There is another thing you should know about “Moonlight Mile”—it was what I was trying to remember, what I was trying to hold on to again. The reason why Mick Jagger wrote the lyrics. The reason it spoke so eloquently to Mick Taylor. It was one of the few songs Jagger had written that showed his weariness of living life on the road, the pressure of keeping up appearances.
Jagger had always kept his public persona and his private feelings separate. So it was startling and incredible to hear him open up about his loneliness. To expose himself in that way.
As soon as I got off the phone with Julie, I turned on the song and—now that she didn’t care anymore—I figured out a better answer to why I felt like I had to turn her down. I realized: It couldn’t have happened that way today for Jagger, could it? If Jagger were coming up today, instead of listening to the most honest rock song ever written, we would see on his Facebook feed that life on the road was draining him. We would see on his Twitter, a few hours later, an apology for sounding ungrateful that life on the road was draining him. The world eager to chime right in with their judgments.
Was his apology sincere? Was it sincere enough?
And, really, it wasn’t even about being famous—or famous in your corner of the world, like I’d been, for a moment.
I was still trying to figure out what we all lost in broadcasting our lives for everyone else’s consumption. Before we took the time, you know, to figure out what we wanted our lives to add up to.
Something important, it seemed to me. Something like the chance to write the song.