed 11 January 2013).
Connolly, Ray. 1969. ‘Keith Richards’. http://www.rayconnolly.co.uk/pages/journalism_01/journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=74 (accessed 1 February 2012).
Dalton, David, and Mick Farren, eds. 1980. The Rolling Stones: In Their Own Words. London: Omnibus.
Davies, Christie. 1975. Permissive Britain: Social Change in the Sixties and Seventies. London: Pitman.
Dick, Luke. 2012. ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’. In The Rolling Stones and Philosophy: It’s Just A Thought Away, ed. Luke Dick and George A. Reisch, 165–76. Chicago: Open Court.
Dick, Luke, and George A. Reisch, eds. 2012. The Rolling Stones and Philosophy: It’s Just a Thought Away. Chicago: Open Court.
Doggett, Peter. 2007. There’s a Riot Going On: Revolutionaries, Rock Stars and the Rise and Fall of 60s Counterculture. Edinburgh: Canongate.
—2010. You Never Give Me Your Money: The Battle for the Soul of the Beatles. London: Vintage.
Eggar, Robin. 1995. ‘Mick Jagger’. http://www.rocksbackpages.com/article.html?ArticleID=11281 (accessed 1 February 2012).
Faulk, Barry J. 2010. British Rock Modernism, 1967–1977: The Story of Music Hall in Rock. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Frank, Thomas. 1997. The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture and the Rise of Hip Consumerism. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Fricke, David. 2002. ‘Online Exclusive: Keith Richards Uncut’. http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/online-exclusive-keith-richards-uncut-20020924 (accessed 1 February 2012).
Frith, Simon. 1983. Sound Effects: Youth, Leisure and the Politics of Rock. London: Constable.
Guinness, Catherine, Victor Huge and Andy Warhol. 1977. ‘New Again: The Rolling Stones’. Interview Magazine. http://www.interviewmagazine.com/music/new-again-the-rolling-stones (accessed 23 July 2012).
Hagerty, Neil, and Jennifer Herrema. 1995. ‘Keith Richards Interview’. RAYGUN 22. http://pierresetparoles.blogspot.com/2004/09/keith-richards-1995.html (accessed 1 February 2012).
Hansard. 1965. H.L. vol. 264, col. 283, 16 March 1965.
Harrison, Brian. 2009. Seeking a Role: The United Kingdom, 1951–1970. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Harron, Mary. 1990. ‘McRock: Pop as a Commodity’. In Facing the Music: A Pantheon Guide to Popular Culture, ed. Simon Frith, 173–220. London: Mandarin.
Heath, Joseph, and Andrew Potter. 2006. The Rebel Sell: How the Counterculture Became Consumer Culture. Oxford: Capstone.
Hotchner, A. E. 1990. Blown Away: The Rolling Stones and the Death of the Sixties. London: Simon and Schuster.
Hunt, Leon. 1998. British Low Culture: From Safari Suits to Sexploitation. London: Routledge.
Huss, John. 2012. ‘The Head and the Groin of Rock’. In The Rolling Stones and Philosophy: It’s Just a Thought Away, ed. Luke Dick and George A. Reisch, 57–66. Chicago: Open Court.
Jenkins, Philip. 1992. Intimate Enemies: Moral Panics in Contemporary Great Britain. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
Jones, Mark. 2007. ‘Down the Rabbit Hole: Permissiveness and Paedophilia in the Sixties’. In The Permissive Society and its Enemies, ed. Marcus Collins, 112–31. London: Rivers Oram.
Kent, Nick. 2007. The Dark Stuff: Selected Writings on Rock Music, 1972–1993. London: Faber.
Loewenstein, Dora, and Philip Dodd, eds. 2004. According to the Rolling Stones. London: Phoenix.
Marwick, Arthur. 1998. The Sixties: Cultural Revolution in Britain, France, Italy and the United States, c.1958–74. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
McPherson, Ian. 2005. ‘The Rolling Stones Chronicle: 1978’. http://web.archive.org/web/20051230192838/http://www.timeisonourside.com/chron1978.html (accessed 23 July 2012).
—2006. ‘The Rolling Stones Chronicle: 1989’. http://web.archive.org/web/20061028052841/http://www.timeisonourside.com/chron1989.html (accessed 23 July 2012).
Melly, George. 1970. Revolt into Style: The Pop Arts in Britain. London: Allen Lane.
Mill, John Stuart. 1859. On Liberty. Rev. edn. London: John W. Parker.
Moore, Allan. 2002. ‘Authenticity as Authentication’. Popular Music 21(2): 209–223. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0261143002002131
Mort, Frank. 2010. Capital Affairs: London and the Making of the Permissive Society. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
National Deviancy Conference, ed. 1980. Permissiveness and Control: The Fate of the Sixties Legislation. London: Macmillan.
Newburn, Tim. 1992. Permission and Regulation: Law and Morals in Postwar Britain. London: Routledge.
Oldham, Andrew Loog. 2001. Stoned: A Memoir of London in the 1960s. London: Vintage.
—2003. 2Stoned. London: Vintage.
Pallington West, Jessica. 2009. What Would Keith Richards Do? Daily Affirmations from a Rock and Roll Survivor. London: Bloomsbury.
Paytress, Mark. 2003. The Rolling Stones Off the Record: Outrageous Opinions and Unrehearsed Interviews. London: Omnibus.
Press, Joy, and Simon Reynolds. 1995. The Sex Revolts: Gender, Rebellion and Rock’n’Roll. London: Serpent’s Tail.
Richards, Keith, and James Fox. 2010. Life. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
Salewicz, Chris. 2002. Mick and Keith. London: Orion.
Sandford, Christopher. 1993. Mick Jagger: Primitive Cool. London: Victor Gollancz.
Wawzenek, Bryan. 2010. ‘Keith Richards Revisits Bad Times for Autobiography’. http://www.gibson.com/en-us/Lifestyle/News/keith-richards-0603 (accessed 1 February 2012).
Weeks, Jeffrey. 2007. The World We Have Won: The Remaking of Erotic and Intimate Life. London: Routledge.
Wenner, Jann. 1994–95. ‘The Rolling Stone Interview: Jagger Remembers’. http://www.jannswenner.com/Archives/Jagger_Remembers.aspx (accessed 1 February 2012).
Whiteley, Sheila. 1992. The Space between the Notes: Rock and the Counterculture. London: Routledge.
—1997. ‘Little Red Rooster vs. the Honky Tonk Woman: Mick Jagger, Sexuality, Style and Image’. In Sexing the Groove: Popular Music and Gender, ed. Sheila Whiteley, 67–99. New York: Routledge.
Wilde, Jon. 1995. ‘Keith Richards Interviewed’. http://www.sabotagetimes.com/people/keith-richards/ (accessed 1 February 2012).
Wood, Ronnie, Jack MacDonald and Jeffrey Robinson. 2007. Ronnie. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Wyman, Bill, and Ray Coleman. 1990. Stone Alone. New York: Viking.
Published
2013-02-05
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Collins, M. (2013). Sucking in the Seventies? The Rolling Stones and the aftermath of the permissive society. Popular Music History, 7(1), 5-23. https://doi.org/10.1558/pomh.v7i1.5
