People have this obsession. They want you to be like you were in 1969. They want you to, because otherwise their youth goes with you. It's very selfish, but it's understandable.
I'd rather be dead than singing "Satisfaction" when I'm forty-five.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote expresses a strong aversion to compromising artistic integrity for commercial success as one ages.
Mick Jagger's quote reflects the idea that maintaining authenticity and passion in one's career is more important than achieving commercial success, particularly within the music industry. He suggests that the idea of performing a song merely for its popularity or financial gain, especially in a future where he may not resonate with it, is undesirable and unacceptable. It emphasizes the value of staying true to oneself over time, rejecting conformist pressures to please others.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in discussions about artist integrity during a music industry panel.
More from Mick Jagger
All quotes βYou start out playing rock 'n' roll so you can have sex and do drugs, but you end up doing drugs so you can still play rock 'n' roll and have sex.
The new fashion is to talk about the most private parts of your life; other fashion is to repent of your excesses and to criticize the drugs that made you happy in the other times.
Thank you for leaving us alone but giving us enough attention to boost our egos.
As long as my face is on page one, I don't care what they say about me on page seventeen.
I have never wanted to give up performing on stage, but one day the tours will be over.
Similar quotes
There is no thing that with a twist of the imagination cannot be something else. Porpoises risen in a green sea, the wind at nightfall bending the rose- red grasses and you- in your apron hurrying to catch- say it seems to you to be your son. How ridiculous! You will pass up into a cloud and look back at me, not count the scribbling foolish that put wings at your heels, at your knees.
A play is made by sensing how the forces in life simulate ignorance-you set free the concealed irony, the deadly joke.
My kind of director is an actor-director who writes.
The stage is a place where I can be wholly myself. Even though you're in front of people almost to be judged, it is a place without judgement.
Improvisation is too good to leave to chance.
Originality is not seen in single words or even in sentences. Originality is the sum total of a man's thinking or his writing.