Teruhiko Saigo -- Rolling Stones wa Konakatta（ローリング・ストーンズは来なかった）

 

There has been one of those big musical questions: The Beatles or The Rolling Stones? Although I know the hits by both such as "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" by the former and "Jumpin' Jack Flash" by the latter, if push comes to shove, I'd be more in The Fab Four's camp since I'm more familiar with their big songs. But I do have one Stones' hit from the 1980s that I will be covering as a Reminiscings of Youth article later on this year.

I don't quite remember how I encountered this intriguingly titled song by the late Teruhiko Saigo（西郷輝彦）, "Rolling Stones wa Konakatta" (The Rolling Stones Didn't Come). His 66th single from June 1973, I was left wondering whether it was about some fan who couldn't make it to a Stones concert?

Well, from what I read on one Japanese language blog and on the J-Wiki and Wikipedia articles for The Rolling Stones during the early 1970s, perhaps the fan was songwriter Takuya Fujimoto（藤本卓也）who wrote, composed and arranged "Rolling Stones wa, Konakatta". The band had some legal issues over drugs in France, and along with convictions for Jagger in 1967 and 1970 on banned substances, their Pacific tour in 1973 was thrown for a loop and Japan didn't allow them to play in the country.

And so I gather that was the story behind the making of "Rolling Stones wa, Konakatta". The interesting thing is that the intro for the song sounds more like Santana's "Black Magic Woman", and Fujimoto's lyrics drop names like a downburst with Bob Dylan, Carole King, Janis Joplin, Chicago, John Lennon, Santana and of course, The Stones. It's almost as if the protagonist were trying to rationalize the fact that all of those other artists can also share the stage with Mick and Keith, but deep inside, he really wants to see his heroes.

The Rolling Stones eventually did come over to perform here. I was once assigned to do the English level checks for a group of employees at the Four Seasons Hotel in Tokyo, and I struck up a friendly conversation with the manager. He mentioned about some of the celebs that stayed over (including Mariah Carey), and when it came to Mick, he rolled his eyes since apparently The Rolling Stones left their suite looking like it had been hit by a bunch of rolling stones. And no, Charlie Watts wasn't responsible for the video below.