The Stones and Brian Jones (2023) Movie Script
A child is a thing to be loved.
A child is the manifestations
of both parents,
and both parents see themselves
in the child.
The child is part of them.
He is their flesh and blood.
And for good many years,
he is a reflection of their personality.
So when he grows up, one day he's
going to assert his own personality,
which might very well differ
from the personalities
and outlooks of his parents.
Immediately, his parents feel very upset.
You know, they don't see
themselves in him any more.
And when these parents
don't see themselves in him,
they feel they've lost him.
But really, he's become
a human being in his own right.
Brian's troubled relationship
with his parents
would affect him throughout his life.
His parents disapproved of his lifestyle.
They wanted Brian to have
a proper job like his father.
At the age of just 19,
he formed the Rolling Stones.
They were the first of their kind
and drove people crazy
with their long hair
and their contempt
for convention and authority.
Let's introduce you Stone
by Stone to the Rolling Stones.
Hello, I'm Mick Jagger.
Charlie Watts.
Brian Jones.
Bill Wyman.
On the question of hair, boys,
you're pretty long in the hair.
What's the point of long hair these days?
I believe it's going out in England
and it's going out in Australia.
You thought of
anything different, like plaiting
your hair or anything like this?
We've got a comedian here, I see.
I believe some of the Eastern States
groups have even suggested
that you're effeminate.
What have you got to say about this?
Well, darling...
Well, we're not, you know.
I met Brian on a train
as a schoolboy, aged 14.
I was surprised how open
and friendly he was,
with a soft spoken middle class accent.
He said he was a train spotter
and this was his favourite line -
The Great Western.
I remember the shock when hearing
he had died tragically
just six years later.
He seemed at the time
to have the world at his feet.
Thank you very much.
Everybody wants somebody
Everybody wants somebody
Everybody needs somebody
Everybody...
I loved Mick and Keith.
And Mick always was in awe of Brian.
He absolutely loved him
and I think he wanted to be Brian.
Everybody wants somebody
Everybody needs somebody...
Cos he had all the girls
and he had all the fan mail.
Someone to love
Someone to kiss...
And Mick was trying really hard...
..to get girlfriends, I think,
at that time.
Someone to please
Sometimes a squeeze...
That was what I remember,
that he was very impressed
with the way that Brian
could just draw women to him.
I need you, you, you...
To Brian and Keith,
it was like a brother relationship.
I saw Keith so fascinated
with the way Brian played
and Brian showing him
certain guitar things.
I need you
Yes, I do...
And so they were very close.
They were all rowing together
in this musical journey.
Ladies and gentlemen,
it's all about to happen.
Let's hear it for the fantastic
Rolling Stones!
I'm all right
I'm all right
I'm all right
I'm all right
I'm all right
Whoa, whoa, whoa
Come on down
Come on down
Come on down...
Brian then, was as popular
and famous as Mick.
He was the heart and soul
of the early Stones.
Yet most people today
haven't even heard of him.
Brian answered most of the fan mail.
"Dear Doreen, many thanks for your letter
"and the great interest
you've shown in the band.
"The band is really an
amalgamation of two bands,
"the one being an R&B band
I formed the year ago
"and the other being a group
run by Mick and Keith
in south east London.
"We have, I might add,
"a habit of breaking
audience attendance records."
In the early days,
who got all the fan mail?
Brian.
The secretaries told me, "Well,
we get about 100 letters.
"About 60 of them are for Brian,
"about 25 are for Mick,
about ten for Charlie and Keith.
"And there's about the same for you,
you know, and that's it, you know?
"But Brian gets all the fan mail."
He was brilliant, a brilliant musician.
He shocked everybody with
the quality of his playing.
We all dedicated ourselves to the band
and Brian more so than anybody else,
because it was his band in the beginning.
So it meant the world to him
more than it did to the rest of us.
Brian did everything.
He wrote in the music papers.
He discussed things about the origins
of what is actually
the blues and what is R&B.
There's all those letters and
things. I've got copies of them.
When Brian advertised for a band,
he chose every single person
to come into his band.
Let's recap on the Rolling Stones.
How did you all get together
in the first place?
Actually, I answered an advert
for a bass player, so...
But the rest of them got together
individually in jazz clubs
and formed a sort of a group.
How long ago was that?
Two years.
And what were you doing
when you answered the advertisement?
Engineering, actually.
And we'll move on now to Brian.
How long have you been
with the Rolling Stones?
Are you one of the original members?
Yes, one of the original members.
What were you doing before you joined?
Well, just sort of bumming around,
waiting for something
to happen, really.
I had quite a few jobs and I was
trying to get a band going,
but it was unsuccessful
until I met up with Mick and Keith
and then that was a successful band.
Well, can you think back to your
first engagement? Where was that?
Erm...
Marquee, Oxford Street, London.
And may I ask how much you got
paid for that assignment?
20 quid, which was good,
because six months later,
we were still working for 10 quid.
It's all right
It's all right, children
It's all right
It's all right, children
It's all right
Come on around, baby
Come on around, baby
Come on around, baby
Come on around, baby
Come on around, baby...
Mick used to stand in front of us.
Mick's got the maracas
and the audience just joining in
and all that.
Do you feel it, baby
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Do you feel it now
My, my, my...
It just got right into your body
and it was like a tribal gathering.
All right, all right, all right
All right, all right, all right
All right, all right, all right
All right, all right, all right
All right, all right, all right.
The blues were everything to Brian.
He saw the Stones as promoting
unknown black blues music.
"Dear Doreen, you raised the point
in your letter about blues material.
"You must appreciate that blues
are not easy to put over
"to the average club audience.
"They prefer something more
in the twisting and jumping run.
"Once again, thank you for your interest
"in rhythm and blues and ourselves.
"It's wonderful music
and deserves more recognition.
"Yours sincerely,
Brian Jones for Rolling Stones."
Mick and Keith moved
into the flat that Brian had.
And Brian and Keith slept
in a double bed in the front room
and Mick slept in a single bed
in the middle room.
And then there was a kitchen,
which was a disaster.
And it was a very severe winter
that year, '62,
and we used to give him shillings
to put in the bloody meter
for the one little electric fire.
Brian used to say, "What's
the point of getting out of bed
"when it's so fucking cold?
We might as well stay in bed!"
So they used to get the guitars
and stay in bed
and play guitar in bed.
Luckily, we had nothing else to do.
And since we were down to thieving
potatoes out of supermarkets anyway
and selling beer bottles
back to the off-licence,
there was nothing else to do except
push on, you know, and just...
I mean, it had to get better,
even if it didn't get fantastic.
You know, it was difficult.
But I mean, it was fun too,
since we were determined
that we were going
to stick together and play.
Despite everything,
Brian was always tried
to keep his parents' approval.
"Dear Mum and Dad,
many thanks for your letters
"and a thousand apologies
for not writing back before now.
"Being leader and spokesman for the Stones
"means I'm always busy and tied up.
"If it's possible, I would
like to see you next
Monday or Tuesday.
"But I warn you, my hair is pretty
long, although not untidy."
"Success seems to be on its way,
"though none of us
are too happy about 'Come On'."
Everything is wrong since me
and my baby parted
All day long I'm walking
cos I couldn't get my car started
Laid off from my job and...
"This record does not do
justice to the group."
Brian would invite his mother
and father to the Stones concerts.
But they never came.
And Brian taught Keith to play with him.
You know, all the linking notes.
There they go.
See, one's going up and the other
one's coming down.
When one's coming down, he's going up.
And it's so beautiful.
It's so perfect what they're doing.
We did a song called Mona,
which is a Bo Diddley song.
And you got... You'll have to
excuse me, that's my bloody...
It's switched itself off now,
thank goodness.
He learned to play along with the tremolo.
You know, the - doo, doo, doo, doo,
doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo.
And in time.
And so you'll hear it on Mona here.
Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo.
See?
No-one was doing that then.
Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo.
He was a fucker, you know.
He would be really horrible sometimes.
He had one side of him,
which I have to say was really,
I wouldn't say evil,
but he was really cruel sometimes.
There's photos of us being photographed
and Brian's over the top of me
dropping cigarette ash on my head.
But he used to do things like that.
And not only to me, but to everybody.
He always had to prove himself.
He was embarrassed about his size.
And if he didn't get his way,
he kind of used to get very aggressive
and then he'd be all apologetic and,
"Sorry, man, I didn't mean it."
He'd stubbed that cigarette out on
the back of your hand in the car...
..and you'd always forgive him
because he was such
a nice, sweet guy.
Brian had immense opposition
from his father.
His dad didn't like him
trying to be a musician.
They just thought, get a proper job.
You know, the same old thing.
Up to a certain point,
Brian was a perfectly normal,
conventional boy,
who was well behaved and was well liked.
Liked, I suppose, because
he was well behaved.
He did his studies and he
was quite a model schoolboy.
And then there came this peculiar
change in his early teens,
at the time, I suppose,
he began to become a man,
where he began to get
some resentment of authority.
It was a rebellion
against parental authority
and it was certainly a rebellion
against the school authority.
He often used to say, why should
he do something he was told
just because the person
who was telling him was older?
From being an A grade student,
Brian rebelled.
He failed in his studies
and put all his energy into music
and picking up girls.
He played occasionally clarinet
in the school orchestra,
but Brian was not really interested
in anything else at the school.
Not in athletics.
Not in any sports.
Not in the cadet force,
not in debating societies
or anything like that.
He kept himself to himself quite
a bit at school, I would say.
In the beginning of the '60s,
it was one society,
just this mono culture, and it was
our generation who went beyond that.
It's a level of sort of
middle class tightness,
which you don't possibly
see so much any more.
He had a pretty bad relationship
with his parents,
who were very respectable,
very straight, very posh.
But he used to say
he just couldn't stand it.
The problem with Brian was
that he came from a very,
very bourgeois family...
..who saw themselves as better
than the neighbours
and better than this and better than that.
All the time, his fanaticism for
jazz music was coming to the fore.
It was a great disappointment to us
and a source of considerable anxiety
when he became so wrapped up
in his love of jazz music
that in spite of everything
we could do or say,
he went off and did it.
Wop-bop-a-loo-mop alop-bom-bom
Tutti frutti, oh rutti
Tutti frutti, woo
Tutti frutti, oh rutti
Tutti frutti, oh rutti
Tutti frutti, oh rutti
Awop-bop-a-loo-mop
alop-bom-bom...
Tutti frutti, oh rutti
Tutti frutti, woo
Tutti frutti, oh rutti
Tutti frutti, oh rutti
Tutti frutti, oh rutti...
Frustrated by his parents' disapproval,
Brian adopted Val's family and spent
all his time playing blues music.
Val Corbett, yes, I knew her very well.
She was rather stylish
and I thought she was rather nice.
Brian was quite besotted with her
and she, of course, was besotted with him.
They were obviously made for each other.
The next thing we heard
was that Val was pregnant
and she at first was terribly pleased
because she and Brian
were going to leave Cheltenham,
go and live in London
and get a place together.
And suddenly it dawned on her
that wasn't going to happen.
On December the 22nd, 1960, Brian,
aged 17, was kicked out of his home.
His father would later refer to this as
"my most drastic of all actions,
"which I shall never forget
or cease to worry over."
Brian, now rejected by his parents,
moved in with Pat and her sister, Betty,
and was looked after by their parents.
This became a pattern
of Brian's behaviour -
adopting other families, getting the
daughters pregnant and then leaving.
This would happen at least five times.
Do you feel bitter at all?
I'm not actually bitter.
I feel quite sorry for Brian in a way,
because the kind of person he is,
you can never be happy,
could never have true friends.
The only friends he has probably
like him because of what he is.
I think if he was turned out
on to the streets, nobody
would want to know Brian.
He's not the kind of person
that you take to
because he's so cynical.
He's got no feelings for anybody.
He just uses people for his own good.
And when he's finished,
he throws them aside.
So I just feel sorry for him.
Brian's own life mirrored
the rebellious spirit of the Stones
more than any other member.
Expelled from two schools.
Thrown out of his home.
A reckless personal life.
The blues was Brian's salvation.
Oh, a child's coming
He's going to be,
going to be a rollin' stone
He's going to be
a rollin' stone...
Well, I feel
Yes, I feel.
Tell us something about him, Brian.
When we started playing together,
we started playing because
we wanted to play rhythm and blues.
And Howlin' Wolf was one
of our greatest idols.
And it's a great pleasure to finally
be booked on this show tonight...
Thanks to Howlin' Wolf.
So I think it's about time you shut
up and we had Howlin' Wolf onstage.
I agree! Let's get him on.
Howlin' Wolf!
It was a huge deal for those guys
because they'd just never
really been on TV.
To be there are peak time in America,
that was an incredibly big deal.
How many more years
Have I got to let you dog me around?
How many more years
Have I got to let you
dog me around?
It's an incredible moment
and there are still people
who put it as one of the
greatest TV moments of the 1960s.
There's a great period
in the first couple of years
where he seemed to have real insight.
And I'm talking about 1961, 1962.
I'll try to show it
if you're driving me back
Your love for me has got to be real
For you to know just how I feel
Love for real
and not fade away...
So you worked out both the keys
of open tunings of blues,
which is D slash E, which is open D or E,
which is Elmore James, and he was open G,
which is Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson.
I'm going to tell you
how it's going to be
You're going to give your love to me
Love to last
more than one day...
So what did we do for the fifth single?
We wanted to do a blues
and everybody said,
"Don't do it because
you'll destroy your career.
"No-one's ever done a blues record
for a single in England."
You know, it's the worst thing.
Like they said to Ray Charles,
"Don't do a country album
because it will destroy you."
And it was the greatest thing he ever did.
Well, when we did Little Red Rooster...
..they said, you know,
"You're going to kill yourself."
It came out on the Friday
and on the Monday it was number one.
And Brian...
..controlled the whole band.
I'll start again.
That's Brian with a slide.
See, he's doing it.
I am the little red rooster...
What is anybody else doing?
See, he's making the song.
Everybody wants somebody
Everybody needs somebody
To love...
So we were completely unique.
Someone to kiss
Oh, yeah
Sometimes a miss
Someone to please
And sometimes a squeeze
I need you, you, you
I need you, you, you
I need you...
Bo Diddley couldn't believe
how good we were.
You, you, you
Sometimes I feel like
I get a little sad inside
When my baby mistreats me
I kind of get a little bit mad
I need you...
Rolling Stones!
Rolling Stones! Rolling Stones!
Oh, Carol, don't let him
steal your heart away
I'm going to learn to dance
if it takes me all night and day
Climb into my machine
so we can groove on out
I know some swinging little joint
where we can jump and shout
It's not too far back...
There was rioting
whenever the Stones played.
It was an outpouring of emotion
against the authorities
and the traditional ways of doing things.
A little cutie takes your hat
and you can thank her ma'am...
The way the Stones looked and dressed,
their hair and sexuality,
was a whole new feeling.
Everyone fancied both Brian
and Mick, both male and female.
They had this extraordinary
androgynous quality.
I'm going to learn to dance if
it takes me all night and day...
Brian met Linda Lawrence in 1962
and was adopted into her family.
I only saw him.
Yeah, and heard him.
The sound was what I was connecting to
and it was the harmonica
and the slide guitar.
The first time I'd ever
heard that kind of music
or felt that kind of feeling,
it was just...
Just amazing.
Yeah, a whole feeling came over me
that I'd never felt before.
My days are pretty rough
I want you to come back,
come back, come back...
It was instant.
Like, if you can call it love.
At the time, I wouldn't have known
what that was, but now I do.
There was a point that came where he said,
"Can I come stay with you in
Windsor with your parents?"
And I said, "Yeah."
Yeah, my parents loved him.
Somebody stop this pain in my heart
My, my, my, my, my, my
Don't you know, one day
My days are pretty rough
Won't you love me?
Love me.
Most of the time it was all about music
and what records he's going to get.
And how he was going to play this
and, you know...
And I would often put
the records on over and over again
so that he could get the riffs and things.
Put it back on and have a listen
and get the sound.
Seeing them get more and more popular
and more and more people
coming to see them,
it was very exciting.
And we got very, very much in love.
He was loved by so many people.
I didn't mind that.
I knew he loved me, so I didn't care.
And I knew we were young.
I just knew he loved me.
And I...
I felt like it's OK.
You know, he'll be back.
Brian's rivalry with Mick
for leadership of the Stones was growing.
Mick was the natural frontman
and Brian's insecurity played into this.
A visible friction grew up between them.
It began to dominate Brian's thinking.
Brian sent me to a modelling course
for a little while in London
and I had taken the hairdressing course.
So I was really into hair
and I was saying,
"Just grow your hair,
don't cut it", you know.
And then when it did get quite long,
I would trim it,
but not cut it, and make that shape.
He was like a gentleman.
He was all dressed in his white
shirt and his jacket
and he was open doors.
It was that kind of... Very
gentlemanly and gentle spoken.
He had a family, obviously.
And after a while, we drove down.
He wanted me to meet his parents.
And I know he didn't take many
people down to meet his parents,
so I knew it was something special.
Did you feel that Brian cared a lot
what his parents thought?
Oh, very much.
That was the whole thing,
that he really did want them
to like what he was doing
and, you know, be proud of him.
That was the whole point,
I think, of us going there.
They wanted him to have
a different career.
Something more like what his father
had been doing - a good paying job.
But Brian kind of saw that
and he kind of rebelled
and stepped out of it.
I warned you baby from time to time
You don't listen so pay me no mind
About moving on
Yeah, I'm moving on...
We became the love generation
and the music was going to be the opening.
Mister Engineer
with your throttle in hand
Take me back to that Southern land
It's called moving
Keep a rolling on
You're flying too high
For my old sky
I'll move on.
Dawn Molloy was the mother
of Brian's fifth child.
I was 18.
I don't think I'd ever
been in love before.
Every time I saw him,
my heart skipped a beat.
And every time we saw me, he...
It was obvious that he wanted me.
Being a Catholic, I was very...
..inhibited.
He kind of got that out of me.
Not to be ashamed of my body
and what I could do.
He was very, very sexy.
Yeah, the way he made love,
he just was insatiable.
He made me feel...
..amazing.
He just made me feel...
..loved and special.
He was an amazing teacher
of how you should make love to a woman.
My parents, they had
such a thing against...
..long-haired pop stars.
"Oh, this music's no good."
You know how it is.
They didn't want any of it.
I never dreamed
he'd come to our apartment.
There he was, on the doorstep.
"Good evening, Mrs Malloy."
And kissed her hand.
I mean, who does that?
It's just...
He had suave.
They liked him in the end.
Then my mum said, "Well, why
don't you go down to your bedroom?
"Show Brian your bedroom."
I'm going to tell you
how it's going to be...
And then he turned around
and asked my parents
if he could take me on tour.
There's no way my dad
is going to let me go.
But my dad said,
"Well, you know, as long
as you're in a different room
"and you take care of her, it's OK."
The security wasn't around,
so you could just walk into a hotel
and the girls were everywhere.
We went to our room
and there's this girl there
and she's just sitting
on the bed stark naked.
And then we went into the bathroom
and there's another one.
And they're willing to give
everything to them.
The police had no idea what hit them.
They were completely taken by surprise.
And it was terrifying.
I could see all their feet,
trampling on people in stiletto heels,
going for his arms and stuff.
I thought I was going to die.
It was like being in a tube train
and you can't move.
I think Mick lost some hair.
They pulled... Literally
pulled hair out of his head.
And I started to fall back
and I fell back and Mick caught me.
Brian was looking for me,
so he came around the corner
and saw me in the arms of Mick.
And then...
..Brian lost it.
"Keep your hands off my fucking
girl! You're not having
all my girlfriends!"
And all that kind of stuff.
Mick said, "Hey, I'm just holding
her, you know. She just fell.
"Don't be a dick", you know?
And then Bill said,
"Yeah, sometimes you get like that.
"You just have to leave him,
he'll be fine."
Everybody went through their...
..star trip, you know.
And I think Brian was
the only one that it changed
in a really deep way
and probably not for the better.
It was very difficult for him, you know,
and not made any easier probably
by the rest of us, you know,
because nobody had the time
to look after somebody else.
If one of them isn't quite strong
enough to deal with that situation
there's very little you can do
to help him.
They were all a little wary,
I think, of Brian
because he could be kind of moody.
But I think they put that on him
because he was supposed to be the leader
and he was no longer the leader.
Mick ruled the roost as far
as what they were going to play
and the fact that he could
write music and Brian couldn't.
I think there may have been
a little jealousy there.
The fact that Mick and Keith
were so close.
Yeah, yeah, yeah
I feel all right
I feel all right, children...
I think they were a little bit lost
until Andrew came along.
And then Andrew kind of laid down the law
and said what he wanted to do,
which was all very well.
And I thought that was a good idea
to have a manager,
but I don't think Brian realised
that he would be handing
everything over to him.
They had two different ideas
of what they wanted to do.
Brian loved Howlin' Wolf and he
wanted to stay as a blues group.
Andrew wanted them to be pop.
And I think Andrew and Brian
just didn't hit it off.
And I think they just got
into loggerheads.
Pop sold.
And obviously Andrew wanted to make money.
Thank you.
"Dear Melinda,
"Mick is the head of the group.
"At one time I was, but Mick took over.
"Don't ask me why. We just thought
it would be better,
"as he is a good leader.
"Mick's birthday was on the 26th of July.
"I must rush, dear, honestly.
"Brian Jones."
I guess he was a little jealous
of Mick because he was...
He had all the fame sort of thing.
But I don't think Brian realised
that he had just as much too.
Oh, Carol
Don't let him steal your heart away
I'm gonna learn to dance
If it takes me all night and day
Climb into my machine
so we can groove on out...
I think he would've liked
to have been like Mick,
but then no-one's like Mick.
He has this charisma about him,
he has amazing energy.
A little cutie takes your hat and
you can thank her, ma'am...
I understand, Brian, because I think
he was a lost person.
The success of the Stones
was unbelievable.
But at a time when Brian could
have celebrated the success
of the band he had founded,
he was locked in conflict
with problems of his own creation.
The reason I found out about Linda
was because I was told
to go to Torquay.
And then Stu told me, no,
I couldn't go in and see him
because Linda was there with the baby.
I'm like, "What... Whose baby?",
you know?
He said, "Well, Brian's."
Well, you know my lovin'
not fade away...
Fame is a very strange thing.
And he wanted that as well.
And so that was the choice
he had to make.
And...
And he did.
I was at all the gigs.
The other girlfriends
weren't allowed to come,
but I would always be at the gig.
The last one that I was at
before I had Julian
was the Bo Diddley concert.
Hey, Bo Diddley Hey, Bo Diddley
Hey, Bo Diddley Hey, Bo Diddley
Hey, Bo Diddley Hey, Bo Diddley
Hey, Bo Diddley Hey, Bo Diddley
I got a girl lived on a hill
Hey, Bo Diddley...
I bonded so well with Bo Diddley
and it was all fantastic.
They thought that Brian and I
were getting married.
I thought we were getting married.
So it was a bit of a shock when
Andrew Oldham came in and said,
"You can't have girlfriends and
wives and, you know, it's..."
Because I knew that he loved me
and it was really hard to understand.
And I kept saying to myself,
"Well, I have to let go
"and he'll be back."
And my dad, when he left, said,
"And there's no-one to
look after him now."
Brian tormented himself because
he couldn't write songs
like Mick and Keith,
whose compositions had moved
the band on to a whole new level.
Say hi to Brian.
Brian is one of the writers
of most of the things, right?
No, I'm not, actually...
Well, I'm not really a writer.
Ah, we do write a lot of stuff together -
it comes out under the
Nanker Phelge pseudonym -
but Mick and Keith write more... many
Thank you, Bill.
They're a little more industrious
than we are.
In writing the songs that you write,
do you sometimes think that you have
a special inspiration for
the way that you...
Well, you'd better ask - about
writing songs - better address those
questions to Mick and Keith because
they'll tell me more about it.
But the ones we've written together
are just things we've worked out
together in the studio,
with somebody, you know, anyone
If you had to do
it all over again, do you think
you'd go the same route again?
As far as, you know, now that you
realise the demands that are put
on you as a tremendous success?
I'd do it 100 times over,
if I could. I love it.
Good. Thank you so much.
Let me swing over here and talk
to Keith and to Mick.
These are the two that are supposed
to be all the writing talent.
You fellows get together and do
most of the writing, right?
Yeah, that's right. A lot of it.
You know, some of it.
Do you have a particular inspiration
for some of your songs that seem
to springboard them out?
Well, I don't know. Ask Keith.
I don't really think so, no.
It just happens, you know?
It just happens.
Mick and Keith are wonderful songwriters.
I mean, they're just great.
Extraordinary.
I mean, I couldn't admire them more.
They tended to write more about sex.
So from '64, '84...
Like, for 20 years they were
just turning them out.
I mean, they're classic
rock and roll songs.
I'd rate it as extraordinary.
You see, the trouble was by 1963,
when Mick and Keith were writing
the songs and all that,
Andrew was trying to promote Keith
and kind of dismiss Brian,
get Brian out of the way.
And so what he did was
he stopped me, Charlie and Brian
from doing any interviews with any
of the newspapers, any interviews
at all, and gave them all
to Mick and Keith.
And I think when we talked on
the phone ages ago, you mentioned
that he did something with Jimi Hendrix.
Yes.
Yeah.
No-one knows that.
What do I say?
And I got Brian trying to write
a song with that guy,
Michael Aldred, of Ready Steady Go!
But they're unique things that
I just happened to get, and...
..they shouldn't be...
Was the song good?
Yeah, they were putting a song
together. It was OK, yeah.
But he never had the courage to record it.
Oh, fucking hell, turn it off!
No. It's difficult...
Oh, let's get...
Bleurgh!
He never played me a song
he'd written, so it was quite hard
to know really if he wanted to do
songs with us that he'd written.
I think he did, but he was very shy
and all that, I think he found it
rather hard to lay it down to us,
you know, that "This was a song and
"it went like this."
And we probably sort of didn't even
think - because he didn't do it,
we didn't try and bring it out
of him, probably,
which was...
..I suppose a bit insensitive of us.
Each member of the band had a had a court.
And the way the hierarchy worked
was the Stones would always
have to go to the Beatles' places.
So the Beatles would
never go to their house.
You know, that was the order of things,
a very strict class system at work.
I think he liked drinking and
I think he liked drugs
but they weren't very good for him.
I don't think they're good for
anyone, but he didn't...
He wasn't strong enough,
mentally or physically,
to take any of it.
And of course he did everything...
Brian was one of those people
that did everything to excess.
And remember, no matter
what anyone says...
..rock on.
I can't get no satisfaction
I can't get no satisfaction...
The trouble with Brian was he wasn't
very well a lot of the time.
So he was often ill.
We'd be on tour and Brian would
get sick, and he'd be in
hospital for five days
and we had to play without him.
Just the four of us, you know.
Bass, drum, guitar.
And you're playing all them songs
that need more than one guitar,
and you've only got one guitar.
So I had to double-up on bass,
the bass playing,
and help Keith out, you know,
and Keith had to play a bit more
than he would normally play,
playing partly rhythm, partly lead.
It was tough, you know.
So he was very unreliable at times
in the later period of his life.
You know, the last... maybe
three years.
Brian used to get very paranoid
about being made fun of.
You know, he always said, "They're
talking about me and they're..."
You know, when we were waiting in a...
When we were staying over in
a hotel or something.
The classic example that I had of
that was at the hotel in New York
when Dylan was coming to visit him.
You know, he was very friendly with Dylan.
So Mick and Keith - Brian's
room was next to mine,
so Mick and Keith came into my room.
They said, "Oh...",
and they were very devilish.
And Keith goes over and grabs
a water glass that I had,
and he puts it against the wall so
he could listen in to Brian's room.
And Mick goes over to the house
telephone, my phone in the room,
and calls Brian's room.
And then immediately he says,
"Hello, Mr Jones.
"You have Mr Zimmerman
for Mr Jones."
And he was imitating putting
Dylan on the phone.
And then when he was on the phone,
he says, "Oh, Brian, I think
"you're the best guy in the group,"
that kind of...
And Brian's like, "Shut up,
you guys! I know you're..."
And that was the kind of stuff
that was going on.
Show me the train...
Already there had been shit going on.
You know, Brian was in very bad shape.
He couldn't get into the States.
And they didn't know what to do,
and this and that and the other,
you know, of just scrambling
all the way along.
It wasn't as bad as it was
going to get later.
Well, I read an interesting
thing Keith said about this,
that they started making fun of
Brian so as not to get mad at him.
Because it was a way...
But I mean, of course,
for somebody who's paranoid,
this is just about the worst
thing you can do.
But I mean that was
Mick and Keith's, apparently,
attitude to this thing, you know?
Well, because, you know, I mean
if anybody had really let
their feelings go, they would've Mm-hm.
And he would have killed them too.
Mm-hm.
I mean, it was that bad.
I think Marianne sympathised with Brian.
And Marianne of course was not in
much better shape because of drugs.
She knew him very well and had,
you know, had an affair with him.
Marianne felt that she had become
a real drag on Mick.
And there's a horrible conversation
where she overhears Ahmet Ertegun
saying to Mick, "You've got
to get rid of Marianne,
"you know, if the band is
going to function.
"It's having a really
negative effect."
And so in that sense I think she
absolutely identified with Brian.
Anita Pallenberg was a massive
influence on Brian.
She was credited with transforming
both Brian and the Stones.
She was an incredibly interesting
person, who'd done a lot,
and was on the make,
in the way that he was.
And she craved new experiences,
you know, in the way that he was.
But I think he was thinking
of leaving the band.
I think he probably could have
and probably should have left
the band for his own, you know,
health and sanity.
But I think, by teaming up with
Anita, he knew they'd be
a real phenomenon, which they were.
And that really launched his
kind of last great...
Last great ride.
Oui, oui, je le comprends.
There was such sort of... erotic
power to their pairing
and such glamour.
And also, you know,
he wants to be glamorous.
He wanted to be seen as
a main player in the Stones,
and she'd helped that happen.
She and Brian were, you know,
like a little unit,
whispering, talking to each other,
giggling, speaking in sort of
a code that, you know, intimate
couples can have sometimes.
And I think they were doing a lot
of acid and just hanging out.
She was staggeringly beautiful,
had extraordinary physical
and sexual confidence.
You know, when she walked in a room,
you know, guys' eyes popped out
and tongues rolled out, like in a cartoon.
The Rolling Stones, they were,
as Marianne would put it,
were a bunch of yobs.
They were very talented,
but they weren't educated
or sophisticated.
Marianne and Anita connected them
with all the European intellectuals
and film-makers.
We were the right women for that
time to enable whatever
had to happen to happen.
And probably the same is true
of Brian and Anita
and Keith and Anita.
They seemed to be a proto-aristocracy.
Mick at one point said,
"Well, the only thing left is
me and the Queen."
Brian and Anita would spend
time at the vast Guinness estate
in Ireland.
This is Mick go-karting at Leslie Castle,
a massive Irish estate that has been
in the Leslie family
for 1,000 years.
A whole new world opened up to them.
I think it was the great changing
of the old order, wasn't it?
I loved the sort of mixture,
the juxtaposition then
of the Stones and the Beatles
and the royals and the thing, you know?
It suddenly was all...
Everybody and anybody were part
of the same thing.
It was excellent.
It was my sister Victoria's
birthday, and that was a sort of
wonderful melting pot with
the Kennedys and Princess Margaret
and the Beatles and the Stones
and then all my relations.
Brian definitely came.
Brian was the most sort of
sociable at that time.
He was much the most sort of gregarious.
So it was it was the informality,
I think, of it that was part of
the whole thing of the '60s.
Never mind who was there, whether
it was rock stars or royalty
or scrubbers from the East End.
It really didn't make any difference.
Brian's best friend at the time
was Tara Browne.
He was the Guinness heir
and owner of Dandie Fashions
on the King's Road.
The so-called Swinging London
was actually a very small group
of people, and Brian and Tara
were right at the centre.
Tara was immortalised in
the Beatles song A Day in the Life
when he had a tragic car accident.
He blew his mind out in a car
He didn't notice that the lights
had changed
A crowd of people stood
and stared...
Brian was devastated by Tara's death,
the first of that intimate circle.
Brian would later date
his girlfriend, Suki Poitier,
who was with Tara in the accident
but miraculously survived.
And we all wore the Dandie Fashions look,
which was so much the spirit of the time.
Anita was pushing him to dress
more outrageously.
He was the archetypal dandy,
more than anyone, you know, in '66, '67.
At that point you can see
the power dynamics shift
within the band, where
Keith is coming back to Brian again.
So for a period, yeah, he was back
with Keith, because he was cool
and happening, and obviously
at that time they did Ruby Tuesday.
He was doing all that stuff
without asking anyone.
He'd pick up a flute or just
anything that was handy
and just create something out of it
which wasn't there originally.
And it embellished the song so much
that it became the catch.
Or in the darkest night
No-one knows...
Do, doo!
Can you hear him?
She comes and goes...
Do, do, do...
Goodbye, Ruby...
He just finds a flute,
and he finds a little thing
he can play on it.
Brian's self-loathing came out
in the way he treated other people.
He and Anita particularly were known
for spiking people's drinks.
Anita would encourage him for that
kind of outrageous behaviour.
They would just mock people who hadn't...
Who weren't turned on in
the same way that they were.
So that was a thing - "We're
the hip kids - we can make fun
"of other people."
For instance, Linda Lawrence came.
I think she was short of money
for young Julian.
I think they were up in the flat,
Brian and Anita,
and they just laughed at her and
wouldn't let her come in.
So whilst he could still make
things happen in the studio,
he still was holding some power even
whilst he was this kind of liability
at the same time.
You know, he was pretty dominant
in terms of the sounds.
You know, they needed to get
a bit more exotic.
Paint It Black, he's embellished it again.
Bass pedals.
There's Brian.
I see a line of cars and
they're all painted black...
Your head goes into, like...
You're suddenly in the Middle East
or Far East...
That made me realise that there was
a very inventive guy there.
I mean, he was really a...
..bit of a genius.
The Volker Schlondorff film Mord und
Totschlag was a big deal
for Anita and for Brian.
It was a starring role for Anita,
with a really good director,
and it was really pretty
like their own - Brian and Anita's -
relationship, where there was
this constant provocation
and escalation of provocation.
Hau ab jetzt.
When Keith went with Anita,
Brian decided to start going out
with Linda Keith, who used
to be Keith's girlfriend.
All their relationships were
always slightly incestuous.
Marianne, you know,
when she gave up with Mick,
she went with Brian...
..and then she went with Keith.
So she went with three of them.
Anita went with Brian, she went with
Mick, she went with Keith.
It was all very mixed up, you know?
Girls would end up being with
another member of the band.
Seeing the state of Brian,
his parents finally reached out to
help him.
What I firmly believe was
the turning point in Brian's life
was when he lost the only
girl he ever really loved.
When his mother and I saw him
for the first time for some months
after this happening, we were quite
shocked by the changes
of his appearance, and in our opinion
he was never the same boy again.
He changed suddenly and alarmingly
from a bright, enthusiastic young
man to a quiet and morose
and inward-looking young man.
Brian and Linda Keith's relationship
was tempestuous and drug-fuelled,
with Brian recovering from Anita
and Linda from Keith.
Linda ended up taking an overdose
in Brian's flat, which she survived.
Brian wrote this to her...
"Dearest darling Linda, I'm
presently very smashed.
"Please be with me.
"I'm so lonely by myself.
"I need you so badly and I love you
so much.
"Please understand what fucked us
up before,
"a terrible combination of events.
"Please let's start again.
"Please marry me.
Please, please, please.
"All my love, Brian."
It was a painful year, you know?
'67 was a year of change for everybody.
I mean, '67 was the explosion
of the drug culture.
The whole infamous Stones drug bust
all followed in the wake of
News Of The World stories that
prided themselves
in actually busting Mick Jagger and
proclaiming him a drug user.
The problem was it wasn't Mick.
It was Brian.
He was hanging in a nightclub called
Blazing and boasting
about being a druggy hipster.
He actually told the reporter he
didn't do LSD much these days
now that everybody had taken
it up and, you know, he was doing
it before anybody else.
For Mick, Brian was the villain
of the piece.
The only person who was really,
really out of it on drugs was Brian.
This was like the last straw,
the straw that broke the camel's
back with Brian.
And I think it brought up a lot
of bad feelings that were already
there about Brian.
Mick didn't know he'd end up in prison.
It was just dreadful.
But it was very frightening, because
you saw the sort of the power
of the state, the power of the status quo,
the whole thing coming
down on them - for nothing.
Mick was very, very, very desperate
and just in...
It was a horrible thing.
I don't think he ever thought this
sort of thing
would ever happen to him in his life.
And I must say, to my shame,
I wasn't very compassionate at all.
If you need to cry, you cry.
It was a real moment of truth
and vulnerability.
Needless to say, he never,
ever showed it again.
The phone rings and it's Brian.
And he said, "I'm not going... I'm
not going to come tomorrow."
And I said... I said, "Huh? Why?"
And he said, "Because they are so
mean to me."
And I said, "Who's so mean?"
He said, "Mick and Keith,
they are making my life hell."
Naively, I said, "Well, what would
the Rolling Stones be without you?"
And anyway, I'm thinking, "What
the fuck do we do with four
"Rolling Stones if we really are
looking at five Rolling Stones?"
And so then he stopped,
he listened and he stopped crying,
and he said, "It's
just been a hard day."
And also, you don't know how much he's...
I think he was drinking a lot.
I convinced him to come the next day.
There was something kind
of childlike about him,
because then he had dressed
kind of like a wizard.
Then when they got onstage at two
in the morning, he was...
I would say he was drunk because he
looked it,
and he could play the maracas and he
could play the slide...
..he could hardly play the guitar
in the regular way.
He looked dreadful, really.
His big bags under his eyes.
I mean, really, bags under his eyes
for a guy of 26.
He was just gone.
Well, he wouldn't turn up half the time.
When he did turn up, he was not
in any condition
to do anything, had to baby him.
And it was very sad.
I saw him as another person
with incredibly low self-esteem
who needed help not to be destroyed
and ground underfoot.
And that's when I kind of realised
what was going on
and how it was going to affect me.
That kind of ruthlessness, you know,
the bit where they would pretend
to be recording Brian and not
have him plugged in,
that was really terrible.
Both Marianne and Brian,
they were victims of the Stones.
She realised she was no longer useful...
..and he was especially horrified
to be ostracised from his band.
A rock group is sort of like a,
you know, a primitive tribe.
People are often killed in tribes,
psychically, if they're expelled.
And a rock group is sort of like that.
I mean, their whole lifeblood comes
from that bond.
Once they're of no use, that
is... oddly fatal.
Like, nobody wants to talk
to them or deal with them.
They just go off into the woods and die.
I felt like he was very much the underdog.
He was lost and, you know,
I just felt for him.
I felt that he had been...
..badly treated.
I remember he had a dog.
She was a spaniel.
Such a sweet dog.
She was maybe about five years old,
and she looked about 20
because she'd eaten a cake with acid
and she'd gone on a trip
that had lasted sort of months and months.
You know, sad things that happen.
Charlie phoned me up, phone went
about three in the morning
and he just said, "Brian died."
I couldn't believe it, you know?
It was such a blow that, you know,
you just don't accept it for weeks.
You can't really believe it's true.
And I mean, I don't...
I don't think we slept after that,
we just laid and talked and...
Just couldn't understand it.
I think he'd been doing
what he always used to do,
and that was taken downers and doing
heavy alcohol,
and fell asleep in the pool.
It was basically that simple.
He got much nicer to...
Just before he died, you know,
the last few years of his life,
I felt even sorrier for him
for what we did to him then.
We took his one thing away,
which was being in a band.
It really knocked us back.
I mean, been with that cat for seven
or eight years nonstop, you know?
To have him suddenly removed completely.
Although it was a shock
when it actually happened,
nobody was really that surprised too.
There are people... I'm sure
that everybody's got those things
about certain people everybody
knows people that...
..you just have that feeling that
they're not going to be...
they're not going to be 70 years old
ever, you know?
Not everybody makes it.
I was just 20,
and we were all incredibly
shocked by Brian's death.
It was the first drug-alcohol
casualty of our generation.
We felt his death marked the end
of the '60s, and the concert
in the park which we all went to
was very much the end of the '60s
and a sort of mass funeral
for everything that had gone before.
You just knew there was going
to be a massive change,
and Brian's death somehow was
an emblem for that.
I flew to London immediately
from Munich when I heard about it.
I was there, and stayed with Anita
and Keith in their house.
We were talking and sitting and hugging.
There was a mourning and sadness
around all of them.
It was a very emotional thing,
the way they organised
this farewell and goodbye, as if to say,
"Now you're still - or again -
one of us."
And Mick was very upset.
I just want to say something
that was written by Shelley,
and I think it goes with
what happened to Brian.
Peace, peace! He is not dead,
he does not sleep.
He has awakened from the dreams of life.
Brian was so sensitive, really,
because Brian was so sensitive
to everything, you know what I mean?
I suppose there was a kind of
feeling that I knew that Brian
would...
If anyone was going to die,
Brian was going to die.
I mean, I always knew that Brian
wouldn't really live that long.
But he just... He lived his life
very fast.
He was... He was kind
of like a butterfly.
40 years after Brian died, a box
of old letters addressed to Brian
were discovered in the attic
of Linda Lawrence's family house.
In it was this letter from Brian's father.
"My dear Brian, we have had unhappy times
"and I have been a very poor and
intolerant father in so many ways.
"You grew up in such a different way
from that
"in which I expected you to.
"I was quite out of my depth.
"In my most drastic of all actions,
"which I shall never forget
or cease to worry over,
"I felt it was the only way
to save my home
"and bring you to terms with yourself.
"I don't suppose you will ever
forgive me, but all I ask
"is just a little of that affection
I think you once had for me.
"This is a very private and personal note.
"Don't trouble to reply.
"Love, Dad."
I'll be a rollin' stone
You gonna be a rollin' stone
You gonna be a rollin' stone
Oh, darn
Sure 'nough, he gon'
Oh, yeah
Well, I feel
Yes, I feel
Feel that I could lay down, oh,
time ain't long
I'ma catch the first thing smokin' back
Back down the road I'm goin'
Back down the road I'm goin'
Back down the road I'm goin'
Oh, God, oh...
A child is the manifestations
of both parents,
and both parents see themselves
in the child.
The child is part of them.
He is their flesh and blood.
And for good many years,
he is a reflection of their personality.
So when he grows up, one day he's
going to assert his own personality,
which might very well differ
from the personalities
and outlooks of his parents.
Immediately, his parents feel very upset.
You know, they don't see
themselves in him any more.
And when these parents
don't see themselves in him,
they feel they've lost him.
But really, he's become
a human being in his own right.
Brian's troubled relationship
with his parents
would affect him throughout his life.
His parents disapproved of his lifestyle.
They wanted Brian to have
a proper job like his father.
At the age of just 19,
he formed the Rolling Stones.
They were the first of their kind
and drove people crazy
with their long hair
and their contempt
for convention and authority.
Let's introduce you Stone
by Stone to the Rolling Stones.
Hello, I'm Mick Jagger.
Charlie Watts.
Brian Jones.
Bill Wyman.
On the question of hair, boys,
you're pretty long in the hair.
What's the point of long hair these days?
I believe it's going out in England
and it's going out in Australia.
You thought of
anything different, like plaiting
your hair or anything like this?
We've got a comedian here, I see.
I believe some of the Eastern States
groups have even suggested
that you're effeminate.
What have you got to say about this?
Well, darling...
Well, we're not, you know.
I met Brian on a train
as a schoolboy, aged 14.
I was surprised how open
and friendly he was,
with a soft spoken middle class accent.
He said he was a train spotter
and this was his favourite line -
The Great Western.
I remember the shock when hearing
he had died tragically
just six years later.
He seemed at the time
to have the world at his feet.
Thank you very much.
Everybody wants somebody
Everybody wants somebody
Everybody needs somebody
Everybody...
I loved Mick and Keith.
And Mick always was in awe of Brian.
He absolutely loved him
and I think he wanted to be Brian.
Everybody wants somebody
Everybody needs somebody...
Cos he had all the girls
and he had all the fan mail.
Someone to love
Someone to kiss...
And Mick was trying really hard...
..to get girlfriends, I think,
at that time.
Someone to please
Sometimes a squeeze...
That was what I remember,
that he was very impressed
with the way that Brian
could just draw women to him.
I need you, you, you...
To Brian and Keith,
it was like a brother relationship.
I saw Keith so fascinated
with the way Brian played
and Brian showing him
certain guitar things.
I need you
Yes, I do...
And so they were very close.
They were all rowing together
in this musical journey.
Ladies and gentlemen,
it's all about to happen.
Let's hear it for the fantastic
Rolling Stones!
I'm all right
I'm all right
I'm all right
I'm all right
I'm all right
Whoa, whoa, whoa
Come on down
Come on down
Come on down...
Brian then, was as popular
and famous as Mick.
He was the heart and soul
of the early Stones.
Yet most people today
haven't even heard of him.
Brian answered most of the fan mail.
"Dear Doreen, many thanks for your letter
"and the great interest
you've shown in the band.
"The band is really an
amalgamation of two bands,
"the one being an R&B band
I formed the year ago
"and the other being a group
run by Mick and Keith
in south east London.
"We have, I might add,
"a habit of breaking
audience attendance records."
In the early days,
who got all the fan mail?
Brian.
The secretaries told me, "Well,
we get about 100 letters.
"About 60 of them are for Brian,
"about 25 are for Mick,
about ten for Charlie and Keith.
"And there's about the same for you,
you know, and that's it, you know?
"But Brian gets all the fan mail."
He was brilliant, a brilliant musician.
He shocked everybody with
the quality of his playing.
We all dedicated ourselves to the band
and Brian more so than anybody else,
because it was his band in the beginning.
So it meant the world to him
more than it did to the rest of us.
Brian did everything.
He wrote in the music papers.
He discussed things about the origins
of what is actually
the blues and what is R&B.
There's all those letters and
things. I've got copies of them.
When Brian advertised for a band,
he chose every single person
to come into his band.
Let's recap on the Rolling Stones.
How did you all get together
in the first place?
Actually, I answered an advert
for a bass player, so...
But the rest of them got together
individually in jazz clubs
and formed a sort of a group.
How long ago was that?
Two years.
And what were you doing
when you answered the advertisement?
Engineering, actually.
And we'll move on now to Brian.
How long have you been
with the Rolling Stones?
Are you one of the original members?
Yes, one of the original members.
What were you doing before you joined?
Well, just sort of bumming around,
waiting for something
to happen, really.
I had quite a few jobs and I was
trying to get a band going,
but it was unsuccessful
until I met up with Mick and Keith
and then that was a successful band.
Well, can you think back to your
first engagement? Where was that?
Erm...
Marquee, Oxford Street, London.
And may I ask how much you got
paid for that assignment?
20 quid, which was good,
because six months later,
we were still working for 10 quid.
It's all right
It's all right, children
It's all right
It's all right, children
It's all right
Come on around, baby
Come on around, baby
Come on around, baby
Come on around, baby
Come on around, baby...
Mick used to stand in front of us.
Mick's got the maracas
and the audience just joining in
and all that.
Do you feel it, baby
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Do you feel it now
My, my, my...
It just got right into your body
and it was like a tribal gathering.
All right, all right, all right
All right, all right, all right
All right, all right, all right
All right, all right, all right
All right, all right, all right.
The blues were everything to Brian.
He saw the Stones as promoting
unknown black blues music.
"Dear Doreen, you raised the point
in your letter about blues material.
"You must appreciate that blues
are not easy to put over
"to the average club audience.
"They prefer something more
in the twisting and jumping run.
"Once again, thank you for your interest
"in rhythm and blues and ourselves.
"It's wonderful music
and deserves more recognition.
"Yours sincerely,
Brian Jones for Rolling Stones."
Mick and Keith moved
into the flat that Brian had.
And Brian and Keith slept
in a double bed in the front room
and Mick slept in a single bed
in the middle room.
And then there was a kitchen,
which was a disaster.
And it was a very severe winter
that year, '62,
and we used to give him shillings
to put in the bloody meter
for the one little electric fire.
Brian used to say, "What's
the point of getting out of bed
"when it's so fucking cold?
We might as well stay in bed!"
So they used to get the guitars
and stay in bed
and play guitar in bed.
Luckily, we had nothing else to do.
And since we were down to thieving
potatoes out of supermarkets anyway
and selling beer bottles
back to the off-licence,
there was nothing else to do except
push on, you know, and just...
I mean, it had to get better,
even if it didn't get fantastic.
You know, it was difficult.
But I mean, it was fun too,
since we were determined
that we were going
to stick together and play.
Despite everything,
Brian was always tried
to keep his parents' approval.
"Dear Mum and Dad,
many thanks for your letters
"and a thousand apologies
for not writing back before now.
"Being leader and spokesman for the Stones
"means I'm always busy and tied up.
"If it's possible, I would
like to see you next
Monday or Tuesday.
"But I warn you, my hair is pretty
long, although not untidy."
"Success seems to be on its way,
"though none of us
are too happy about 'Come On'."
Everything is wrong since me
and my baby parted
All day long I'm walking
cos I couldn't get my car started
Laid off from my job and...
"This record does not do
justice to the group."
Brian would invite his mother
and father to the Stones concerts.
But they never came.
And Brian taught Keith to play with him.
You know, all the linking notes.
There they go.
See, one's going up and the other
one's coming down.
When one's coming down, he's going up.
And it's so beautiful.
It's so perfect what they're doing.
We did a song called Mona,
which is a Bo Diddley song.
And you got... You'll have to
excuse me, that's my bloody...
It's switched itself off now,
thank goodness.
He learned to play along with the tremolo.
You know, the - doo, doo, doo, doo,
doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo.
And in time.
And so you'll hear it on Mona here.
Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo.
See?
No-one was doing that then.
Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo.
He was a fucker, you know.
He would be really horrible sometimes.
He had one side of him,
which I have to say was really,
I wouldn't say evil,
but he was really cruel sometimes.
There's photos of us being photographed
and Brian's over the top of me
dropping cigarette ash on my head.
But he used to do things like that.
And not only to me, but to everybody.
He always had to prove himself.
He was embarrassed about his size.
And if he didn't get his way,
he kind of used to get very aggressive
and then he'd be all apologetic and,
"Sorry, man, I didn't mean it."
He'd stubbed that cigarette out on
the back of your hand in the car...
..and you'd always forgive him
because he was such
a nice, sweet guy.
Brian had immense opposition
from his father.
His dad didn't like him
trying to be a musician.
They just thought, get a proper job.
You know, the same old thing.
Up to a certain point,
Brian was a perfectly normal,
conventional boy,
who was well behaved and was well liked.
Liked, I suppose, because
he was well behaved.
He did his studies and he
was quite a model schoolboy.
And then there came this peculiar
change in his early teens,
at the time, I suppose,
he began to become a man,
where he began to get
some resentment of authority.
It was a rebellion
against parental authority
and it was certainly a rebellion
against the school authority.
He often used to say, why should
he do something he was told
just because the person
who was telling him was older?
From being an A grade student,
Brian rebelled.
He failed in his studies
and put all his energy into music
and picking up girls.
He played occasionally clarinet
in the school orchestra,
but Brian was not really interested
in anything else at the school.
Not in athletics.
Not in any sports.
Not in the cadet force,
not in debating societies
or anything like that.
He kept himself to himself quite
a bit at school, I would say.
In the beginning of the '60s,
it was one society,
just this mono culture, and it was
our generation who went beyond that.
It's a level of sort of
middle class tightness,
which you don't possibly
see so much any more.
He had a pretty bad relationship
with his parents,
who were very respectable,
very straight, very posh.
But he used to say
he just couldn't stand it.
The problem with Brian was
that he came from a very,
very bourgeois family...
..who saw themselves as better
than the neighbours
and better than this and better than that.
All the time, his fanaticism for
jazz music was coming to the fore.
It was a great disappointment to us
and a source of considerable anxiety
when he became so wrapped up
in his love of jazz music
that in spite of everything
we could do or say,
he went off and did it.
Wop-bop-a-loo-mop alop-bom-bom
Tutti frutti, oh rutti
Tutti frutti, woo
Tutti frutti, oh rutti
Tutti frutti, oh rutti
Tutti frutti, oh rutti
Awop-bop-a-loo-mop
alop-bom-bom...
Tutti frutti, oh rutti
Tutti frutti, woo
Tutti frutti, oh rutti
Tutti frutti, oh rutti
Tutti frutti, oh rutti...
Frustrated by his parents' disapproval,
Brian adopted Val's family and spent
all his time playing blues music.
Val Corbett, yes, I knew her very well.
She was rather stylish
and I thought she was rather nice.
Brian was quite besotted with her
and she, of course, was besotted with him.
They were obviously made for each other.
The next thing we heard
was that Val was pregnant
and she at first was terribly pleased
because she and Brian
were going to leave Cheltenham,
go and live in London
and get a place together.
And suddenly it dawned on her
that wasn't going to happen.
On December the 22nd, 1960, Brian,
aged 17, was kicked out of his home.
His father would later refer to this as
"my most drastic of all actions,
"which I shall never forget
or cease to worry over."
Brian, now rejected by his parents,
moved in with Pat and her sister, Betty,
and was looked after by their parents.
This became a pattern
of Brian's behaviour -
adopting other families, getting the
daughters pregnant and then leaving.
This would happen at least five times.
Do you feel bitter at all?
I'm not actually bitter.
I feel quite sorry for Brian in a way,
because the kind of person he is,
you can never be happy,
could never have true friends.
The only friends he has probably
like him because of what he is.
I think if he was turned out
on to the streets, nobody
would want to know Brian.
He's not the kind of person
that you take to
because he's so cynical.
He's got no feelings for anybody.
He just uses people for his own good.
And when he's finished,
he throws them aside.
So I just feel sorry for him.
Brian's own life mirrored
the rebellious spirit of the Stones
more than any other member.
Expelled from two schools.
Thrown out of his home.
A reckless personal life.
The blues was Brian's salvation.
Oh, a child's coming
He's going to be,
going to be a rollin' stone
He's going to be
a rollin' stone...
Well, I feel
Yes, I feel.
Tell us something about him, Brian.
When we started playing together,
we started playing because
we wanted to play rhythm and blues.
And Howlin' Wolf was one
of our greatest idols.
And it's a great pleasure to finally
be booked on this show tonight...
Thanks to Howlin' Wolf.
So I think it's about time you shut
up and we had Howlin' Wolf onstage.
I agree! Let's get him on.
Howlin' Wolf!
It was a huge deal for those guys
because they'd just never
really been on TV.
To be there are peak time in America,
that was an incredibly big deal.
How many more years
Have I got to let you dog me around?
How many more years
Have I got to let you
dog me around?
It's an incredible moment
and there are still people
who put it as one of the
greatest TV moments of the 1960s.
There's a great period
in the first couple of years
where he seemed to have real insight.
And I'm talking about 1961, 1962.
I'll try to show it
if you're driving me back
Your love for me has got to be real
For you to know just how I feel
Love for real
and not fade away...
So you worked out both the keys
of open tunings of blues,
which is D slash E, which is open D or E,
which is Elmore James, and he was open G,
which is Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson.
I'm going to tell you
how it's going to be
You're going to give your love to me
Love to last
more than one day...
So what did we do for the fifth single?
We wanted to do a blues
and everybody said,
"Don't do it because
you'll destroy your career.
"No-one's ever done a blues record
for a single in England."
You know, it's the worst thing.
Like they said to Ray Charles,
"Don't do a country album
because it will destroy you."
And it was the greatest thing he ever did.
Well, when we did Little Red Rooster...
..they said, you know,
"You're going to kill yourself."
It came out on the Friday
and on the Monday it was number one.
And Brian...
..controlled the whole band.
I'll start again.
That's Brian with a slide.
See, he's doing it.
I am the little red rooster...
What is anybody else doing?
See, he's making the song.
Everybody wants somebody
Everybody needs somebody
To love...
So we were completely unique.
Someone to kiss
Oh, yeah
Sometimes a miss
Someone to please
And sometimes a squeeze
I need you, you, you
I need you, you, you
I need you...
Bo Diddley couldn't believe
how good we were.
You, you, you
Sometimes I feel like
I get a little sad inside
When my baby mistreats me
I kind of get a little bit mad
I need you...
Rolling Stones!
Rolling Stones! Rolling Stones!
Oh, Carol, don't let him
steal your heart away
I'm going to learn to dance
if it takes me all night and day
Climb into my machine
so we can groove on out
I know some swinging little joint
where we can jump and shout
It's not too far back...
There was rioting
whenever the Stones played.
It was an outpouring of emotion
against the authorities
and the traditional ways of doing things.
A little cutie takes your hat
and you can thank her ma'am...
The way the Stones looked and dressed,
their hair and sexuality,
was a whole new feeling.
Everyone fancied both Brian
and Mick, both male and female.
They had this extraordinary
androgynous quality.
I'm going to learn to dance if
it takes me all night and day...
Brian met Linda Lawrence in 1962
and was adopted into her family.
I only saw him.
Yeah, and heard him.
The sound was what I was connecting to
and it was the harmonica
and the slide guitar.
The first time I'd ever
heard that kind of music
or felt that kind of feeling,
it was just...
Just amazing.
Yeah, a whole feeling came over me
that I'd never felt before.
My days are pretty rough
I want you to come back,
come back, come back...
It was instant.
Like, if you can call it love.
At the time, I wouldn't have known
what that was, but now I do.
There was a point that came where he said,
"Can I come stay with you in
Windsor with your parents?"
And I said, "Yeah."
Yeah, my parents loved him.
Somebody stop this pain in my heart
My, my, my, my, my, my
Don't you know, one day
My days are pretty rough
Won't you love me?
Love me.
Most of the time it was all about music
and what records he's going to get.
And how he was going to play this
and, you know...
And I would often put
the records on over and over again
so that he could get the riffs and things.
Put it back on and have a listen
and get the sound.
Seeing them get more and more popular
and more and more people
coming to see them,
it was very exciting.
And we got very, very much in love.
He was loved by so many people.
I didn't mind that.
I knew he loved me, so I didn't care.
And I knew we were young.
I just knew he loved me.
And I...
I felt like it's OK.
You know, he'll be back.
Brian's rivalry with Mick
for leadership of the Stones was growing.
Mick was the natural frontman
and Brian's insecurity played into this.
A visible friction grew up between them.
It began to dominate Brian's thinking.
Brian sent me to a modelling course
for a little while in London
and I had taken the hairdressing course.
So I was really into hair
and I was saying,
"Just grow your hair,
don't cut it", you know.
And then when it did get quite long,
I would trim it,
but not cut it, and make that shape.
He was like a gentleman.
He was all dressed in his white
shirt and his jacket
and he was open doors.
It was that kind of... Very
gentlemanly and gentle spoken.
He had a family, obviously.
And after a while, we drove down.
He wanted me to meet his parents.
And I know he didn't take many
people down to meet his parents,
so I knew it was something special.
Did you feel that Brian cared a lot
what his parents thought?
Oh, very much.
That was the whole thing,
that he really did want them
to like what he was doing
and, you know, be proud of him.
That was the whole point,
I think, of us going there.
They wanted him to have
a different career.
Something more like what his father
had been doing - a good paying job.
But Brian kind of saw that
and he kind of rebelled
and stepped out of it.
I warned you baby from time to time
You don't listen so pay me no mind
About moving on
Yeah, I'm moving on...
We became the love generation
and the music was going to be the opening.
Mister Engineer
with your throttle in hand
Take me back to that Southern land
It's called moving
Keep a rolling on
You're flying too high
For my old sky
I'll move on.
Dawn Molloy was the mother
of Brian's fifth child.
I was 18.
I don't think I'd ever
been in love before.
Every time I saw him,
my heart skipped a beat.
And every time we saw me, he...
It was obvious that he wanted me.
Being a Catholic, I was very...
..inhibited.
He kind of got that out of me.
Not to be ashamed of my body
and what I could do.
He was very, very sexy.
Yeah, the way he made love,
he just was insatiable.
He made me feel...
..amazing.
He just made me feel...
..loved and special.
He was an amazing teacher
of how you should make love to a woman.
My parents, they had
such a thing against...
..long-haired pop stars.
"Oh, this music's no good."
You know how it is.
They didn't want any of it.
I never dreamed
he'd come to our apartment.
There he was, on the doorstep.
"Good evening, Mrs Malloy."
And kissed her hand.
I mean, who does that?
It's just...
He had suave.
They liked him in the end.
Then my mum said, "Well, why
don't you go down to your bedroom?
"Show Brian your bedroom."
I'm going to tell you
how it's going to be...
And then he turned around
and asked my parents
if he could take me on tour.
There's no way my dad
is going to let me go.
But my dad said,
"Well, you know, as long
as you're in a different room
"and you take care of her, it's OK."
The security wasn't around,
so you could just walk into a hotel
and the girls were everywhere.
We went to our room
and there's this girl there
and she's just sitting
on the bed stark naked.
And then we went into the bathroom
and there's another one.
And they're willing to give
everything to them.
The police had no idea what hit them.
They were completely taken by surprise.
And it was terrifying.
I could see all their feet,
trampling on people in stiletto heels,
going for his arms and stuff.
I thought I was going to die.
It was like being in a tube train
and you can't move.
I think Mick lost some hair.
They pulled... Literally
pulled hair out of his head.
And I started to fall back
and I fell back and Mick caught me.
Brian was looking for me,
so he came around the corner
and saw me in the arms of Mick.
And then...
..Brian lost it.
"Keep your hands off my fucking
girl! You're not having
all my girlfriends!"
And all that kind of stuff.
Mick said, "Hey, I'm just holding
her, you know. She just fell.
"Don't be a dick", you know?
And then Bill said,
"Yeah, sometimes you get like that.
"You just have to leave him,
he'll be fine."
Everybody went through their...
..star trip, you know.
And I think Brian was
the only one that it changed
in a really deep way
and probably not for the better.
It was very difficult for him, you know,
and not made any easier probably
by the rest of us, you know,
because nobody had the time
to look after somebody else.
If one of them isn't quite strong
enough to deal with that situation
there's very little you can do
to help him.
They were all a little wary,
I think, of Brian
because he could be kind of moody.
But I think they put that on him
because he was supposed to be the leader
and he was no longer the leader.
Mick ruled the roost as far
as what they were going to play
and the fact that he could
write music and Brian couldn't.
I think there may have been
a little jealousy there.
The fact that Mick and Keith
were so close.
Yeah, yeah, yeah
I feel all right
I feel all right, children...
I think they were a little bit lost
until Andrew came along.
And then Andrew kind of laid down the law
and said what he wanted to do,
which was all very well.
And I thought that was a good idea
to have a manager,
but I don't think Brian realised
that he would be handing
everything over to him.
They had two different ideas
of what they wanted to do.
Brian loved Howlin' Wolf and he
wanted to stay as a blues group.
Andrew wanted them to be pop.
And I think Andrew and Brian
just didn't hit it off.
And I think they just got
into loggerheads.
Pop sold.
And obviously Andrew wanted to make money.
Thank you.
"Dear Melinda,
"Mick is the head of the group.
"At one time I was, but Mick took over.
"Don't ask me why. We just thought
it would be better,
"as he is a good leader.
"Mick's birthday was on the 26th of July.
"I must rush, dear, honestly.
"Brian Jones."
I guess he was a little jealous
of Mick because he was...
He had all the fame sort of thing.
But I don't think Brian realised
that he had just as much too.
Oh, Carol
Don't let him steal your heart away
I'm gonna learn to dance
If it takes me all night and day
Climb into my machine
so we can groove on out...
I think he would've liked
to have been like Mick,
but then no-one's like Mick.
He has this charisma about him,
he has amazing energy.
A little cutie takes your hat and
you can thank her, ma'am...
I understand, Brian, because I think
he was a lost person.
The success of the Stones
was unbelievable.
But at a time when Brian could
have celebrated the success
of the band he had founded,
he was locked in conflict
with problems of his own creation.
The reason I found out about Linda
was because I was told
to go to Torquay.
And then Stu told me, no,
I couldn't go in and see him
because Linda was there with the baby.
I'm like, "What... Whose baby?",
you know?
He said, "Well, Brian's."
Well, you know my lovin'
not fade away...
Fame is a very strange thing.
And he wanted that as well.
And so that was the choice
he had to make.
And...
And he did.
I was at all the gigs.
The other girlfriends
weren't allowed to come,
but I would always be at the gig.
The last one that I was at
before I had Julian
was the Bo Diddley concert.
Hey, Bo Diddley Hey, Bo Diddley
Hey, Bo Diddley Hey, Bo Diddley
Hey, Bo Diddley Hey, Bo Diddley
Hey, Bo Diddley Hey, Bo Diddley
I got a girl lived on a hill
Hey, Bo Diddley...
I bonded so well with Bo Diddley
and it was all fantastic.
They thought that Brian and I
were getting married.
I thought we were getting married.
So it was a bit of a shock when
Andrew Oldham came in and said,
"You can't have girlfriends and
wives and, you know, it's..."
Because I knew that he loved me
and it was really hard to understand.
And I kept saying to myself,
"Well, I have to let go
"and he'll be back."
And my dad, when he left, said,
"And there's no-one to
look after him now."
Brian tormented himself because
he couldn't write songs
like Mick and Keith,
whose compositions had moved
the band on to a whole new level.
Say hi to Brian.
Brian is one of the writers
of most of the things, right?
No, I'm not, actually...
Well, I'm not really a writer.
Ah, we do write a lot of stuff together -
it comes out under the
Nanker Phelge pseudonym -
but Mick and Keith write more... many
Thank you, Bill.
They're a little more industrious
than we are.
In writing the songs that you write,
do you sometimes think that you have
a special inspiration for
the way that you...
Well, you'd better ask - about
writing songs - better address those
questions to Mick and Keith because
they'll tell me more about it.
But the ones we've written together
are just things we've worked out
together in the studio,
with somebody, you know, anyone
If you had to do
it all over again, do you think
you'd go the same route again?
As far as, you know, now that you
realise the demands that are put
on you as a tremendous success?
I'd do it 100 times over,
if I could. I love it.
Good. Thank you so much.
Let me swing over here and talk
to Keith and to Mick.
These are the two that are supposed
to be all the writing talent.
You fellows get together and do
most of the writing, right?
Yeah, that's right. A lot of it.
You know, some of it.
Do you have a particular inspiration
for some of your songs that seem
to springboard them out?
Well, I don't know. Ask Keith.
I don't really think so, no.
It just happens, you know?
It just happens.
Mick and Keith are wonderful songwriters.
I mean, they're just great.
Extraordinary.
I mean, I couldn't admire them more.
They tended to write more about sex.
So from '64, '84...
Like, for 20 years they were
just turning them out.
I mean, they're classic
rock and roll songs.
I'd rate it as extraordinary.
You see, the trouble was by 1963,
when Mick and Keith were writing
the songs and all that,
Andrew was trying to promote Keith
and kind of dismiss Brian,
get Brian out of the way.
And so what he did was
he stopped me, Charlie and Brian
from doing any interviews with any
of the newspapers, any interviews
at all, and gave them all
to Mick and Keith.
And I think when we talked on
the phone ages ago, you mentioned
that he did something with Jimi Hendrix.
Yes.
Yeah.
No-one knows that.
What do I say?
And I got Brian trying to write
a song with that guy,
Michael Aldred, of Ready Steady Go!
But they're unique things that
I just happened to get, and...
..they shouldn't be...
Was the song good?
Yeah, they were putting a song
together. It was OK, yeah.
But he never had the courage to record it.
Oh, fucking hell, turn it off!
No. It's difficult...
Oh, let's get...
Bleurgh!
He never played me a song
he'd written, so it was quite hard
to know really if he wanted to do
songs with us that he'd written.
I think he did, but he was very shy
and all that, I think he found it
rather hard to lay it down to us,
you know, that "This was a song and
"it went like this."
And we probably sort of didn't even
think - because he didn't do it,
we didn't try and bring it out
of him, probably,
which was...
..I suppose a bit insensitive of us.
Each member of the band had a had a court.
And the way the hierarchy worked
was the Stones would always
have to go to the Beatles' places.
So the Beatles would
never go to their house.
You know, that was the order of things,
a very strict class system at work.
I think he liked drinking and
I think he liked drugs
but they weren't very good for him.
I don't think they're good for
anyone, but he didn't...
He wasn't strong enough,
mentally or physically,
to take any of it.
And of course he did everything...
Brian was one of those people
that did everything to excess.
And remember, no matter
what anyone says...
..rock on.
I can't get no satisfaction
I can't get no satisfaction...
The trouble with Brian was he wasn't
very well a lot of the time.
So he was often ill.
We'd be on tour and Brian would
get sick, and he'd be in
hospital for five days
and we had to play without him.
Just the four of us, you know.
Bass, drum, guitar.
And you're playing all them songs
that need more than one guitar,
and you've only got one guitar.
So I had to double-up on bass,
the bass playing,
and help Keith out, you know,
and Keith had to play a bit more
than he would normally play,
playing partly rhythm, partly lead.
It was tough, you know.
So he was very unreliable at times
in the later period of his life.
You know, the last... maybe
three years.
Brian used to get very paranoid
about being made fun of.
You know, he always said, "They're
talking about me and they're..."
You know, when we were waiting in a...
When we were staying over in
a hotel or something.
The classic example that I had of
that was at the hotel in New York
when Dylan was coming to visit him.
You know, he was very friendly with Dylan.
So Mick and Keith - Brian's
room was next to mine,
so Mick and Keith came into my room.
They said, "Oh...",
and they were very devilish.
And Keith goes over and grabs
a water glass that I had,
and he puts it against the wall so
he could listen in to Brian's room.
And Mick goes over to the house
telephone, my phone in the room,
and calls Brian's room.
And then immediately he says,
"Hello, Mr Jones.
"You have Mr Zimmerman
for Mr Jones."
And he was imitating putting
Dylan on the phone.
And then when he was on the phone,
he says, "Oh, Brian, I think
"you're the best guy in the group,"
that kind of...
And Brian's like, "Shut up,
you guys! I know you're..."
And that was the kind of stuff
that was going on.
Show me the train...
Already there had been shit going on.
You know, Brian was in very bad shape.
He couldn't get into the States.
And they didn't know what to do,
and this and that and the other,
you know, of just scrambling
all the way along.
It wasn't as bad as it was
going to get later.
Well, I read an interesting
thing Keith said about this,
that they started making fun of
Brian so as not to get mad at him.
Because it was a way...
But I mean, of course,
for somebody who's paranoid,
this is just about the worst
thing you can do.
But I mean that was
Mick and Keith's, apparently,
attitude to this thing, you know?
Well, because, you know, I mean
if anybody had really let
their feelings go, they would've Mm-hm.
And he would have killed them too.
Mm-hm.
I mean, it was that bad.
I think Marianne sympathised with Brian.
And Marianne of course was not in
much better shape because of drugs.
She knew him very well and had,
you know, had an affair with him.
Marianne felt that she had become
a real drag on Mick.
And there's a horrible conversation
where she overhears Ahmet Ertegun
saying to Mick, "You've got
to get rid of Marianne,
"you know, if the band is
going to function.
"It's having a really
negative effect."
And so in that sense I think she
absolutely identified with Brian.
Anita Pallenberg was a massive
influence on Brian.
She was credited with transforming
both Brian and the Stones.
She was an incredibly interesting
person, who'd done a lot,
and was on the make,
in the way that he was.
And she craved new experiences,
you know, in the way that he was.
But I think he was thinking
of leaving the band.
I think he probably could have
and probably should have left
the band for his own, you know,
health and sanity.
But I think, by teaming up with
Anita, he knew they'd be
a real phenomenon, which they were.
And that really launched his
kind of last great...
Last great ride.
Oui, oui, je le comprends.
There was such sort of... erotic
power to their pairing
and such glamour.
And also, you know,
he wants to be glamorous.
He wanted to be seen as
a main player in the Stones,
and she'd helped that happen.
She and Brian were, you know,
like a little unit,
whispering, talking to each other,
giggling, speaking in sort of
a code that, you know, intimate
couples can have sometimes.
And I think they were doing a lot
of acid and just hanging out.
She was staggeringly beautiful,
had extraordinary physical
and sexual confidence.
You know, when she walked in a room,
you know, guys' eyes popped out
and tongues rolled out, like in a cartoon.
The Rolling Stones, they were,
as Marianne would put it,
were a bunch of yobs.
They were very talented,
but they weren't educated
or sophisticated.
Marianne and Anita connected them
with all the European intellectuals
and film-makers.
We were the right women for that
time to enable whatever
had to happen to happen.
And probably the same is true
of Brian and Anita
and Keith and Anita.
They seemed to be a proto-aristocracy.
Mick at one point said,
"Well, the only thing left is
me and the Queen."
Brian and Anita would spend
time at the vast Guinness estate
in Ireland.
This is Mick go-karting at Leslie Castle,
a massive Irish estate that has been
in the Leslie family
for 1,000 years.
A whole new world opened up to them.
I think it was the great changing
of the old order, wasn't it?
I loved the sort of mixture,
the juxtaposition then
of the Stones and the Beatles
and the royals and the thing, you know?
It suddenly was all...
Everybody and anybody were part
of the same thing.
It was excellent.
It was my sister Victoria's
birthday, and that was a sort of
wonderful melting pot with
the Kennedys and Princess Margaret
and the Beatles and the Stones
and then all my relations.
Brian definitely came.
Brian was the most sort of
sociable at that time.
He was much the most sort of gregarious.
So it was it was the informality,
I think, of it that was part of
the whole thing of the '60s.
Never mind who was there, whether
it was rock stars or royalty
or scrubbers from the East End.
It really didn't make any difference.
Brian's best friend at the time
was Tara Browne.
He was the Guinness heir
and owner of Dandie Fashions
on the King's Road.
The so-called Swinging London
was actually a very small group
of people, and Brian and Tara
were right at the centre.
Tara was immortalised in
the Beatles song A Day in the Life
when he had a tragic car accident.
He blew his mind out in a car
He didn't notice that the lights
had changed
A crowd of people stood
and stared...
Brian was devastated by Tara's death,
the first of that intimate circle.
Brian would later date
his girlfriend, Suki Poitier,
who was with Tara in the accident
but miraculously survived.
And we all wore the Dandie Fashions look,
which was so much the spirit of the time.
Anita was pushing him to dress
more outrageously.
He was the archetypal dandy,
more than anyone, you know, in '66, '67.
At that point you can see
the power dynamics shift
within the band, where
Keith is coming back to Brian again.
So for a period, yeah, he was back
with Keith, because he was cool
and happening, and obviously
at that time they did Ruby Tuesday.
He was doing all that stuff
without asking anyone.
He'd pick up a flute or just
anything that was handy
and just create something out of it
which wasn't there originally.
And it embellished the song so much
that it became the catch.
Or in the darkest night
No-one knows...
Do, doo!
Can you hear him?
She comes and goes...
Do, do, do...
Goodbye, Ruby...
He just finds a flute,
and he finds a little thing
he can play on it.
Brian's self-loathing came out
in the way he treated other people.
He and Anita particularly were known
for spiking people's drinks.
Anita would encourage him for that
kind of outrageous behaviour.
They would just mock people who hadn't...
Who weren't turned on in
the same way that they were.
So that was a thing - "We're
the hip kids - we can make fun
"of other people."
For instance, Linda Lawrence came.
I think she was short of money
for young Julian.
I think they were up in the flat,
Brian and Anita,
and they just laughed at her and
wouldn't let her come in.
So whilst he could still make
things happen in the studio,
he still was holding some power even
whilst he was this kind of liability
at the same time.
You know, he was pretty dominant
in terms of the sounds.
You know, they needed to get
a bit more exotic.
Paint It Black, he's embellished it again.
Bass pedals.
There's Brian.
I see a line of cars and
they're all painted black...
Your head goes into, like...
You're suddenly in the Middle East
or Far East...
That made me realise that there was
a very inventive guy there.
I mean, he was really a...
..bit of a genius.
The Volker Schlondorff film Mord und
Totschlag was a big deal
for Anita and for Brian.
It was a starring role for Anita,
with a really good director,
and it was really pretty
like their own - Brian and Anita's -
relationship, where there was
this constant provocation
and escalation of provocation.
Hau ab jetzt.
When Keith went with Anita,
Brian decided to start going out
with Linda Keith, who used
to be Keith's girlfriend.
All their relationships were
always slightly incestuous.
Marianne, you know,
when she gave up with Mick,
she went with Brian...
..and then she went with Keith.
So she went with three of them.
Anita went with Brian, she went with
Mick, she went with Keith.
It was all very mixed up, you know?
Girls would end up being with
another member of the band.
Seeing the state of Brian,
his parents finally reached out to
help him.
What I firmly believe was
the turning point in Brian's life
was when he lost the only
girl he ever really loved.
When his mother and I saw him
for the first time for some months
after this happening, we were quite
shocked by the changes
of his appearance, and in our opinion
he was never the same boy again.
He changed suddenly and alarmingly
from a bright, enthusiastic young
man to a quiet and morose
and inward-looking young man.
Brian and Linda Keith's relationship
was tempestuous and drug-fuelled,
with Brian recovering from Anita
and Linda from Keith.
Linda ended up taking an overdose
in Brian's flat, which she survived.
Brian wrote this to her...
"Dearest darling Linda, I'm
presently very smashed.
"Please be with me.
"I'm so lonely by myself.
"I need you so badly and I love you
so much.
"Please understand what fucked us
up before,
"a terrible combination of events.
"Please let's start again.
"Please marry me.
Please, please, please.
"All my love, Brian."
It was a painful year, you know?
'67 was a year of change for everybody.
I mean, '67 was the explosion
of the drug culture.
The whole infamous Stones drug bust
all followed in the wake of
News Of The World stories that
prided themselves
in actually busting Mick Jagger and
proclaiming him a drug user.
The problem was it wasn't Mick.
It was Brian.
He was hanging in a nightclub called
Blazing and boasting
about being a druggy hipster.
He actually told the reporter he
didn't do LSD much these days
now that everybody had taken
it up and, you know, he was doing
it before anybody else.
For Mick, Brian was the villain
of the piece.
The only person who was really,
really out of it on drugs was Brian.
This was like the last straw,
the straw that broke the camel's
back with Brian.
And I think it brought up a lot
of bad feelings that were already
there about Brian.
Mick didn't know he'd end up in prison.
It was just dreadful.
But it was very frightening, because
you saw the sort of the power
of the state, the power of the status quo,
the whole thing coming
down on them - for nothing.
Mick was very, very, very desperate
and just in...
It was a horrible thing.
I don't think he ever thought this
sort of thing
would ever happen to him in his life.
And I must say, to my shame,
I wasn't very compassionate at all.
If you need to cry, you cry.
It was a real moment of truth
and vulnerability.
Needless to say, he never,
ever showed it again.
The phone rings and it's Brian.
And he said, "I'm not going... I'm
not going to come tomorrow."
And I said... I said, "Huh? Why?"
And he said, "Because they are so
mean to me."
And I said, "Who's so mean?"
He said, "Mick and Keith,
they are making my life hell."
Naively, I said, "Well, what would
the Rolling Stones be without you?"
And anyway, I'm thinking, "What
the fuck do we do with four
"Rolling Stones if we really are
looking at five Rolling Stones?"
And so then he stopped,
he listened and he stopped crying,
and he said, "It's
just been a hard day."
And also, you don't know how much he's...
I think he was drinking a lot.
I convinced him to come the next day.
There was something kind
of childlike about him,
because then he had dressed
kind of like a wizard.
Then when they got onstage at two
in the morning, he was...
I would say he was drunk because he
looked it,
and he could play the maracas and he
could play the slide...
..he could hardly play the guitar
in the regular way.
He looked dreadful, really.
His big bags under his eyes.
I mean, really, bags under his eyes
for a guy of 26.
He was just gone.
Well, he wouldn't turn up half the time.
When he did turn up, he was not
in any condition
to do anything, had to baby him.
And it was very sad.
I saw him as another person
with incredibly low self-esteem
who needed help not to be destroyed
and ground underfoot.
And that's when I kind of realised
what was going on
and how it was going to affect me.
That kind of ruthlessness, you know,
the bit where they would pretend
to be recording Brian and not
have him plugged in,
that was really terrible.
Both Marianne and Brian,
they were victims of the Stones.
She realised she was no longer useful...
..and he was especially horrified
to be ostracised from his band.
A rock group is sort of like a,
you know, a primitive tribe.
People are often killed in tribes,
psychically, if they're expelled.
And a rock group is sort of like that.
I mean, their whole lifeblood comes
from that bond.
Once they're of no use, that
is... oddly fatal.
Like, nobody wants to talk
to them or deal with them.
They just go off into the woods and die.
I felt like he was very much the underdog.
He was lost and, you know,
I just felt for him.
I felt that he had been...
..badly treated.
I remember he had a dog.
She was a spaniel.
Such a sweet dog.
She was maybe about five years old,
and she looked about 20
because she'd eaten a cake with acid
and she'd gone on a trip
that had lasted sort of months and months.
You know, sad things that happen.
Charlie phoned me up, phone went
about three in the morning
and he just said, "Brian died."
I couldn't believe it, you know?
It was such a blow that, you know,
you just don't accept it for weeks.
You can't really believe it's true.
And I mean, I don't...
I don't think we slept after that,
we just laid and talked and...
Just couldn't understand it.
I think he'd been doing
what he always used to do,
and that was taken downers and doing
heavy alcohol,
and fell asleep in the pool.
It was basically that simple.
He got much nicer to...
Just before he died, you know,
the last few years of his life,
I felt even sorrier for him
for what we did to him then.
We took his one thing away,
which was being in a band.
It really knocked us back.
I mean, been with that cat for seven
or eight years nonstop, you know?
To have him suddenly removed completely.
Although it was a shock
when it actually happened,
nobody was really that surprised too.
There are people... I'm sure
that everybody's got those things
about certain people everybody
knows people that...
..you just have that feeling that
they're not going to be...
they're not going to be 70 years old
ever, you know?
Not everybody makes it.
I was just 20,
and we were all incredibly
shocked by Brian's death.
It was the first drug-alcohol
casualty of our generation.
We felt his death marked the end
of the '60s, and the concert
in the park which we all went to
was very much the end of the '60s
and a sort of mass funeral
for everything that had gone before.
You just knew there was going
to be a massive change,
and Brian's death somehow was
an emblem for that.
I flew to London immediately
from Munich when I heard about it.
I was there, and stayed with Anita
and Keith in their house.
We were talking and sitting and hugging.
There was a mourning and sadness
around all of them.
It was a very emotional thing,
the way they organised
this farewell and goodbye, as if to say,
"Now you're still - or again -
one of us."
And Mick was very upset.
I just want to say something
that was written by Shelley,
and I think it goes with
what happened to Brian.
Peace, peace! He is not dead,
he does not sleep.
He has awakened from the dreams of life.
Brian was so sensitive, really,
because Brian was so sensitive
to everything, you know what I mean?
I suppose there was a kind of
feeling that I knew that Brian
would...
If anyone was going to die,
Brian was going to die.
I mean, I always knew that Brian
wouldn't really live that long.
But he just... He lived his life
very fast.
He was... He was kind
of like a butterfly.
40 years after Brian died, a box
of old letters addressed to Brian
were discovered in the attic
of Linda Lawrence's family house.
In it was this letter from Brian's father.
"My dear Brian, we have had unhappy times
"and I have been a very poor and
intolerant father in so many ways.
"You grew up in such a different way
from that
"in which I expected you to.
"I was quite out of my depth.
"In my most drastic of all actions,
"which I shall never forget
or cease to worry over,
"I felt it was the only way
to save my home
"and bring you to terms with yourself.
"I don't suppose you will ever
forgive me, but all I ask
"is just a little of that affection
I think you once had for me.
"This is a very private and personal note.
"Don't trouble to reply.
"Love, Dad."
I'll be a rollin' stone
You gonna be a rollin' stone
You gonna be a rollin' stone
Oh, darn
Sure 'nough, he gon'
Oh, yeah
Well, I feel
Yes, I feel
Feel that I could lay down, oh,
time ain't long
I'ma catch the first thing smokin' back
Back down the road I'm goin'
Back down the road I'm goin'
Back down the road I'm goin'
Oh, God, oh...