The Rolling Stones Know How to Grow Old

A s the story goes, in 1964, inspired by the lucrative Lennon–McCartney songwriting partnership, Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham locked Mick Jagger and Keith Richards in a room and forced them to write an original song. The result was “As Tears Go By” — and, more importantly, the beginning of one of the most enduring and successful songwriting partnerships in popular music history.

In their earliest days, the Rolling Stones, born out of American R&B influences such as Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry, and Howlin’ Wolf, were still penning rough originals such as “Little by Little” (1964), released as the B-side to their cover of Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away.” Yet by early 1965, they were writing songs such as “Play with Fire,” a dark, acoustic folk-pop track featuring a harpsichord, which represented a glaring departure from their roots. Even “The Last Time,” inspired by the gospel song “This May Be the Last Time,” bears little resemblance to the Staple Singers’ recording.

A string of successful singles, including “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” “Get Off of My Cloud,” and “19th Nervous Breakdown,” established Jagger and Richards as songwriters capable of moving beyond their heroes (both in mode and merit) rather than merely copying or covering them. That ability to bridge the old and the new has persisted throughout the Stones’ storied career, spanning more than six decades and 25 studio records. With the release of their latest album, Foreign Tongues, they remain devoted to their musical foundations while continuing to engage with the present. What has kept them relevant all these years, beyond Richards’s mythical immortality, is that persistent balancing act.

As Jagger and Richards assumed greater control over the band’s direction, Brian Jones’s adventurous instrumentation carried the Stones into baroque pop and psychedelia, threading sitar, marimba, and dulcimer through songs such as “Paint It, Black,” “Under My Thumb,” and “Lady Jane.” Yet Jagger was always the principal modernist driving their evolution, quick to absorb the dominant sounds and ideas of the moment. On Between the Buttons (January 1967), he drew from Bob Dylan’s impressionistic character sketches and lyrical surrealism; on Their Satanic Majesties Request (December 1967), he offered a wry riposte to the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, embracing elaborate psychedelia and sprawling studio experimentation.

Having pushed the psychedelic avant-garde to its gaudiest extreme, however, the Stones ended the 1960s in something approaching open repudiation of flower power idealism. Jagger personified the biblical Lucifer in “Sympathy for the Devil” as a cultivated participant in centuries of human barbarism. “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” from Let It Bleed (1969), offered a rueful epitaph for the failed aspirations of the Summer of Love.

It was during this period that Richards delved into the open tunings that would become his signature, composing set-list mainstays such as “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” and “Honky Tonk Women” around primal, propulsive riffs. The Stones then translated that expansive sound to the stage, helping pioneer the modern stadium tour through enormous productions built around Jagger’s ability to command tens of thousands of people.

Yet even those dizzying heights of acclaim never became a comfortable plateau from which to reproduce past triumphs. By the late 1970s, the Stones were absorbing reggae, funk, disco, and punk with their customary instinct for the moment. On Some Girls, the infectious groove of “Miss You” brought them onto the dance floor without sacrificing their interlocking guitars and loose, dynamic rhythms, while “Shattered” drew from punk’s speed, abrasiveness, and urban sneer without pretending that the Stones belonged at CBGB.

The Stones’ habit of musical evolution continued well beyond the period in which rock bands are generally expected to become heritage attractions. Subsequent records updated the Stones’ stadium sound for their respective eras, while collaborations and performances with Amy Winehouse, Ed Sheeran, and Taylor Swift kept them engaged with musicians who were generations and genres apart from them. Jagger has continued to absorb contemporary sounds, production techniques, and cultural references, while Richards has kept the band tethered to the blues.

Their new album, Foreign Tongues, extends that careful equilibrium. It is less interesting as proof that octogenarians can still make a spirited rock record than as another demonstration of how the Stones accommodate the contemporary without becoming unrecognizable — or, worse, homogenized.

“In the Stars” offers the clearest example. Its piano-led opening, glossy production, and wordless vocal hooks could comfortably belong to a much younger pop act. Producer Andrew Watt, who also worked on Hackney Diamonds (2023), pulls Jagger’s vocals to the forefront and gives the drums and guitars a muscular clarity far removed from the murky sprawl of Exile on Main St (1972). When Richards enters with those familiar open-tuned chords, however, we are transported straight back to the A-side of Tattoo You (1981).

The opening track, “Rough and Twisted,” pushes in the opposite direction. Its raw, thumping blues and pugnacious riffs confidently echo “Rocks Off.” Yet Watt’s modern production prevents the track from feeling like an aging act trapped in a 1972 nostalgia trip — even if Steve Winwood’s buried piano adornments deserve a higher place in the mix. Ultimately, the greatest triumph of Foreign Tongues is how successfully the Stones evoke their past without getting stuck in it. If they are showing their age anywhere, it is strictly through such sophisticated lyrical references as: “Promise me a dance like Nijinsky / Nothing, nothing, nothing but a false pretense.”

The allusion soon gives way to Jagger’s harmonica howling through the arrangement in call-and-response with Ronnie Wood’s guitar solo. Jagger’s most overlooked talent has always been his blues harp; had the Stones not worked out, he could have enjoyed a fine career as a harmonica session player. He plays the instrument all over this record, treating it as an extension of his howling vocals and enriching the arrangements with texture, soul, and expressive vibrato. While the Stones catalogue offers endless examples of his skill, the definitive benchmark remains 1969’s “Midnight Rambler,” where Jagger’s haunting, vibrant harp lines place a stalking serial killer firmly in your shadow.

Whereas Jagger pulls the Stones toward the new, Richards remains the band’s emotional core. On “Some of Us,” he delivers a spare ballad largely relieved of Watt’s production gloss. Its arrangement gives full weight to Richards’s gravelly intimacy, which has always contrasted beautifully with Jagger’s theatrical swagger. The song ends with a call-and-response duet by the Glimmer Twins: among the record’s most affecting passages. The weathered timbre of their voices evokes the devotion and respect that have sustained one of music’s most enduring partnerships.

The Stones’ durability depends on more than stamina. It rests on the confidence to absorb younger collaborators and contemporary production techniques without mistaking adaptation for selling out. Appropriately, Foreign Tongues closes by returning to the source: a cover of Chuck Berry’s “Beautiful Delilah.” Recast as stripped-down acoustic blues, replete with slide guitar, it recalls the Stones’ own 1964 BBC recording of the song. The distance between the two versions encompasses practically the entire history of the band — and much of popular music besides.

I had assumed that Blue & Lonesome, the album released in 2016 — a fine collection of blues covers and the Stones’ first studio album since A Bigger Bang (2005) — would be their last. It would have made a fitting coda. Yet Hackney Diamonds and the even stronger Foreign Tongues have proved otherwise. The Rolling Stones can close an album with a Chuck Berry song they first played on the BBC in 1964 and still sound intent on whatever comes next. We should all count our blessings for whatever time remains on their side.