The secret to the success of Life is that it captures Richards' voice and shows his contradictions.
[Mick's women] end up crying on my shoulder because they've found out he has once again philandered. What am I gonna do? Well, it's a long ride to the airport, honey; let me think about it. The tears that have been on this shoulder from Jerry Hall, from Bianca, from Marianne, Chrissie Shrimpton... They've ruined so many shirts of mine. And they ask me what to do! How the hell do I know? I don't fuck him! (p 294)Keith rarely seems to recognize the distance between his self-image and his behavior. He imagines himself to be a disciplined junkie who is in complete control of his addiction...except for when he isn't. He says he never puts the make on a woman, then tells a story about tracking down the German model Uschi Obermaier. Many paragraphs start with a proclamation that he appears to contradict by the end.
I've never been able to go to bed with a woman just for sex. I've no interest in that. I want to hug you and kiss you and make you feel good and protect you. I'd rather jerk off than just have a piece of pussy... Usually I was more interested in chicks who weren't slavering and falling all over me. I'd be hanging out and go, let's try the wife of the banker... (p 349)The next page contains a paean to the wonder of groupies.
Even more than the entertaining conundrums of Keith's rationalizations, I enjoyed the musical insights: how he got the sound of "Jumping Jack Flash" from acoustic guitars and a crummy cassette recorder overloaded to the point of distortion (p 239); how American artists played their Sears guitars using banjo tuning; and how the secret to the classic Rolling Stones riffs is open tuning.
Jimmy Reed produces a haunting refrain, a melancholy dissonance...At the 5 chord, instead of making a conventional barre chord, the B7th, which requires a little effort with the left hand, he wouldn't bother with the B at all. He'd leave the open A ringing and just slide the finger up the D string to a 7th...Believe me, it's (a) the laziest, sloppiest single thing you can do in that situation, and (b) one of the most brilliant musical inventions of all time. (p 106)The compelling strangeness of the book can be summarized with a story near the end. Keith is living on an island in the Caribbean, next door to Bruce Willis, when Paul McCartney comes strolling down the beach. The two legends start spending time together. Their conversations start with music but quickly take a wild turn.
We talked about [how] the Beatles were a vocal band because they could all sing the lead vocal, and we were more of a musicians' band -- we had only one front man....We even started composing a song together... We got into discussions about inflatable dog kennels designed like the dogs inside them -- spotted ones for Dalmatians and so on. Then we went off on one about a special project we were going to develop, sun-dried celebrity turds, purified with rainwater -- get celebrities to donate them, coat them with shellac and get a major artist to decorate them. Elton would do it; he's a great guy. George Michael, he'll go for it. What about Madonna? (p 538)
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