It’s a whole thing to have music pinpoint major moments in your life, quite frankly it’s odd if you don’t have the songs that bring you back to certain moments, heartbreaks, or versions of yourself. Life is littered with these moments, it’s a fact of life and has been since the first few notes of music were first played.
On 6 September 2005, I was a whopping 11 days old, barely two weeks in simpler terms. Well, the date, other than marking my second day in the double digited days of life, marked the release of A Bigger Bang. Either due to my astute lack of taste during the time or the fact I was just born, I did not care. The point here is losing it’s thread, my point is, now, my birth, a rather important day in the history of my life [maybe, jury’s out] , can be marked by the fact The Rolling Stones released their latest album of original music just 11 days later [I was coincidentally about 11 days late too] ! While I didn’t know, it’s still very cool as I was alive when an album I liked was released ! Hell Yeah! Well, recently turning 18, it’s quite a nice shake up to see emails in my inbox from The Stones promotional email starting with the line “18 Years Later…”. What is to get here? What’s to get here is that I have a very nice privilege to have been born at the prime time for The Stones to tease music.
Most times when music becomes defining in your life it has nothing to do with the time it came out and relies all on emotion, connection, and all that crap. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road by Elton John is my favorite song of all time, but that has nothing to do with anything special happening to me near or around the 5th of October 1973. My chronic non-aliveness could be sighted as to why, but I also call to attention my mom suffering from the same exact thing. Oh, how I love the album Wildflowers by Tom Petty, yet once more 1st November 1994 was bested by my inability to be alive at that moment in time. While neither of these dates have memories connected to them for yours truly, that doesn’t hinder the impact those pieces of music have left on my life. That’s true for everything and everyone. I mean, hey, as much as I love Paul McCartney, Egypt Station did nothing for me in 2018 upon its release. As years went by, I began to connect deeply to the music, and it became an album I am incredibly sentimental about to this day. Dates don’t matter like emotion in relation to art, at least to me.
Throwing everything I just said out the window, let’s focus on the fact that my birth and my shift into adulthood have become bookended by The Rolling Stones and their original music. I mean c'mon, they had 18 years between points A and B to release an original album, yet nope. 18 years was the amount of time they chose. Odd, but okay. Even if they did choose 18 years between the release of original music and the tease of *new* original music, 6 September and 21 August are awfully close when a whole 363 other days were available to be chosen. I do believe that signs from the universe come at unexpected yet needed moments, and even more so in acts of three. And this, my friends, is the third for me.
It’s strange, quite frankly. The Stones have been my top thing for over a year now [an impressive feat, since I cannot recall the last time an interest has held up so strong and for so long], and there wasn’t an inkling that they would release new music when they did. I mean, I would’ve imagined it was coming at some point, [poor Keith has been promising it for YEARS, and I was just hoping this year would be his year], but not right NOW. Not when I was newly 18, newly best friend-less, not when they wanted an album focused around heartbreak and anger. I mean, hell, even if the album were to come out around all this time of change for me, how is it that it was what fell directly in line with my feelings. The album was always gonna mean something to me, due to the time of it’s announcement, it being the last time we may ever hear Charlie Watts on a Stones record, or due to the fact it would be their first album released during my time of being a fan. Yet, it seems as though the album will stick with me for more than outer reasons around its release, it’ll fill that emotional connection too. Depending On You, according to Mick Jagger’s description of it, is aiming to hit me right where it hurts.
Hackney Diamonds took its time to get here, 18 years to be exact. I took 18 years to get where I am, too. Seems as though a connection has been made that it’ll take a lot to sever. Good things do come to those who wait, I suppose.
The New Stones Single and Video 'Angry':
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