Keith Richards by Victor Bockris

Author:Victor Bockris [Bockris, Victor]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-85712-678-8
Publisher: Music Sales Corp.
Published: 2011-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

19. SING ME BACK HOME 1977

“I’m just a bloody embarrassment to them now, all because some poxy Mountie from the airport decides he wants to make a name for himself. I don’t know what the scam was. There were so many irregularities in what happened that it really is just so impossible to talk about. It’s nothing to do with justice or legalities, you know what I mean? It’s just pure politics.”

Keith Richards, from an interview with Victor Bockris, 1977

Tara wasn’t the only victim of Anita and Keith’s lifestyle. Marlon didn’t appear to be in great shape either. Aside from missing school, he showed a real streak of violence. “Marlon used to be a little sadist,” Nick Kent remembered. “I mean, he’d become like a little psychopath. Everyone was thinking Marlon would go bad.” Keith, however, had a different view of his son, whom he had come to rely on almost exclusively for emotional support.

RICHARDS: “He took care of me while I was doing heroin on the road. He used to be my roadie when he was five and six and seven. He’s seen everything. To him it’s not a big deal. It’s just something Dad did. But we keep together and we love each other.”

When Marlon wasn’t taking care of Keith, he was kept at bay with wads of money that only served to surround him with mounds of lifeless toys. But even if Marlon thrived on the excitement of life on the road, Dandelion did not. Anita recalled how much Dandelion suffered. “On the road she used to go off by herself, pick up guys, bring them back – ‘Mommy, here!’ Big guys. And I’d really get scared. And she’d go out of the hotel room and I’d find her sitting on the lap of somebody. That’s why I decided not to have her on the road anymore.”

Back in London both Keith and Anita hit rock bottom. Keith was spending hours alone in the bathroom taking heroin and strumming his guitar. “I suffered a bad bout of depression after the baby died and I wasn’t able to cope with Dandelion,” Anita recalled about that painful time. “I couldn’t handle her.” Dandelion was shipped off to Doris in Dartford, where she would be brought up just like Keith. She would never live with her father again. “I couldn’t put a four-year-old through that. It wasn’t fair,” Keith said. “Her mother and I were going to court every day and it looked like we might get sealed away. So she went to live with my mum.”

While Richards was fermenting, a series of fresh young bands was forming, fuelled by a burning, focused nihilism; they would be united under the banner of punk rock in the second half of the decade. The bridge between old and new rock was a visual replica of the Stones called the New York Dolls, who flourished between 1971 and 1975. Their lead singer, David Johansen, bore a remarkable resemblance to Jagger, and their lead guitarist, Johnny Thunders, was a camp cartoon version of Richards, whom he worshipped.

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