Stones Don't Float

O Oracular Jones, Swimming Mightily Through the Tempests and the Tides

Brian Jones has left the pool

Brian Jones, get out of the pool.
Oh my God, he still has a pulse.
I can hear that faint beat from his foolish heart
Brian Jones, you stunned drunk junkie, sober up.
Everything is possible.
it's all imagination, isn't it?
Brian Jones, you are totally bumming everyone out.

Brian Jones, you are slipping up on the Diddley rhythm
You're playing too serious and slow, it's only rock and roll.
Get up and shake it, or you're going to kill a thousand dances
Clap like you would to old St. Vitus's Boogie Blues
We need your mouth harp; breathe out, breathe in
It's not only you, generic Jones;
You're not in the army, but you're in a band.

Okay, goodbye then, Brian. But don't expect any true sorrow,
You penny ante panto Adonais
This train's moving on to Almonte and beyond
Even if you up and rise again
We don't want to know
I hope Hit Parader doesn't cover it.
This is live, Mr. Jones. This is happening.
There will be no overdubs,

And no retakes.

--Stephen Roney

Brian Jones and the Day the Music Died

I was never a special fan of the Rolling Stones back in the 60's or 70's. I liked the Stones; everyone I hung out with did. But they were not really my cup of tea. I was a folkie.

Now, they fascinate me. I do not think this is only because they are a still-surviving, seemingly timeless, part of my youth. Though this is certainly part of it. I read a piece recently that suggested they should retire, fergodsake, that they looked ridiculous strutting and rocking at their age. I thought, good God, no, their age is an important part of their coolness. It is part of their rebellion that they still refuse to "act grown up." They refuse to get over simple rock and roll.

And they are right. I have come to believe that there is something timeless about rock and roll. The thing about a good rock song is that once it gets going, it sounds like it could go forever. And it never really wears thin.

The Stones have become the emblem of that.

And there is something else. I discover I have never really gotten over the death of Brian Jones. The death of Brian Jones may have been what really killed the Sixties. If it wasn't Altamont, five months later, in which the Stones were also, literally, at centre stage.

It seems obvious to me that Brian Jones had what we call "manic depression," or "bipolar disorder." Undiagnosed and, of course, untreated.

So what? Well, besides anguishing over what Jones must have gone through, good as the Stones are, I still feel that somehow Jones made them much better. His musical inventiveness on a wide variety of instruments was really something special.