The Rolling Stones
Their Satanic Majesties Request

THE REVIEW

The Rolling Stones - Their Satanic Majesties Request (1967)

"Open our heads and the pictures come."
The First Song by the Rolling Stones that I still remember is in a bucolic polaroid of my summer holidays: I was on the indoor staircase of my grandparents' country house; they led from the kitchen to the upper floor, with the steps made of pietra serena -does anyone remember it?- in a burnished brown color, polished by age, but very smooth, every now and then someone would strike and fly down. I often sat at the top of the stairs, in front of the window near the railing, listening to songs with a big radio... And on medium wave Emotional Rescue came through. Ah what a strange piece, I said to myself, but who are these guys...

However, the somewhat alzheimer-Charliewatts! pace of that 4/4 disco casket, the silly and obscene falsetto, struck me. I understood better the following year when Start Me Up arrived, and at the arcade, the Rolling Stones pinball, you know those noisy and chaotic pinballs: it seemed like a concert, all those lights, the specials, Jagger's equine lips, lots of boom-boom, and the Christmas/electronic tunes of Satisfaction, When the Whips Come Down, and especially Miss You, I remember that one well. Plinplinplin pippi pi ri, plinplinplin pippi pi ri and I miss you... Every hundred lire wasn't just a game; more: it was an embrace. And the challenge with the friends from the group won at the last tilt by yours truly, who literally took away the opponent's hot sister in front of the astonished eyes of the other bullies, all silent after the record made written and validated behind the pinball with a Bic marker, for future memory? Ah how cool it is when you win... On the rock'n roll pinball there was the ritual writing that is often forgotten: for amusement only.

Years passed, the first guitar, a blazing, cheap, Hondo Les Paul Sunburst, I still cry, I sold it -never sell your first love!- During that period I was strumming from one band to another, basements, rehearsals, some small gigs, many mentally exalted people convinced they are rockstars.
Then, complicity of the scholastic travails, I rediscovered Dynasty by Kiss, and thanks to Ace I came from the cover of 2000 Man to Their Satanic Majesties, and I started military service -Trieste- with the cassette. And in the mega canteen bar of the central barracks, synchronicity, who do I find?: another Rolling Stones pinball, but I was so high that I don’t remember well how it was anymore. I think it had a different design from the challenge one... Maybe there was Jagger with a snaked microphone like one from a compilation. Meh. But I was so down, it seemed like it was playing a sad litany too, or maybe it was just my imagination, like The Sun is about to set... With my tears like thiiis. Anyway, it was a boredom killer Rolling Stones album, and sounds a bit Pink Floyd sound 1967! The cover was a mocking laugh in disguise -or maybe not?- like the poor cousins of the Beatles from Sgt. Pepper, but the result is superior. There's everything, trumpets, strings, dulcimer, spinets, flutes, bongos, sitar, spacey effects, zarathustra orchestras, plus the gray eminence of Brian Jones—who snores too: it's their anomalous masterpiece, they won't sound like this again. The overture mantra of Sing This All Together, the hard beat of Citadel, the trip of In Another Land, the acid rock of 2000 Man - the delightful and baroque She's a Rainbow - recently played in an ad - the Hindu jam of Gomper, the dark and introspective The Lantern and 2000 Light Years From Home. 

Of the Rolling Stones today, only the circus side remains, of the rock arena - 200 euros a ticket - or a CD every 6 months, take your pick.
And from the 2000 Man we moved to Novella 2000, with coconuts on their heads - a sign? - or the sex icon Jagger who is discovered with the small penis complex and masturbates to make it grow - at 60 years old, mature and well-nourished!! - in a honeycomb full of wasps advised by the aborigines - sic.

Years go by: the guitars end up on the shelf, myths crumble, but the beautiful songs remain.