They didn't specify where, they simply wrote “it just happened in London”. It probably happened at the presentation event for the new Rolling Stones album Foreign Tongues which was held yesterday at the St. Clement Hotel.
The fact is that Mick Jagger and Ronnie Wood unexpectedly appeared on the small stage with the Stones' language in the background. Accompanied by keyboardist Mike Clifford, they made an acoustic version of Ringing Hollowone of the pieces of Foreign Tongues (read the review here) still unreleased in which Jagger sings that “the Statue of Liberty doesn't make a great impression with a tear in her dress”. The absence from that small stage of Keith Richards, the soul of the Stones, stands out.
Ringing Hollow it's a country-influenced piece that talks about the group's relationship with America. It apparently seems like a love song, but as Jagger explained it's about «America as an idea. The American dream is still alive for some and I'm sure there are wonderful immigrant stories that have happened in the last 12 months, but there we are dealing with the decline of the American empire. Is war with Iran America's equivalent of Suez? Ok, it's not the same thing, but we ask a lot of questions about imperial excessive expansion and the lobby system. An absurd amount of money is spent on elections: it is not in itself a form of corruption, but it is a waste. Is this indicative of this administration or is this something that's been going on for a long time? In any case, it is no longer the place it once was.”
Ringing Hollow however, it is also a love letter to a great country whose music has influenced the group from the beginning. “We were 14, 15 years old and we wanted nothing more than to listen to black music from America and little by little we realized that rock 'n' rollers had learned everything from Muddy Waters,” Richards said. «Even today, when I'm looking for an idea, I go back to the blues because it's a limited musical form and that makes the challenge intriguing: are you telling me you can make something new out of that stuff? Ringing Hollow it's a way of saying: we love you.”
