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. 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. Both of these songs were perceived as being ‘counter-cultural’ and therefore, de facto, of the left. I suppose you might argue that ‘Satisfaction’ was in essence a plea for more stringent regulation of the advertising industry, perhaps via a quango rather than direct legislation — which is a slightly leftish position. But it is hard to stretch the lyrics of ‘Brown Sugar’ to resemble something which approaches those of the ‘Internationale’.

Of course, the Rolling Stones also took copious quantities of drugs and had sexual intercourse with beautiful young women; they may even — the jury is still out on this — have involved an iconic item of confectionary in their lovemaking, that is to say a Mars bar. Mars bars have changed over the years; that once dense and gritty greyish nougatine base is now an airy and wholly inadequate counterpoint to the intensity of the caramel — an attempt to appease the sensibilities of women consumers who wish to think they’re eating something which will not make them as fat as a pig.