Mick Jagger’s 80th Birthday

Mick Jagger turned 80 on July 26th.

Bowie admired Jagger long before collaborating with him. Their duet of, “Dancing in the Street,” was a huge hit in 1985, and the official video remains fairly well known today (I think), but fans typically don’t like it anymore. I think it’s harmless and better in existing than not. This is a clip of them performing the song live at a Prince’s Trust concert in 1986– you see Paul McCartney introducing the song and playing bass. Mark Knopfler is back there playing guitar, and there’s a few other all-stars present. I always thought Jagger dominated the more familiar version of the song, and in this live version that’s even more the case. Bowie is almost a backup singer here.

Bowie mentioned The Rolling Stones in “All the Young Dudes” (“My brother’s back at home with this Beatles and his Stones”), and Mick Jagger specifically in “Drive in Saturday” (“People stared in Jagger’s eyes and scored”). He covered “Let’s Spend the Night Together” on Aladdin Sane and famously, supposedly, had some sort of sexual encounter with Jagger back in the 70s (Angie Bowie wrote about it, and the incident was adapted into a scene in the movie, Velvet Goldmine, but in that movie, the character was less based on Mick Jagger than Iggy Pop).

I have seen The Rolling Stones four times since the mid-90s and I very much hope to see them again. I keep pointing out what Mick Jagger is doing to my parents, who are in their 80s and do not act like Mick Jagger. We have a 5’x5’ artistic photograph of Mick Jagger in our living room, and, across from that, a promotional poster for the Stones’ last Buffalo concert (from 2015).

Far more than Bowie, I think Mick Jagger, as well as Paul McCartney are living connections between people across time and space. Someone my age today who saw the Stones perform for the first time, in 1962, would have been born in 1908. Surely many fans with a 19th Century birthday have seen, or at least heard the Stones, as have many with a a 21st Century birthday. With the possible exception of Antarctica, the Stones have performed on every continent, and I doubt there’s an inhabited spot on the globe where an image or recording of Mick Jagger cannot be found. Whatever else is different about us— the big us— we have Mick Jagger in common.

Happy birthday!