Mick Jagger has admitted that he regrets taking John Lennon's advice not to meet Elvis Presley.
Speaking on the Conan O'Brien Needs A Friend podcast, Jagger revealed this regret, saying that he missed out on meeting the king of rock and roll, on the advice of Beatles legend, John Lennon.
In 1965, Lennon and the rest of the Fab Four met Presley when they visited his home in LA, with Lennon allegedly coming away from the meeting a little underwhelmed by this meeting with Elvis. He subsequently advised Jagger not to meet him, and instead to hold onto the image of Presley in his head.
“I remember John telling me, ‘You should never meet your heroes. I would never meet Elvis, Mick, if I were you,’” Jagger said during the Conan O’Brien interview. “And so I didn’t. I took John’s advice", Jagger told the podcast.
“It was really stupid of me, really. I’d love to have met Elvis,” he added, also sharing that Lennon gave him that same piece of advice on more than one occasion. “Maybe my Elvis version would have been different…”.
In another interview, Jagger spoke about the benefits of getting old in a chat with the New York Times.
Initially, Jagger did say there is nothing good about the natural process. But on reflection, he did say that his songwriting has matured over the years, suggesting his thoughts on this topic may have slightly varied.
However, he did say it has helped with his songwriting in recent times.
“I wouldn’t have written any of these songs when I was 30, honestly", he said. “I’ve also gotten into this habit of doing songs that are about personal relationships, and then I throw a verse about politics in there. That’s a trick I’ve learned from other songwriters, because nobody wants to hear a whole song about politics or social comment", he said.
More on this from Nova here.
