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David Marchese: >> [music] >> From the New York Times, this is the interview. I'm David Marquesy. MC Jagger truly needs no [music] introduction. He's the legendary frontman of the Rolling Stones, who are releasing a new album called Foreign Tongues.

David Marchese: [music] I've been a fan of the Stones since 1994 when I saw them on their Voodoo Lounge tour. >> [music] >> It was my first ever rock concert and it left a huge impression. Since then, I've listened to just about every song the band has released, [music] from undeniable classics like my favorite, You Can't Always Get What You Want to Obscure [music] Like Sway. And I've always wondered, what's MC Jagger really like? Here's [music] my conversation with Mick Jagger. [music]

Mick Jagger: Mick. Hi, David.

David Marchese: >> Thank you for taking the time to speak with me today.

Mick Jagger: >> That's all right. Fun.

David Marchese: >> Uh, I have a bunch of questions about the new album.

Mick Jagger: Okay.

David Marchese: >> Uh, but I'd like to start with a question that comes from a place of pure personal curiosity.

Mick Jagger: Okay.

David Marchese: >> So, one of my all-time favorite of your songs is Sway.

Mick Jagger: >> Okay.

David Marchese: >> From Sticky Fingers. And I always wondered about the first line of that song.

Mick Jagger: Okay.

David Marchese: The lyrics which are, "Did you ever wake up to find a day?

Mick Jagger: >> Did you ever wake up to find >> a day that broke up your mind? broke up your mind.

David Marchese: >> Destroyed your notion of circular time. >> I have not. [laughter]

Mick Jagger: >> Have you?

David Marchese: >> No. So there's a question. >> Do you remember where that line came from?

Mick Jagger: >> No, I just made it up at the spur of the moment. >> I was We were waiting for Keith to turn up to the session. He was late >> and then Mick Taylor and I were there and Charlie and Bill and we just I said, "Oh, let me try this." And I was just making up as I go along. Oh, so that's why it's a bit random.

David Marchese: >> Yeah, but it makes sense that waiting for Keith Richards would destroy your notion [laughter] of circular time. I thought maybe it was a more philosophical question.

Mick Jagger: >> You could you maybe I No, maybe I went back afterwards and spruced it up a bit. [laughter]

David Marchese: >> Well, thank you for solving that mystery for me. I appreciate it. So, the the new album

Mick Jagger: >> Yeah.

David Marchese: >> So, it's coming just maybe two and a half years after Hackne Diamond. We recorded it last last year now and um we we did it last this time last year more or less. >> But the time span between Hackne Diamonds and the previous album of original material was 18 years.

Mick Jagger: >> Yeah. 18 years. This is quick.

David Marchese: >> Yeah. Why why did it come together so quickly?

Mick Jagger: >> Well, I think we realized that that we could um you know, we had a different method of making records really. I mean, we we've been just not being very lacadasical and we not weren't really getting down to it. And so when we got Andy Watt on board, you know, we we decided that I said I said, "Well, there's a deadline, you know, we used to always have deadlines cuz we had to go on tour with the record. The tour starts in March of the record hour, you know." I said, "The Hatne Diamonds." I said, "The the deadline is Valentine's Day. Are you all going to remember that?" So then, you know, it's no excuses. It was You thought it was March. It's Valentine's Day and we almost made it over four weeks. We recorded probably I don't know 14 15 songs. I mean a lot of stuff at at uh the way I do things uh some of the songs that I write and then I demo a lot of them first. So I go in with uh um a friend of mine plays with a band Matt Clifford. We we demo a lot of the songs that I write. I [snorts] demo them and I can see ah they could go here, they could go there. They could be this groove. They could be that groove. The And then you I So a lot of my version of what I think the song sounds like is already in my head. Everything else you layer on top of that. And you might Yeah. You might say that bass is great on it. I don't want to change anything. Or I just want to change just the chorus. Or I just want to change this. Oh, I want to keep the rhythm guitar. Oh, I don't want to keep the rhythm guitar. I'll do it again. You know, it's it's complex.

David Marchese: Some of the songs on on the new album are I hear them as relationship songs, songs of of regret or or insecurity. And it's it's interesting for me to hear MC Jagger singing those songs at your age and think about how, you know, they they land differently than if you were singing them at at 42 or 32. And and I I want to know from your perspective like artistically and emotionally what are the ways that you can inhabit a song now that are different from how you used to inhabit?

Mick Jagger: >> Yeah, it's it it I I don't well first of all I don't really think about it very much. So, you know, in song is about imagination and imag, you know, it's not all based on true experiences,

David Marchese: >> but you got to play the character of the song.

Mick Jagger: >> But the character, [clears throat] but and the character, but the character singing the song is I it's a different character for me. So, when I'm singing Mr. Charm, it's obviously a joke character, you know, um, and it's supposed to be taken with a sense of humor. And of course some of the incidents in the verses did happen and I can draw on my own experiences of talking to women in relationships. But I mean the whole thing of it's not supposed to be taken seriously. You don't really think you're Mr. Charm, you know, [laughter] not really. But then you might have another song which is more more heartfelt, you know, with more not so much humor and

David Marchese: >> um back in your life. back in your life, which is a bit more of a kind of like it's a it's a classic theme. You know, you meet a woman and then she never calls you back. You know, you have a great time and she never calls you back.

Mick Jagger: >> Has that happened to you a lot? Of

David Marchese: >> it's happened to me. Of course, it's happened to me. So, I can draw on that. I'm not saying happened yesterday, but you can draw on that on that on that experience when it did happen to you when maybe it happened to me when I was 40, you know, but I can still write about it now. Writing's about imagination, you know. It's not only about personal experience. So, it's a mixture of personal experience and a mixture of imagination.

David Marchese: >> You know, I'm I'm want to maybe put the question in slightly different terms. You know, there's a a movie performance of yours that I love when uh man from Allesian Fields.

Mick Jagger: >> Oh, yeah.

David Marchese: >> Where where you know, you play sort of like a middle-aged uh you he runs an escort service for women. It's kind of like a but that that performance has a lot of real feelings of regret in it and I assume that >> you wouldn't have been able to give a performance like that earlier in your life in the in the in the same way that it would make no sense for you to sing some girls now.

Mick Jagger: >> No. Exactly.

David Marchese: >> But so are are there things that you can do in a song or did on this album that you think oh I I wasn't capable of giving of inhabiting that lyric?

Mick Jagger: >> That's a good question. I mean, it it requires a lot of thought to give a good answer because that's okay. That's why we're here. >> You know, I can't really It's hard for me to think of I'm trying to think of actual concrete examples of the songs on the record, you know. Um >> I mean, you [snorts] mean I think quite a lot of it you could say that you that I wouldn't have done I wouldn't have written any of these songs when I was 30. Maybe. I mean, honestly, I probably wouldn't have done. And then and then I've also got into this habit of doing songs that in that are about personal relationships and then I throw a verse about politics in there. Yeah.

David Marchese: >> You know, but

Mick Jagger: >> I think that's a trick, you know, that I direction that I've learned from other songwriters or I've

Mick Jagger: listened to others because nobody wants to hear a whole song about politics or I call it politics, social comment, you of any kind. and it came to something else like a song like um the blues song like rough and twisted. It's really just like just stream of consciousness. Honestly, it it it's you talk about woman and everything, but it's and then you throw in this stuff. It's obviously about political and it's obviously, you know, the club was called conspiracy. All they wanted was tyranny. So, you find yourself using these tricks. Did you ever see the John Melany special where the comedian John Mlany where he does a bit about working with you on Saturday Night Live? Did you ever see that? No, I never saw that. So he he has this bit where he's

Interviewer: talking about working with famous people on the show and specifically about working with you. And people would ask him, I'm I'm paraphrasing, but people would ask him like, "Is MC Jagger nice?"

Mick Jagger: Yeah.

Interviewer: you know, and he says, "Of course, MC Jagger is not nice or he's nice for the version of the life that MC Jagger has led." And he's he points out that you play to stadiums of people screaming for you for 50 plus years, that's got to change you as a person, you know? Uh can you articulate how that's changed you as a person?

Mick Jagger: I think well obviously you it's not normal by mo it's not like most people's lives.

Interviewer: No no it's not

Mick Jagger: it's not but [snorts] but yeah it does affect you. Um you can become disassociated um from other people other people and you and a lot of people in show business only hang around with people in show business. Um uh because because they got something in common, you know, they because they can relate to each other, you know, and and and the you get disassociated from what what people might call real life.

Interviewer: Do you think you have

Mick Jagger: Oh, yeah. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. And then you can uh I mean you you you can fight you do fight against it. It's a conscious effort. It it takes conscious effort to be fight against um being disassociated.

Interviewer: What do you do to fight against it?

Mick Jagger: Well, it's quite easy really. I mean, you just you just you just go out and walk on the street on your own and go and do normal things and go and buy the New York Times, [laughter] you know, and but nevertheless, that that's only temporary. So because your I think your psychologically your your actual state of mind is is permanently damaged by this or or affected or I mean [snorts] I think I think when you're in your uh late 20s and early 30s is a very tough time for people in this business because you because it's a big ego trip basically. I mean it's a huge you you have to have a huge ego to do this. If you don't, you have lots of people that do this that don't have huge egos have huge problems because they have to manufacture a completely different. Of course, my personality on stage is not my I have a friend who who says, you know, the standing joke is that I behave at a dinner party like I behave on stage. So,

Interviewer: well, is that friend right?

Mick Jagger: Yeah. We make jokes about it because it's absurd what you do on stage. I mean, of course, I'm not really like my stage persona. Jimmy Fallon, which I'm just about to go and do, [snorts] he he thinks he's doing me when he does me, but it's it's completely such a an exaggerated version of me. But it works for him, you know, his version of me. But I mean, to me, the person to be like that all the time, this overbearing, shouting per ego tripping person, it's like it's of course you're not really like that. But I think when you're in your late 20s and early 30s, you you can be like that all the time. And there are people in show businesses that never switch off. A lot of them are comedians. And comedians sometimes they can't they can't switch off. They can't stop making jokes or or they get depressed, [laughter] but I mean it's [snorts] a bit of a sweeping statement.

Interviewer: Did you have to learn to switch off?

Mick Jagger: Yeah. I think it it comes with age. It's like if you do a movie, you do a character, right? So, so if you're a method actor, you do this character. You've heard all these stories about method actors, but they they they take it to the absolute extreme. So, they like the character all the time. And then after the movie is over, they're still in the character for a long time. It takes takes a long time to laugh off the character. So, which character do you go back to?

Interviewer: What What's the character that you're going to retrieve? Is he is he always going to carry some of that character in his true character whatever that is?

Mick Jagger: [snorts] So this is this is I think the show business like dichotomy and it's like a it's something you learn to live with and you you always hope of course it isn't true that you always hope that you're a normal so-called normal person underneath.

Interviewer: Yeah. It's nice to have the perks though. The perks.

Mick Jagger: Yeah. But it's not [laughter] about the per perks. It's about being these several characters.

Interviewer: You know, you're the character that plays the theater. You're the character that does the interview. You're the character that goes in on the stadium. You're the character in the recording studio. You're the character writing the song, not this character. All right. Now, I'll be another character. Yeah. I'll write a song, then I'm going to be this character. And I got wounded love. Now I'm going to be like, "Fuck you." you know, do you ever let the world see the person underneath the characters?

Mick Jagger: I'm not sure. Probably it's all there. Songs are pretty direct in a way. Um, as a as a method of communication, they're relatively direct compared to say a movie where you need like a lot of, you know, you've got someone writing a script and you're changing the script and you got to change your lines and you got 200 people and then and then it's all edited and chopped up in bits. records are already simple compared to that.

Interviewer: There there are a handful of political lines sprinkled throughout the album. There's uh you know, you sing about scuttling billionaires scrambling to their bolt holes in the sky, about dirty rat autocrats,

Mick Jagger: rubber stamping judges. Yes.

Interviewer: Um and I actually find it uh heartening to to know that Mick Jagger sees the same problems out in the world than that the rest of us do. So, can can you just tell me more about um sort of why you felt the impulse to include those kinds of lyrics? What are you seeing when you look around the world?

Mick Jagger: Well, I mean, I've it's not the first time I've done songs with social comment.

Mick Jagger: I like doing it, but in small doses. Let's put it like that. I mean, who does it in huge doses? Hardly anybody in pop. It's pop music, you know? I mean, Ringy Hollow is more or less

Interviewer: Yes.

Mick Jagger: completely social comment, right?

Mick Jagger: So, but but even then, so I had to I had two songs that were on more or less the same subject, which is my love of America, you know, and what's gone wrong as a country. It's a lament about [clears throat]

Interviewer: Yeah, it's a lament, but it's a love song, but it's it's a lament.

Mick Jagger: And it's my my it's about and all it's about my own experiences which are long and and varied and and encompass lots of different places in America and not just being in New York and being in living in the upper west side. You know that you know I've got I've spent a lot of time in America in places that Americans have never ever been nor were likely to go to you know because they don't not in our world living in New York. Well, we're talking at we're talking now living in LA or Chicago, but I spend a lot of time in these weird places and like what you know just on tour you see everything. you see everything. You you know how many people from New York, you know, that we sit around really go to Cleveland very often. You know what I mean? And then you're there for five days. It's not very long, but you you can see quite a lot if you go out every day. You see different sides of it. No, I I'm not saying I mean I enjoy it. You know, other women go out. [snorts] Um I mean New Orleans people I know people go to New Orleans and it's a tourist place but I mean you find things there and then you you you find

Mick Jagger: ...not like any other town it's not it's not you know so you explore these places and you have a love of the country and everything. So in Ring Hollow, so I I had another song, but but the other song I thought was too down and I I rejected it and worked on Ring Hollow instead. It's really a love song to America was, you know, fell madly in love with you before we ever met. So before I ever went to America, I was in love with America like a lot of European uh teenagers, you know, were, you know, see the movies and all this. So it's all about that. And then so then it talks about you know then then it goes into the America of now and you know how can we you know ascertain what's going on.

Interviewer: >> What's the last the last line line of the song? Right.

Mick Jagger: >> I can't remember. I'm going to buy a brand new hat.

Interviewer: >> Brand [laughter] new hat. What's that a reference to?

Mick Jagger: >> Something good is going to happen. I think that's what it means.

Interviewer: >> Yeah. Uh uh I heard that as as like a a passive aggressive MAGA reference, but [laughter] but maybe but you know who the one person that you that is named uh by their actual name on the album? I might be missing one. Do you know the one?

Mick Jagger: >> There's one one uh Elon Musk.

Interviewer: >> Elon Musk. Yeah. Mad mogul.

Mick Jagger: >> Mr. Musk.

Interviewer: >> Yeah. What's your impression of him? I've never met him so I don't really

Mick Jagger: >> I mean he's obviously hugely successful

Interviewer: >> and you know he's someone who who the term rockstar gets applied to sometimes and now it's become kind of a common trope where these tech >> entrepreneurs are called you know rock stars and >> what does an actual rockstar >> think of the way that that term has now become applied to anybody who has sort of the patina of

Mick Jagger: >> it's kind of weird because it's applying to all kinds of people, not just tech people. It's become a phrase that's thrown around for >> in any form of success, you know, that or >> I think it just means that you're just out there and, you know, in front of thousands of people and you're a huge success. I mean, that's what it means. I mean, to be called that, I think it's a big compliment to be called that. It's also a compliment to rock stars to use that actual phrase.

Interviewer: >> I think it devalues rock.

Mick Jagger: >> It devalues it, but also it bigs it up as well, you know.

Interviewer: >> Yeah. So yeah, >> wait. I I want to ask something that's uh sort of related to kind of what you were talking what we were talking about earlier, the how people understand like the persona of MC Jagger. And my question is to do with how you understand your relationship with your audience. This actually maybe speaks to the politics stuff in in a way too because and let me give two counter examples to sort of triangulate the question. So, on one poll, we have somebody like Bob Dylan where if you go see him live, >> he's great. It almost feels like the crowd is incidental. Like he he's going to be doing whatever he's doing whether or not people showed up. >> On the other end of the spectrum, you have somebody like a Bruce Springsteen who clearly sees his job as engaging in a meaningful back and forth. Yes. >> With with his audience. It means something different to him. Yeah. What does your relationship to the audience mean to you? What do they represent >> all those people out there?

Mick Jagger: >> Well, it well, first of all, it depends where you are and what kind of event it is like the the the one the New Orleans event. That's a festival. They didn't come to see you necessarily. You know, they they they bought their tickets before they knew you were coming.

Interviewer: >> Right. If you play the New Orleans Jazz Festival,

Mick Jagger: >> you know, we we played that. Then do we do summer in the park in London? You buy those tickets. You Glastenbury, you buy those tickets because you like that festival. You always think something's good going to happen with you. You don't know. So they're not necessarily coming to see they're not your biggest fans necessarily. I'm not saying that they hate you otherwise it probably wouldn't be there. There's different levels of these kind of people and you have to treat them in a slightly different way. I mean, my the bottom line of my thing isn't really is that I my my job in the in the live music world is is just those people that come is to h have the best time they possibly can and and for two hours or whatever it is to forget all their problems and the problems of the world and their mortgages and their whatever and and and and and if they have bronze or or just just to give them they can have just the best time. It's it's similar going to a sports event really because you you you you everything else is sh you're just watching that who's going to win you know you're not worrying about everything else you know those things are out of your mind. I know you're still telling that you're on the phone everything when you go. Oh my your little Danny has like hurt his tooth. But you know I know you can still have that [laughter] but I know you can still have that but in the old days you never had that really. So so uh so that's my job. So is to make them have the best time they poss. And some audiences want to go completely nuts, you know, and and you so then you encourage them to go more nuts and say you can play to some places in the world is different, you know, you play in Finland, it's not the same as playing in Argentina, you know, it's a different they don't they don't want to go completely so nuts. May maybe they do. I'm just using as as possibles, you know,

Interviewer: >> but so you you don't want to be trying to churn them up into like get frustrated that they're not being demonstrative or you don't think they're having a good time because they might be quite relatively calm. They might be relatively, you know, they they're having a good time, but in their

Mick Jagger: I always say to everyone else, they're having a good time in their own way, [snorts] but as you go to another place and they're going completely apeshit, you know. So, so and your job is to make them more apit. That's they want to go ape [ __ ] but let's go apeshit, you know. So,

Interviewer: >> but I want to dig a little deeper on that question. Yeah. So you're you're you're talking about what your job is in those events is to make people have a good time to make to you know they want to leave the concert feeling like it was worth it and they can forget their trouble

Mick Jagger: >> and you don't want to lecture them.

Interviewer: >> You don't want to lecture them. Um but my question is actually about whether like what meaning the job has to you like I I have a job that has a basic description. It's very different than yours, >> but my job actually, you know, it means something to me. And and when it's working best, it allows me to >> uh satisfy curiosity I have about the world, meet people I wouldn't normally meet, ask questions of people that I would never get a chance to ask, and and learn things that help, you know, [clears throat] that that I find are valuable to me as a person. Do do you like what's Mick Jagger's version of that? Am I being naive and uh polyianaish to think that maybe there is one?

Mick Jagger: >> I have thought about this. I mean obviously thought about it at the beginning of my career of course didn't think about it at all. I was just learning how to do what you know it's totally your about you you know and the band and are they going to you know what's the next number and are they going to play it right and am I going to remember the words you know it's like it's just the basics you're getting the basics down. Okay. And then after you've [snorts] got through that accomplishment, which takes a bit of time to do, [snorts] but then what you're saying is when I get out there,

Interviewer: >> what does it what does it mean?

Mick Jagger: >> What does it all mean for you? For you.

Interviewer: >> Yeah.

Mick Jagger: Well, it it Well, it's a lot of joy for me. First of all, >> first of all, it's a huge buzz, you know, adrenaline. It it's a huge adrenaline buzz, which must be the same as for a sport. If you play sport, if you play a football team, you go out play 50,000 people. Must be about the same similar buzz. So, so I mean, you know, I don't

Mick: ……have anyone coming at me. [laughter] So, it's much easier than playing.

Interviewer: You don't have to dribble around.

Mick: I don't have to do I don't have to do any of that. But, but that's where the analogy breaks down. So, [snorts] so you get out there and you get when you get out there first, you get this massive adrenaline buzz and then your job really is really you have to control that adrenaline buzz. You know, you've got to look after yourself first. And while you're doing that first five minutes, then you're evaluating the audience. So, you you evaluate them, you know, in a good way, I mean, but you're evaluating them and how the temperature how they Yeah. What's the temperature? crown, how are they feeling? Are they is it cold? You know, is it raining? All these things happen. Uh uh and you know, do they are they already enjoying themselves or they feel a bit listless? Have they wait too long? Have they had a hard time getting you all these things contributing factors in a while? So, so then you you evaluate the audience and see how they feel. Yeah. And then a lot of them are very long way away which is one of the problems you're playing cuz mostly I play stadiums right if you're playing a theater you don't have these problems you know you can you can you you if you're playing a theater you can very quickly become a group you know and people when I was you know starting out would show me how to do that were like little Richard I toured with for a long time um he I had no idea that people even could do what he did, you know. Performers didn't do that. They just went out and played their songs and kind of said hello and that was it. [snorts] I mean, he he was embracing them all, getting them all to, you know, go along with his version of the world, stand up, sit down and make jokes and and it becomes a community, you [snorts] know. So, for a small time, it becomes this community. So, it's much more difficult to do that in a stadium. You still have to do it. So, that's why stages have to be big. That's why you have to get down there. That's why you have to pay attention to all these people and [snorts] that's why you have to talk to them because you want that community for those couple of hours to be a good community. Have fun. That's your job. I mean, I'm not not completely answering your question, but I mean that's that's a lot of what I do.

Interviewer: You know, I've I've read a huge amount of interviews with you going back, you know, decor. They're they're they're interesting. They're but there are some things that stand out and and one thing that I've noticed that you almost never do in interviews is tell stories about being in the Rolling Stones and and I'm not asking you to, you know, uh be nostalgic or or share some intimate details, but like there's got to be some like old, you know, chestnut that that you break out at cocktail parties or that your kids if they ask you like, "Hey, what was it? What was it like uh being on tour with Stevie Wonder in 1972 or whatever that you that like a break glass in case of emergency kind of story that you can tell? Is there is there one just something? Here's a funny thing that happened when I was in the room.

Mick: You mentioned Stevie Wonder. So...

Interviewer: I shouldn't have.

Mick: You mentioned Stevie Wonder. So we were playing Mass Garden with Stevie Wonder. We said, "Come up and we'll play. We'll do a we'll do a mashup of Satisfaction and Uptight and uh so because they're both the same beat." So um so so he comes on the stage and we do this mash up time and then someone and I can't remember whose idea, it might be mine, um decides that we're going to throw custard pies at the end cuz it's the it's the last day of the tour and it's the last number of the show. Why wouldn't you throw custard pies? It's rather unfair for Stevie. So, so I got [ __ ] it. [music] Throw everyone's throwing a custo including Stevie. He's throwing custard pies and everyone's ends in covered in C pies and I [music] loved it.

Interviewer: All right, there you [laughter] go. Thank you very much for taking the time to speak with me. I I appreciate [music] it.

Mick: Thanks so much for for everything. All your questions are interesting.

Interviewer: After the break, Mick and I speak again about whether we'll ever see the Rolling Stones back on the road.

Mick: I hope so. I want to do it. [music] I'm I'm I'm up from doing it.

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Interviewer: Mick, we're officially rolling now.

Mick: Okay. So, what [snorts] are we going to speak about today that we didn't speak about before?

Interviewer: Oh, there's so much there's so many things, but I'd like to start in with a question about something that just came to me this morning. So, I was [laughter] I was watching um just clips of you on YouTube and there's a great it's like a 50-second clip of you, maybe it's backstage. It's just you at a keyboard trying to work through uh your the tune Shine a Light. um and you're trying to remember the chords and it's it's actually just this it's a really beautiful short clip because you're playing those gospel chords. There's like to paraphrase the song there's a little uh gleam right in your eye. Uh and and it it feels like the apparatus of like fame and and a crowd or any of like that has anything like that has fallen away. there's a musician playing music and and and loving it and it's really very pure and and sweet and I thought if I wondered can you share a moment or a memory of just when you were playing music and kind of the the machinery around the Rolling Stones just fell away and and you just had that love and freedom and lost yourself just playing playing a tune

Mick: that would that's what you do when you're writing. I mean, the occasion that you describe, I don't really remember, but uh you said it was backstage, so that's a different thing. You're obviously getting ready for a show and and trying to I don't know what I was doing. Um I was probably going to do that song, but maybe I wasn't. Maybe I was just doodling with that song, you know, for fun. while you're waiting to go on stage. Sometimes sometimes you I always have a piano in the room and the guitar and stuff [snorts] and and my room's always the quietest cuz I I don't let people in like a load of friends and families. I don't they can come in but it's like then you have to leave you know what I mean and so yeah so you can like you have moments where you just doodle around you know what you're describing really is when you're writing I mean you don't you're not thinking about going on stage or anything if you're at home or in a studio or in a writing studio or somewhere writing then you're just doodling that's how songs get made you know really is just where you

Mick Jagger: just doodle around and you don't you're not thinking about anything else. You So the thing about writing songs is because popular songs are really quite

Interviewer: um they're obviously really short. So which is due to the length of the 78 record creation.

Mick Jagger: That's completely arbitrary reason that they're about 3 minutes. Yeah.

Interviewer: Yeah. The technology imposed this thing on it.

Mick Jagger: I think that's anyway it doesn't really matter. That's what it is. you know, it's three minutes, four minutes maximum, something like this. So, so it's not going to be that much. Uh, and and it can be quite complex musically, but lyrically, how much lyrics are you going to really stick in? So, musically, it's it, you know, you can just doodle your way doodle your way through this. So while your mind is free and you're having fun with it, then I think that's the most interesting part of the process. And and I think I think having having fun is not like I don't mean you're all standing around drinking and like shouting and jumping up and down, but I mean your mind is not really being serious. It's it's playful. Playful is a better word than fun. So you can be playful and [snorts] then so if you're playful you can you can just let your mind just go this way that way and if not and don't be worried if not if if nothing happens nothing happens something will happen later or tomorrow.

Interviewer: I um saw was watching the video for um In the Stars recently, which is the one where they use the Ding technology for you guys. And I actually thought it was sort of an um

Interviewer: like a conceptually interesting choice for a variety of reasons. One of which is that, you know, I I think of one of the sort of lifeaffirming things about The Rolling Stones is that you you've been sort of defiant in terms of like what aging means. you know, you're still out there doing it. And then doing the deaging, I was like, that's kind of an interesting um uh uh choice to take. But, you know, I think the an opposite view of of the band as being like defiant uh defying aging and and still being out there is that, you know, you guys all have Peter Pan complexes or something like that. But, but I want to know what you find like interesting or or hard to to reckon with in terms of aging or like what's what's good about getting older? What's less good? And I I don't just mean like I don't just mean physically, but metaphysically, too.

Mick Jagger: Metaph. There's nothing good about it.

Interviewer: Nothing.

Mick Jagger: No.

Interviewer: Wisdom. No.

Mick Jagger: Nothing. You don't get wisdom. You forget everything. [laughter]

Interviewer: Forgot all my wisdom. [snorts]

Mick Jagger: I might have had a couple of pearls dropped, but I think I probably forgotten what they are. No. So, no, it's not No, it's not particularly um um pleasant. And uh of course you can't do things as quickly as you want to and all that sort of thing. And uh physically physically you can't do things that you would like to do. You got to be you have to be more careful. I you can still do them but you have to be [laughter] bit more careful when you do them. You know when if you're playing goalie in the football team and and you you okay you're going go put you in goal a lot. [laughter] I'm not really very good at it. It's a metaphor for aging being put in gold.

Interviewer: Being put in goal.

Mick Jagger: Yeah. [laughter]

Interviewer: Um I have another philosophical question.

Mick Jagger: Yeah.

Interviewer: And this one is about sex. And I'm not going to don't worry

Mick Jagger: subject.

Interviewer: It's a big subject. I'm not going to ask you for any details. So don't don't worry. It's a it is sort of so so you're you're you know you're you have publicly been identified with sex for a long time like a sex symbol. You write songs that are heavily sexual. You know, you're like an an avatar of sexiness. You know, I don't think I'm I'm speaking out of turn by saying

Mick Jagger: drugs and rock and roll were going, right?

Interviewer: You you have a you know, a reputation as sort of a a libertine maybe, but that's outside perspective. But I wouldn't be surprised if you know, you also have had like sort of a put sex as like central to your identity over the years. And I wonder how has your thinking about sex changed over time because it changes for everyone. So how has it changed for you, Mick Jagger?

Mick Jagger: Well, it's really difficult and I don't know the answer. Honestly, it's it it's a very good question and people always say that when I'm thinking about what the [ __ ] am I going to say to him? Uh [laughter] but but but but I don't really know. I really don't know the answer. I'd have to re, you know, you you're asking me these questions that it's a really hard question and and I don't know the answer. I could if we sat down and we weren't recording this and we weren't doing an interview, we could talk about how that would work and you'd have to tell me how it worked for you because we could compare experiences. But, you know,

Interviewer: could we?

Mick Jagger: But yeah, probably because that's how you get insights, you know. I mean, if you're just talking about yourself like a public person, it's weird. Um, the only thing I will say is that that through your throughout your life, your attitude to sex changes and your sexual taste change in in one's life, sex is not a fixed point. So that's what I think obviously everybody's different [snorts] but I would like I would say and I'm not this is not my sort of uh area of expertise honestly because we're into areas of of human psychology sexual drive uh all this stuff is all pop psychology people everyone's read a bit about it but do they know about it but my observation is that that you that your attitudes to sex are different as you as in different parts of your life.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Mick Jagger: I mean your orientation your sexual orientation may change it. It may change completely or it may change. Oh, or or or avenues might open up to you that you hadn't realized or they or you or or you might close avenues that have opened up because you don't like them or you tried something that you like for a couple of years and then you decide, oh, and and it's like other tastes. It's like taste in art, you know, that you when you're very young, you might like these kind of pictures and then when you're a bit older, you might change your taste in art. So, I'm not saying sex is like art. Well, I am. What I'm saying is your but but that's a question of taste, but your why is your taste changed? You know what, right?

Interviewer: There's something is it because of knowledge or is it just because you're bored with it, you know? Do you know or is it a combination of all these things?

Mick Jagger: You know, so your your taste in your literally tastes in food changed. So when you're really young and you like alcohol, you drink sweet things normally. You know, when you you like sweet wine, oh that's like great. And then then someone tells you that's not you shouldn't be drinking that. You know, you should drink this and you try that and go, I really don't like that. I'll try it. You know, like when we were really teenage, when we were teenagers, we like rock music, but we other other more snobbish people say, "You should listen to this j you should listen to this jazz, you know, you listen to jazz, you know, it's more intellectual, you know, than so, so that in Tom Stopard's play, the real thing, he's he's an intellectual writer is almost Tom and but he's going on this program called Desert Island Disc because a program where you choose records to take with you on your desert island and that's all you that's the only music you can have and he he says but all I like is like to do Ron Ron and he's he's an intellectual so he says they expect me to do Shernburg and Beethoven and [laughter] and so so he's an intellectual so it's it's this thing of being an intellectual so he say like but yeah play me that jazz music you know okay Dizzy Gillespie play me dizzy Gillesp Okay. Do I really like that or do I like Chuck Barry? You know what I mean? So, [snorts]

Interviewer: well, I I'll start to appreciate it, you know, and we used to like play the modern jazz quartet, you know?

Mick Jagger: Oh, yeah.

Interviewer: Yeah. I I used to go and see the I used to go and see the jazz modern jazz quartet in concert. I mean, it's expensive. Everyone's sitting down very seriously

Mick Jagger: listening to it. No one was like standing up, you know. [snorts] [laughter]

Interviewer: Talk about a rabbit hole. I asked you about sex. We ended up at the modern jazz port.

Mick Jagger: How do I get out of that question?

Interviewer: But I thought you gave a very, you know, I thought you gave a good answer. You said you didn't know how to answer, then you gave a good answer. I want to also know a little bit more about sort of how you see your musical evolution because I think I think it's fair to say that you know probably in that sort of magical period between 68 and 72 is the period when sort of what people expect a Rolling Stones album to sound like kind of got solidified. And and the new album, people say, you know, this it sounds like a Stones album. And I think they mean it sort of has the signifiers of the the classic Stones album. And I know there's been lots of experimenting with, you know, reggae, funk, disco over the years, but I I think it's it's true that there is a Rolling Stones sound. And as a as a sort of a creative,

Mick Jagger: I can I can kind of argue against that in a way if I want to.

Interviewer: What What argument would you make? Well,

Mick Jagger: I'm going to tell you you that you're wrong, but No, but I can take another position, you know.

Interviewer: Okay.

Mick Jagger: I mean, just for the sake of it, I could music because if we're talking about musicality, that that's what you're best known for, you know, that what the most people if they are not particularly vaguely interested but not very interested, um, then you're absolutely right. You know, that that's what you would say. But I could point out to lots of other I'm not a huge student of the Rolling Stones over, you know what I mean? I can't I haven't got it all at my fingertips and lists of it. If I did, I could point at them and say, you see, I could point to like

Interviewer: miss you.

Mick Jagger: So many. Yeah. I could say, well, that was

Interviewer: hot stuff.

Mick Jagger: That was that. Yeah. But then I could point at Lady Jane, you know,

Interviewer: right? Like an Elisa Elizabeth.

Mick Jagger: Yeah. And I could point to As Tears Go by. I could point to Angie.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Mick Jagger: I could point I mean that I could point to Painted Black. Even like under my thumb that someone played to me the other day. I mean it's got it's vocally it's very me but instrumentally and the way it's played is so light and it's so it's so sort of like it's not heavy at all. Everyone's playing really lightly and so there's other versions of the band and that's what I think makes the band an interesting band. Obviously, it's not the same people either.

Interviewer: Um, you know, She Smiles Sweetly is another one from

Mick Jagger: Yeah. Very old campaign, but but you know,

Interviewer: it's interesting that the songs that you noted are all songs that came be before I guess with the exception of Angie before that period I I suggested.

Mick Jagger: Yes. But even after that period, I can point out other ones. Yeah.

Interviewer: But it's just I don't remember them as well, you know. But there's there's and there's not Elizabethan ones, but there's there's many other ones. And you said Angie, that's not in that period. And there's lots and lots of others, you know, waiting on a friend. It's a it's a kind of rumba, you know, ballad rumba. I mean, it's it's it's, you know, it's like and very light with an alto saxophone lead. It's not really what you would expect. But are are there are there styles of music that just you know you maybe wanted to do or sort of like dream projects that you had in the back of your mind that you thought sort of because of maybe audience expectations or what you thought the band would be interested in that you didn't pursue.

Mick Jagger: Yeah. that well yes but you you can pursue them but you but you don't take them to the kind of doing a whole album of them you know but you know I can say I like sambber music so I did sympathy for the devil have another never done another sambber but I listen to sambar all the time so I could say well I mean but no one's interested in me doing a whole sambber record I can't imagine anyone being interested I mean I'd like to do another sambber tune but but you don't want to pursue your whole interest in sambar uh down so far down the road. I mean, I'm interest I I mean, I love Latin music of all kinds and and I that rhythmically speaking, there's [snorts] so many different rhythms and and yeah, I' I I would like to pursue that and maybe I could have or should have pursued that more because I I'm really interested in those rhythms, you know? So, so yeah. So, but if you're in a rock band, you get to touch on them, but you don't get to fully explore them.

Interviewer: Um, there's a beautiful version you did of a long black veil with the chieftains probably 30 years ago and I thought, "Oh, it would have been it would be great to hear a MC Jagger album of like traditional uh Irish, British, and American folk tunes."

Mick Jagger: Yeah. I mean I've I've done that and I I mean [snorts] thing is that the all the members of the band of Keith and Brian and to some extent all like that music Ronnie also [snorts] I mean we it's kind of our kind of in a way it's our home music you know and even though the sort of 80% of our music is influenced by black culture which we have a huge debt to owe to [snorts] to black music and everything. Uh we we also acknowledge our own roots in that in that other music you know by playing th those songs you know I mean long back I long back veil was I think I heard Johnny Cash do that first but it sounds like an Irish or English song and I did it with the Chiefs which is an Irish was an Irish band but it's it's you know it it could be an English song or border ballad or you that I was we were all very interested. We're all brought up to read border ballads which are neither English nor Scottish nor Irish, but it's it there are amalgam of all of those things are very very similar background.

Interviewer: I I'd also like to ask you about rock a little more broadly and and generally. You know, it's this it's this music that you've given your creative life to. And you know, the the still in 2026, the biggest rock concert draws are like Gen Gen X bands and baby boomer bands. And I've seen data that actually suggest that catalog music, you know, older music has more streaming market share than younger music and and is continuing to trend trend that way.

Mick Jagger: And I think that even if you think about,

Interviewer: you know, like the buzziest younger rock band of today, right, which is a band like Geese. I don't know if you're familiar with them, but

Mick Jagger: there even even a band like that still kind of feels like a, you know, culturally marginal band to a certain extent. And and so my question to you is

Interviewer: what do you mean culturally marginal?

Mick Jagger: You know they're not in the center of the culture like you know it's they don't have

Interviewer: well no but g I mean I was talked about them in an interview someone asked me I I [snorts]

Mick Jagger: everyone was talking about this band and I when I played them I thought it was going to be more like an indie band you know but it it was much more experimental than I thought which I thought was great you know I mean I liked it but it wasn't what I thought when what from people describing it to me or reading about it. So yeah, so that's very hard for a band as e experimental as that to be

Interviewer: to break through

Mick Jagger: be you know in a in a in a center of a mainstream music I think at this any time. I mean maybe in the 1970 it might have been but but now I wouldn't have thought so but anyway I I mean maybe there will be maybe I'm wrong.

Interviewer: Do you have thoughts about the vitality of of rock music as a whole or its place in the culture right now given that the most popular exponents tend to be older artists? It's kind of

Mick Jagger: unusual. I think but uh despite the fact that you know um [clears throat] uh rock music as a as a as a genre is not really the mainstream center of music. It still has a lot of supporters and it still has a lot of young teenage people that want to play it, you know, in, you know, in all kinds of forms of it, you know, and you hope that it evolves, you know. Rap was kind of the center of our music like 20 years ago. And now it's like rap is not the force it once was

Mick Jagger: really, but everyone incorporates it, you know? You incorporate it into everything. [snorts] It's one of the strands of popular music like rock is like you know rap is like straight pop is like all these things. So we have all these strands in popular music [snorts] um that really I wonder you know it's really rather artificial a lot of times when we describe music. Didn't we touch on this before in our earlier conversation? So it's a marketable when you have to market things you want to tell people what they are you know so that so this is mint flavored okay so everyone normally likes that you know so it's mint flavored ice cream it's mint flavored this it's mint so you put the genre mint I'm selling mint flavored products it's a bit like that music so that you

Interviewer: so people [clears throat] know what they're getting and you

Mick Jagger: they know what they're getting you So you don't want to scare them. That's so we've got cut up all our genres in like little slices. But the reality is that most musicians appreciate all kinds of music. So what I'm saying is is there's a lot of music has a lot of history and it shouldn't really be be by intelligent people shouldn't be slicing in little bits and say I only like this bit. You know I like folk music. What does that mean? Doesn't mean anything. What's folk music? Well, these are invented things, you know,

Interviewer: right? They're arbitrary distinctions.

Mick Jagger: They are.

Interviewer: Yeah. Uh I saw a quote from Keith the other day saying, you know, the band had probably um is probably not going to be able to do long tours anymore. That there might be, you know, there's hopes to do residencies and things like that. And who I don't know how you think, but do do you you must have some doubt about whether or not the Rolling Stones will ever go on a

Mick Jagger: I mean I have doubt about it when when I hear that you know I I have doubt about it. I don't mind doing at all. I mean residencies are if you can't if you you can't do any shows and you can't go anywhere [snorts] then you have to do res obviously you can't go you got to go to the well you have to go to the marina [laughter] you got you're not going to do it from your bedroom but I suppose you could but you've got to go somewhere so I say well you got you can't just do so if Harry Styles says he's doing residences but he's doing London Amsterdam you know and so on and so It is a tour, you know. It's not only London. Do you know what I mean? You

Interviewer: But do you think the Stones will do another, you know, world tour?

Mick Jagger: I hope so. That's all I'm saying. I would hope so. I'm I'm very pleased to be able to I want to do it. I'm I'm I'm up for doing it. I like touring. So, but the thing is the only thing about doing residences, it makes it for the people that want to come and see you. It makes it much more expensive. It really does. I mean, think about it. You have to you have to travel. or you have to get a hotel and you have to buy a ticket which is not going to be cheap, you know. So that you I mean it'll be less cheap. It'll be cheaper than the World Cup [laughter] in the United States. It was much easier when it was in Germany cuz Germany's a smaller country.

Interviewer: Do you think Do you think you'll know when you've walked off the stage with the Rolling Stones for the last time?

Mick Jagger: No.

Interviewer: No.

Mick Jagger: I don't think you'll ever know. Maybe I have. [laughter]

Interviewer: It's true. Maybe it happens.

Mick Jagger: I don't know. You never know. You could be I get run over by a bus outside my house. You never really know, do you? You don't know what's going to happen to you in life. Um, but I mean, I personally hope to to be able to tour again. I I love touring. I like going places, you know. I like meeting people. I like to go to I like to go to weird countries, you know, and do shows. cuz I was I was doing a promotion with Indonesia and that I did a show in Indonesia once on my own which was so crazy. It was so hot. [snorts] It was unbelievable. People talk about Europe's heatwave. It was so hot. And I was out there and it was daytime. Didn't have any lights. I what am I going to wear? And this guy reminded me of my show in Indonesia and I said yeah I'll do a show in Indonesia. So you know it's it's really I love doing that. I love going to India and we one we did two shows in India you know now India is a big market

Interviewer: can I ask you a completely tangential random question

Interviewer: um I was looking and now so the fact that I couldn't find it doesn't mean it doesn't exist but I could not find any quote or record of you commenting on singing backing vocals on Carly Simon's you're so vain no I can't find it anywhere and I but

Mick Jagger: you say I remember doing it

Interviewer: but When did you realize that some people thought the song was about you?

Mick Jagger: Why would it be about me when I'm singing on it?

Interviewer: I know. It doesn't make sense, but people people think that's what it was.

Mick Jagger: Well, that was a big thing, wasn't it? You know, because she would never reveal who it was about.

Interviewer: And then she never thought to ask. Yeah. I never thought I was just a song. It sounds like a good title. It was just a song. I'm just the backing vocalist. Cuz I knew the producer whose name I'm now going to forget,

Mick Jagger: Richard Perry. Oh, there you go. Yep.

Interviewer: Richard Perry and was a guy I knew, you know, and he he was in London. He just phoned me up and said, "Can he can do the backing because I and I love doing those sort of things, especially with, you know, if it's a female, you're the male person, you know what I mean? It's slightly different doing it with men, but I don't care." So, I just went along and did it. I thought it was a great song, you know, and [snorts] uh it was big hit for her. And I was never created to be the feature. These days I it' be the feature, you know, it' be Karly Simon featuring Mitt Jang in those.

Mick Jagger: But you never said to her. You never said, [laughter] "Who's this one about?"

Interviewer: I'm louder than her on some of it.

Mick Jagger: I know. In the chorus. Yeah.

Interviewer: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. [laughter] Um [clears throat] Well, thank you for clearing that up. Now, we've now added to the sum total.

Mick Jagger: Why we want to clear things up? Why are we talking about clearing things up? So, so I said to you at the beginning before we recorded, I said, "Well, now the record's been reviewed everywhere. A lot of reviews for it." And I got lur lots of nice reviews. It's It's weird how people though in [clears throat] they give you really I mean we it got it's gotten some great reviews and I'm really appreciative of that.

Interviewer: Something's nagging at you. No, no, I'm not it's not nagging. It's just that people then they they hear some one word and they and but they don't really listen to the line. So it's like so MC Jagger has a go at Elon Musk. Well, you're not listening to the line.

Mick Jagger: You're only listening to Musk. That's all you hear. Musk. He must be having a go at him. You I do call him mad.

Interviewer: And he's the one person you name in on the whole album. No other person.

Mick Jagger: He's name checked. The only name.

Interviewer: It seems like it would have some importance. Well, the the funny thing is that when I wrote that, I was like it was I was thinking it because of him they were able to get those astronauts back, you know, that was stuck because he provided the transportation cuz we NASA couldn't provide the the transportation. So that line the the line of the song is about when I was a kid I we used to want to go to Mars and everything and then and then I said who would trust who would you trust to get you into space and would you trust Boeing or was it NASA or was it Mad Mogul Mr. Musk? So what I'm it's really a sidewinding compliment because he was the one that I remembered was able to do that when the others couldn't.

Mick Jagger: Yeah. Well, that's what you get for using the adjective mad. Well, and mogul.

Interviewer: And mogul.

Mick Jagger: Mogul. Mogul doesn't always go down well either. You people.

Interviewer: No one likes a mogul.

Mick Jagger: No one likes a mogul. He's [laughter] It's a It's a Persian word, but you know, nobody likes to be called it.

Interviewer: You know, I had asked you about the lyrics to Sway when we spoke the first time. I have

David Marchese: Another lyric question that I want to ask you. Um, my favorite Rolling Stone song, which I think is also the best Rolling Stone song, is "You Can't Always Get What You Want".

Mick Jagger: Yeah.

David Marchese: And I think I think, you know, it's a simple sentiment, but I actually think there's something profound in the chorus, right, which is you can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find you get what you need. And what's something that or the last thing that you really tried to get that you wanted to get that you couldn't find and you got what you need leads to a personal wish. [laughter] Sure.

Mick Jagger: No, I think I I uh I I can't recall one that stands out honestly.

David Marchese: Well, that's a good life, my friend.

Mick Jagger: I mean, I'm sorry.

David Marchese: No, it's good.

Mick Jagger: I mean, obviously there's all kinds of things on daily life that you everyone's has frustrations. Um I mean, I was very frustrated [snorts] uh professionally for years with the Rolling St. never made any new music. That was a huge frustration for me.

David Marchese: Yeah.

Mick Jagger: I mean, and and and I solved it, you know. I I solved it. And I mean, with everyone else's help, obviously, but they had to agree to it, you know. It was like, huh? And I, you know, I mean, it's like, [laughter] okay. Um, that but you know, it's like that was a huge frustration that I I'm I mean, you ask me these really difficult questions. and I'm trying to come up with something to say it. But that was a huge frustration and and and I if if you'd have interviewed me four years ago, I would have said that.

David Marchese: There's another old clip I saw of you from a press conference. Probably really old one. One of those because we don't...

Mick Jagger: ...press conferences for hundreds of years.

David Marchese: Really old. I think maybe connected to a Madison Square Garden concert in the late 60s, something like that. and someone uh just asks, you know, just asks you some vague question like how how how do you think about being in the Rolling Stones? And you describe the Rolling Stones as financially dissatisfied, sexually satisfied, philosophically trying.

Mick Jagger: Yeah. Just a pat answer to a news conference in New York where you used to say people used to throw you just really dumb questions, but that was quite a good one.

David Marchese: Yeah, that was But so don't give me the pat answer in 2026. Where do you stand with those three things?

Mick Jagger: My my interest in philosophy is superficial. Um [snorts] I mean merely because I find it a really hard subject. I I I mean I really I I really find it difficult because I I need a teacher. I can't just do it from reading. I I can't. And when I was in college, I did some some philosophy courses and that's hundreds of years ago. and and I didn't really I don't I make one reference to the to in in the song um oh in Jealous Lover there's a there's a Plato reference.

David Marchese: Shadows on the wall.

Mick Jagger: Yes, you got it. Well done.

David Marchese: that. There you got it.

Mick Jagger: So yeah, but I but uh on my cave that's even more obvious. Um um uh so but I find it a really hard subject to educate myself into and I've recently read a couple of books I really find it hard and so and they're always always having so many arguments these philosophers and and they're always like disagreeing with their masters what and then the master disagrees with then the m I was reading this book on K and he so his he has this people I can't find his who then he writes a book. They're attacking his own master and then Kant replies to him. You know, they're quite rude to each other and then they have to make up later and and and I and none of it I can understand what they're really talking about. You know, was K a Christian or

David Marchese: I think...

Mick Jagger: ...was he an atheist?

David Marchese: I think it's cool that you're reading Kant.

Mick Jagger: Well, it's sort of vaguely fashionable. Um, [laughter]

David Marchese: [music] wait, but but so let's say Phil is still trying and let's just, you know,

Mick Jagger: I'm sticking with that one. I'm still sticking with that 1965 quote.

David Marchese: All right. Um, Mick, you know what? This is a corny way to end, but it's been a gas gas gas gas.

Mick Jagger: Oh, no. That's awful, David. [laughter] That's terrible.

David Marchese: [music] That's MC Jagger. The Rolling Stones new album, Foreign Tongues, is available now. To watch this interview and many others, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel at youtube.com/adsolthein podcast. This conversation was produced by Wyatt Orm. It was edited by John Woo. Mixing by Sophia Landman. [music] Original music by Marian Lozano. Photography by Philip Montgomery. The rest of the team is Pria Matthew, Seth [music] Kelly, Pa Nudorf, Joe Bill Munoz, Eddie Costas, Amy Marino, Mark Zl, [music] David herur, Kathleen O'Brien, and Brooke Mentors. Our executive producer is Allison Benedict. [music] I'm David Marches, and this is the interview from the New York Times. [music]

Announcer: [music] This podcast is supported by the American Petroleum Institute. Energy security affects how Americans live, work, travel, and stay connected. America has abundant oil and natural gas, but resources alone are not enough. The country needs modern infrastructure like pipelines and transmission lines that can affordably and safely bring energy to families, communities, and businesses. That's how to build a stronger, more reliable energy system for the future. Learn more at energysecurityframework.org. Pork.