THE ROLLING STONES: ARE THESE GUYS IMMORTAL?
The Band That Never Had to Come Back Because They Never Left
I have a question.
As a writer of horror, science fiction, and fantasy, I feel uniquely qualified to ask it.
Are the Rolling Stones immortal?
Image: The Rolling Stones. Source: Wikipedia.
I’m serious.
At some point, somebody from the Clan MacLeod needs to investigate this situation because I am beginning to suspect there may be a Quickening involved.
Somewhere in Scotland, Connor MacLeod suddenly stops what he is doing.
He feels something.
He turns toward London.
“Richards.”
Keith Richards looks up from his guitar.
Oh, not this again.
Because how else do you explain the Rolling Stones?
Okay. Fine. There is probably a perfectly reasonable explanation.
But it isn’t nearly as much fun.
I DIDN’T KNOW WHO THEY WERE
Here is the strange thing about growing up Gen X with the Rolling Stones.
I knew them.
But I didn’t know who they were.
There is a difference.
The Rolling Stones were simply part of the music happening around me. They were on the radio. They were making records. They were on television. They were touring.
They were a current rock band.
I knew Mick Jagger. I knew Keith Richards. I knew that tongue. I knew the sound.
What I didn’t understand was that by the time I was listening to the Rolling Stones in my youth, these guys were already legends.
Not becoming legends.
Legends.
The band formed in London in 1962. They came out of the British blues scene and became one of the giants of the British Invasion. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame now puts the Beatles and the Stones together as the two biggest bands to emerge from that invasion. By 1965, “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” had given the Stones their first American Number One and helped define their sound for the world.
They weren’t standing somewhere near rock history.
They were helping make it.
Young Angel had absolutely no idea.
WAIT. THAT’S THEM?
I remember listening to classic-rock radio.
That was where a lot of my musical archaeology happened. You would hear something, stop whatever you were doing and think:
Who is THAT?
Then I heard “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.”
Wait.
Who is this?
The Rolling Stones.
What?
Those Rolling Stones?
The same guys?
And down the rabbit hole I went.
Suddenly there was “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.”
“Paint It, Black.”
“Gimme Shelter.”
“Satisfaction.”
“Sympathy for the Devil.”
And the deeper I went, the more ridiculous the discovery became.
These weren’t some guys who had been around before I was born.
These guys had stood beside the greats.
They were the greats.
And yet there was something about discovering the Stones that was different from some of my other journeys backward through rock.
Because the old Rolling Stones and the current Rolling Stones didn't feel like two different bands.
THEY WERE STEADY
That's the word.
Steady.
The Rolling Stones who gave the world “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” were recognizably the same Rolling Stones giving us music in my youth.
They aged.
Of course they aged.
But did they?
Because something very strange happened with the Stones.
They never seemed to become old.
There is a difference between getting older and becoming an old band.
An old band can become a nostalgia act. The music belongs to another time. Maybe they reunite. Maybe they tour occasionally. Maybe everybody comes out to hear the songs they loved twenty years ago.
That wasn't how the Rolling Stones occurred to me.
They still rocked.
Not:
Wow, these old guys can still rock.
No.
They.
Still.
Rocked.
AND THEN CAME OUR STONES
This is where the timeline gets fun.
The Stones had already survived the sixties.
Then the seventies.
And as Gen X was coming into its own, here they came again.
Some Girls arrived in 1978 with “Miss You” and “Beast of Burden.” Emotional Rescue followed in 1980.
Image: The Rolling Stones album Some Girls. Source: Wikipedia
Then came 1981.
Tattoo You.
Image: The Rolling Stones album Tattoo You. Source: Wikipedia
“Start Me Up.”
“Hang Fire.”
That wasn't history.
That was happening now.
And Tattoo You wasn't some courtesy appearance from a legendary band everybody respected because of what they had done twenty years earlier. It went to Number One in the United States. In fact, the Stones had six Top 10 albums on the Billboard 200 during the 1980s alone, including Emotional Rescue, Tattoo You, Undercover, Dirty Work and Steel Wheels.
Think about that.
A band formed in 1962 was not merely surviving the eighties.
They were still participating in them.
MTV? FINE. WE’LL DO THAT TOO.
Then the world changed again.
MTV arrived.
Suddenly music wasn't just something you heard.
You had to look at it.
Artists had to make videos. Image became part of the record. A whole new generation of musicians arrived who understood that strange little glowing box better than many of the people who came before them.
And there were the Rolling Stones.
Of course there were.
“Start Me Up.”
“Hang Fire.”
“Waiting on a Friend.”
“Undercover of the Night.”
“Harlem Shuffle.”
They didn't stand outside MTV complaining that nobody appreciated proper rock ’n’ roll anymore.
They made videos.
Sometimes very strange videos.
Which brings me, unfortunately, to Mick Jagger and David Bowie.
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT “DANCING IN THE STREET”
Image: Mick Jagger and David Bowie. Source: RollingStone.com
I was there when this happened.
I don't know what happened here.
I have watched this video.
I have considered the available evidence.
And I have concluded that two of the most famous rock stars on Earth were apparently left unsupervised.
In 1985, Mick Jagger and David Bowie recorded a version of Martha and the Vandellas’ “Dancing in the Street” for Live Aid. The song and video were reportedly put together in about thirteen hours, with the proceeds benefiting famine relief. It became a major hit, reaching Number One in Britain and Number Seven in the United States.
All of that is wonderful.
The cause was serious.
The record was successful.
The video?
What the hell were they doing?
😂
There is dancing.
There is pointing.
There is leaping.
There are clothes doing things clothes should not be doing.
There are moments when Mick and Bowie appear to be having completely different experiences in the same physical space.
And nobody stopped them.
Because this was the eighties.
Apparently we just turned on MTV and accepted things.
But even that ridiculous little cultural artifact tells part of this story.
Mick Jagger wasn't some visitor from rock's ancient past.
He was right there in the middle of our MTV world.
THEN MUSIC CHANGED AGAIN
Hip-hop grew.
Pop changed.
Alternative arrived.
Grunge happened.
Technology changed how records were made.
And the Stones kept moving.
Not always by pretending none of those changes existed, either.
Their 1997 album Bridges to Babylon brought in producers including the Dust Brothers, whose résumé included the Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique and Beck's Odelay. “Anybody Seen My Baby?” even incorporated a sample of Biz Markie.
Image: The Rolling Stones album cover Bridges to Babylon. Source: TheRollingStones.com
Now that fascinates me.
Because they could absorb something happening around them without suddenly ceasing to be the Rolling Stones.
They didn't need to put on somebody else's musical costume.
They remained themselves.
That may be the secret.
THEY WERE THERE FOR ALL OF IT
The more I look at the Rolling Stones now, the less their story feels like one about longevity.
It's about continuity.
They were there when British bands crossed the Atlantic and teenagers screamed.
They were there when rock became counterculture.
They were there when albums became statements.
They were there when stadium rock exploded.
They were there for disco.
Punk.
MTV.
Hip-hop.
CDs.
Digital music.
Streaming.
The music industry changed around them again and again.
And every time somebody remodeled the building, eventually you looked over...
There were the damn Rolling Stones.
That's what I couldn't understand when I was young.
I wasn't listening to some old band that had managed to hang around.
I was standing somewhere in the middle of a story that hadn't stopped yet.
THE NUMBERS GET STUPID
Sometimes you need numbers just to understand how ridiculous something is.
When Hackney Diamonds debuted at Number Three on the Billboard 200 in 2023, the Rolling Stones became the first act to have newly charted Top 10 albums in every decade from the 1960s through the 2020s.
Image: The Rolling Stones album cover Hackney Diamonds. Source: Discogs
Sixties.
Seventies.
Eighties.
Nineties.
2000s.
2010s.
2020s.
Seven decades!
Excuse me?
At some point statistics stop being statistics and become evidence for my Highlander theory.
And they weren't just rereleasing Satisfaction for the 900th time.
Hackney Diamonds was their first album of original material since 2005's A Bigger Bang. It featured contributions from Lady Gaga, Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney and Elton John. Charlie Watts, who died in 2021, played on two tracks recorded before his death.
The Stones were still making new Stones music.
EVEN NOW
And this is where I have to correct one thing my memory wants to say.
As I write this in 2026, the Rolling Stones aren't actually out on tour right this minute. Their last full tour was the 2024 North American Hackney Diamonds run. Mick Jagger said earlier this year that he wants to tour again, while Keith Richards has raised the possibility that future live performances might take a different form, such as residencies, because of the demands of traveling.
Which is entirely reasonable.
Keith Richards is 82.
And I would like everyone to appreciate the absurdity of the sentence I just typed.
Keith Richards is considering what format the Rolling Stones should use for their NEXT live performances.
Not what commemorative box set should be released.
Not which museum gets the guitars.
How should we do the next shows?
Connor.
Buddy.
I really think you need to look into this.
THEY NEVER HAD TO COME BACK
That's what finally gets me.
So many artists have a comeback story.
They disappear.
The world changes.
Then something happens and a new generation discovers them.
We've talked about some beautiful versions of that story in Rock ’n’ Roll Angel.
But I can't find the Rolling Stones' comeback.
Because how do you come back...
when you never left?
They changed members.
They lost people.
They fought.
They aged.
They watched entire musical movements rise, dominate the world and become nostalgia themselves.
But the Rolling Stones remained recognizably the Rolling Stones.
Same swagger.
Same blues buried underneath everything.
Same guitars.
Same strange chemistry between Mick and Keith.
Same sense that the whole thing could fall apart at any moment and somehow never quite does.
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame describes their sixty-plus-year career as moving through blues, R&B, psychedelia, country, garage, punk and disco while keeping the band's swagger as its constant through-line.
Constant.
That's the word.
MAYBE THAT’S THE TRICK
When I was young, I didn't understand how important the Rolling Stones were because they never presented themselves to me as history.
They were happening now.
Then I heard “You Can't Always Get What You Want.”
Who is this?
The Rolling Stones.
What?
And suddenly the floor dropped out beneath me.
There were decades under the band I thought I knew.
I dug backward and found giants.
Then I looked forward.
They were still there.
That's the Rolling Stones story for me.
Not a band desperately trying to stay young.
Not a band constantly rebuilding itself so the next generation would approve.
Not even a band that never aged.
Maybe that's the wrong way to say it.
They got older.
They just never became old.
The world kept changing.
The Stones kept playing.
Our parents heard them.
We heard them.
MTV played them.
Hip-hop arrived beside them.
Streaming arrived.
Generations came and went.
And somehow the same great rock ’n’ roll creature kept moving through all of it.
Maybe there is no supernatural explanation.
Maybe there is no Quickening.
Maybe Connor MacLeod can put the sword away.
Maybe the answer is much simpler.
The Rolling Stones found out who they were very early...
and then they just kept being it.
For more than sixty years.
Still, I wouldn't turn my back on Keith Richards during a thunderstorm.
Just saying.
⚡
Sources
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame — The Rolling Stones biography and career overview. Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: The Rolling Stones
Billboard — Hackney Diamonds and the Stones' record of Top 10 albums across seven decades. Billboard: The Rolling Stones' seven-decade chart record
David Bowie — history of the 1985 Mick Jagger/David Bowie “Dancing in the Street” recording and video. David Bowie: Dancing in the Street retrospective
Rolling Stone UK — Mick Jagger on future Rolling Stones touring plans in 2026. Mick Jagger on touring again
Apple Music — credits for “Anybody Seen My Baby?” and the Dust Brothers' production role. Apple Music: Anybody Seen My Baby?
Thanks for taking this trip back with me.
What do you remember? Were you there too, or did this story bring back a memory of your own? I’d love to hear it. Share your stories in the comments, and if this made you smile, laugh, cringe, or turn up an old favorite song, share it with someone who remembers too.
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Until next time...
Keep the memories alive. Keep the stories coming. And whatever you do... turn it up.
— Dr. AY Heath (Angel)
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