On “Divine Intervention,” an upbeat, carefree song about ignoring the apocalypse from the Rolling Stones’ upcoming 25th album, Mick Jagger admits that he was once worried enough about the end of the world to consult a Hollywood psychic. “Through the gloom I asked her what’s my future?/Well, she threw up,” he whimpers over a guitar boogie in the style of “Some Girls.” Jagger’s message in the chorus: Even if the world ends, “dystopian values are too hot to handle, and I’m going out in a blaze.” So what.
After all, the man who sang both “Time Is on My Side” and “Time Waits for No One” – the man who once said he’d rather be dead than sing “Satisfaction” at 45 – never cared much about the future. Jagger, who turns 83 shortly after the album’s July 10 release date, has always sung about life in the here and now. In the ’60s, as Paul McCartney elegantly mourned a heartbreak on “Yesterday,” Jagger railed against his ex on “Yesterday’s Papers.” And while McCa’s excellent new album finds him reminiscing about “The Boys of Dungeon Lane,” the Boys of Dartford Station are more interested in foreign affairs.
“Ringing Hollow,” a strolling country-rocker reminiscent of Gram Parsons’ influence on the Stones, is Jagger and Keith Richards’ farewell letter to the United States. “Well, I was madly in love with you/Before we ever met,” Jagger sings. “I saw all your movies/I smoked your cigarettes.” But now, says Jagger, “Lady Liberty is wearing a frown.” It’s an Americana folk song full of dry, ironic observations like: “Let the dreamers get the dream they want, my favorite joke/So pass around the fenty/Pass around the coke. … When voices are stifled/I wanna scream out loud.” Ouch! Of course they still love their American fans – but as with “Sweet Neo Con”, “Undercover of the Night” and “Street Fighting Man”: If they see injustice, they won’t keep their lips shut.
Billionaires and autocrats
Meanwhile, on “Divine Intervention” – one of the strongest songs on Foreign Tongues, featuring a great bluesy solo from Ronnie Wood – Jagger describes “billionaires all scuttling, scrambling to their bolt holes in the sky.” On “Covered in You” he raps: “I wake up sick and tired of all these autocrats/You know, they seem to be breeding like a swarm of dirty rats with their missiles on parade.” He never calls Trump by name, but on “Mr. Charm,” otherwise a playful gigolo anthem, he fires an arrow at one of the president’s confidants when he refers to the world’s first trillionaire as “mad mogul Mr. Musk.”
On “Never Wanna Lose You,” a pop rocker with a funky bass and Cure frontman Robert Smith on synthesizers, Jagger shows the other side of life: He would even move to Naples with his loved one – and he probably means Naples, Florida, since he describes a “rundown trailer park.” Politics, as Aristotle said, is ultimately the struggle between rich and poor. (And in true Jagger fashion, this man of wealth and taste never acknowledges his own or his bandmates’ millionaire status.)
The new album comes out three years after “Hackney Diamonds”. That record felt like a comeback of sorts – it was their first album of new original material in almost two decades, and, well, it was pretty great. It earned the band – which now includes bassist Darryl Jones and drummer Steve Jordan – a Grammy and established them as England’s oldest hitmakers. “Foreign Tongues”, which probably brings together those “Diamonds” roughs that weren’t fully polished last time, seems like the usual Stones routine – and in the best sense of the word, because the recordings produce similarly convincing results.
Comfort food for Stones fans
The record’s 14 songs include bone-dry rockers (“Hit Me in the Head,” “Rough and Twisted”), ballads with sweeping arcs and quiet moments at the side of the stage (“Back in Your Life,” Richards’ excellent “Some of Us”), disco heartbreak (“Jealous Lover,” “Never Wanna Lose You”), country honk (“Ringing Hollow”) and Chuck Berry riffs galore – literally an awesome cover of Berry’s “Beautiful Delilah.” No sharp curves, no pop experiments, just satisfying stonesy comfort food.
The Stones just know what a Stones record should sound like. Their loyalty to blues, R&B and early rock & roll remains undiminished – and if they ever strayed, Andrew Watt, who produced Hackney Diamonds, would have a watchful eye on them. He’s listed as a producer and has even secured a few rare co-writing credits alongside Jagger and Richards – but actually he probably deserves one for “Conscience” too: as a superfan par excellence, he helped them return to their quintessence: warm, bluesy riffs paired with Jagger’s caustic irony.
The album’s only real “What are they doing?” moments are Jagger’s rap on the otherwise strong “Covered in You” – on which McCartney plays a cranked-up groove on bass while Jagger mutters something about “wait ’til you see the whites of their asses” – and a fairly conventional cover of Amy Winehouse’s “You Know I’m No Good”, the best part of which is Jagger mimicking Mark Ronson’s production on his harmonica. What’s missing are extended jams, a midnight ramble or a “Gimme Shelter” storm – but the album largely delivers what Stones fans need.
Strong guest list
As with “Hackney Diamonds,” the guest list is impressive: McCartney, Smith, Steve Winwood (limited to piano and organ), Heartbreakers keyboardist Benmont Tench (on organ), and Bruno Mars, who plays a virtually inaudible cowbell on the baby-please-don’t-go disco party number “Never Wanna Lose You.” And like “Hackney Diamonds,” the most memorable performance is that of the unforgettable Charlie Watts on the “Hang Fire”-esque death wish song “Hit Me in the Head,” recorded in 2021 – which in no way detracts from Jordan, who swings differently and hits harder.
The album sounds a little too slick in places, but “Foreign Tongues” stays largely true to the Stones’ signature sound – or at least Watts’ idea of what the Stones should sound like. No Dust Brothers beats like on “Bridges to Babylon”. Jagger, Richards and Wood know they have the winning streak from “Beggars Banquet” to “Exile on Main St.” (without downplaying “Aftermath”, “Some Girls” or “Tattoo You”) will never be topped again – so why not outshine “Dirty Work” and “Voodoo Lounge”, which they do here by far. Jagger’s voice is a modern wonder and sounds as good as it did 40 years ago; he even sings “You Know I’m No Good” in a higher register than Winehouse. And Richards and Wood’s “ancient art of weaving” creates dense textures – particularly on “Ringing Hollow” – that leave room for both to play off each other with guitar showcases coming to the fore.
In some ways, “Foreign Tongues” is an improvement over “Hackney Diamonds”: that album occasionally sounded a little too much like a Jagger solo work because of its heavy reliance on vocal melodies. This one feels more guitar-driven and is Stones in every fiber. The goal, Watt says, was to write songs that would perform on the stadium stage – and the single “In the Stars” and “Never Wanna Lose You” could both do that, should the band want to tour again.
When the Stones let loose
As always, the best moments come when the Stones let loose. On “Jealous Lover,” a funky soul number reminiscent of “Emotional Rescue,” Jagger breaks up with his lover in falsetto because she is too jealous of other women – although he never denies cheating on her. And he fully lives out the fuckboy ethos on the playful “Mr. Charm,” on which he seduces a rich woman and explains to her: “Life’s too short for just making money/Show me how to spend it honey.” (In a rare acknowledgment of his age, he admits on the song that he once dreamed of traveling to Mars, but now prefers to stay home and “do anagrams, spew epigrams.”) Then there’s Richards’ “Some of Us,” a moving declaration of love whose origins as a song go back to the ’80s, on which he sings, “Some of us are on our knees, begging, baby.” There is a deep emotion and vulnerability in Richards’ voice that occasionally intertwines with Jagger’s voice – a reflection of the devotion that only comes from enduring affection.
And on the subject of lasting affection: The album ends with Jagger and Richards – there for each other since they were five years old – singing Berry’s “Beautiful Delilah”, with Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith on concert bass drum. Like the Glimmer Twins, who played Muddy Waters’ “Rolling Stone Blues” on “Hackney Diamonds,” their choice of Berry is a full-circle moment for the duo: Jagger was carrying Waters and Berry records under his arm when he met Richards again at Dartford train station, and the Stones’ very first single was a cover of Berry’s “Come On.” For four minutes they were Blues Incorporated again, their first band. And you can feel that that original spark still glows within them.
Jagger has said he hopes the Stones release more albums – but as he and Richards move deeper into their 80s (Wood turns 80 next year), there is always the feeling that this album could be the last. You don’t know it yourself. If so, Foreign Tongues is an album that lives up to their legacy.