Sex and drugs and rock ’n’ roll is a thoroughly conservative philosophy

The guitarist Keith Richards is perhaps most famous for having constructed a short and very simple rhythmic musical phrase, over the top of which his colleague Mick Jagger expressed an increasing irritation at being unable to acquire, in both general and specific terms, any kind of ‘satisfaction’ — despite, as he proceeded to explain, repeatedly attempting to do so.

The guitarist Keith Richards is perhaps most famous for having constructed a short and very simple rhythmic musical phrase, over the top of which his colleague Mick Jagger expressed an increasing irritation at being unable to acquire, in both general and specific terms, any kind of ‘satisfaction’ — despite, as he proceeded to explain, repeatedly attempting to do so. Or, at least, that’s what he should be most famous for. That almost insultingly simple ‘riff’, plus a slightly more complex one a few years later, over the top of which Mr Jagger, in a more ebullient frame of mind, expounded upon the pleasures of whipping black women at midnight.