Mick Jagger and Keith Richards began their long and winding relationship as childhood friends. Growing up just a few streets from each other, they later reconnected over their love for music as the two men who would front one of the most dominating outfits the world had ever known when they locked eyes across a train platform in the 1950s. When he was called in to join The Rolling Stones, Jagger suggested that Richards should join too, and the rest was history.
Jagger and Richards became the songwriting duo at the heart of the band, penning hits such as ‘Paint It Black’, ‘Sympathy for the Devil’, and ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’. But as the band and the music industry surrounding them began to evolve, their relationship devolved into feuding and fighting in the 1980s.
As Jagger became the monumental frontman with an equally monumental ego, Richards and Jagger lost their combined talent for songwriting to increasing hostility and dysfunction. Their relationship deteriorated, and they began penning bitter tracks about each other. Some have suggested Richards sang ‘All About You’ about Jagger’s heightened ego in 1980, as he declares, “So sick and tired hanging around with jerks like you”. The frontman also went behind his bandmates’ backs to secure a secret solo deal alongside the Stones’ deal with Columbia.
Richards became increasingly bitter about Jagger’s solo career and detailed their problems in his 2010 autobiography, Life. In the memoir, Richards called the frontman “unbearable” and made a shocking comment about Jagger’s debut solo record, She’s the Boss, which was released in 1985. He started, “Mick’s album was called She’s the Boss, which said it all”, before going on to compare the record to Mein Kampf.
He stated: “I’ve never listened to the entire thing all the way through. Who has? It’s like Mein Kampf. Everybody had a copy, but nobody listened to it. As to his subsequent titles, carefully worded, Primitive Cool, Goddess in the Doorway, which it was irresistible not to rechristen ‘Dogshit in the Doorway’, I rest my case.”
Richards continued: “He says I have no manners and a bad mouth. He’s even written a song on the subject. But this record deal of Mick’s was bad manners beyond any verbal jibes.” His outrageous statements reflect the bitterness he was feeling towards Jagger at the time as well as his open dislike for the music itself.
The guitarist concluded that his bandmate had “lost touch with reality” and commented: “Just by choice of material, it seemed to me he had really gone off the tracks. It was very sad. He wasn’t prepared not to make an impact. And he was upset. But I can’t imagine why he thought it would fly.”
By 1986, the increasing animosity almost caused the band to break up. Richards released his own debut solo album in 1988, Talk Is Cheap, and it looked as if the Stones might split. However, a year later, the band were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The two put their differences aside to put out Steel Wheels, embarking upon a world tour in support of the record. Nonetheless, Richards clearly retained a sense of bitterness towards the frontman over two decades later while penning his autobiography.
