Happy Birthday Mick Jagger! The leader of the Rolling Stones celebrates his 80th birthday. The whole world of music and beyond has been celebrating the king of rock’n’roll, and we at Ocarina want to celebrate by listening to one of his most famous songs, a timeless classic: “As Tears Go By”.
“As Tears Go By” is a gentle, melodious song that’s also suitable for a children’s audience, especially to help them relax and fall asleep. The song, composed by Mick Jagger and Keith Richard, was first performed by Marianne Faithfull in 1964 and later, in 1965, by the Rolling Stones themselves.
The lyrics are very melancholy, about an older man who misses his youth and watches the young having fun. A gentle ballad about the passage of time. Many believe it was written especially for the singer Faithfull, who was only seventeen at the time, but she denied this in her autobiography. A year later, the Rolling Stones recorded their version, which became one of the band’s best-known and best-loved.
But that’s not all. “As Tears Go By” was also sung in Italian by the Rolling Stones, becoming “Con le mie lacrime”. The special feature of this version is that it was the band itself who performed it, and so it was leader Mick Jagger who sang it. In other cases, however, these were genuine covers performed by other Italian singers. The translation is also fairly faithful, but as we all know, the original is always better. The Italian pop-rock band Stadio did a cover of this Italian version that was a big hit.
Now, we leave you with both versions, and above all with the invitation to continue enjoying the music of Jagger and the great Rolling Stones, a timeless sound, like “As Tears Go By”, that continues to fascinate and touch the hearts of all generations.
