The Rolling Stones biographer says Mick Jagger’s privacy inspired ‘self-pitying’ album

An unreleased autobiography written by Mick Jagger allegedly inspired a “self-pitying” album from The Rolling Stones‘ frontman.

Publisher John Blake says he has received and read a 75,000-word document from Jagger, a “little masterpiece” of a book that will likely never be released. Though the public may never see what’s inside of Jagger’s autobiography, Blake believes the book would not only sell well, but has been an inspiration on the frontman’s work to this day. One clear example of this, Blake says, is an album The Rolling Stones released in the mid-1970s. Blake would say Jagger “stays sane by staying private,” and while this may be a reason the book has never been released, it also seems to have inspired one of the band’s most underrated efforts. Blake says this is the period which inspired Jagger to write his memoirs, though they are yet to be released.

Blake wrote: “By the late 1970s Mick, who stays sane by staying private, was weary of people writing books about him and the Stones. I co-wrote one myself called Up and Down With The Rolling Stones. I am told that Mick did not dislike it. Keith hated it. The only time that Keith deigned to discuss it with me, he simply asked: ‘Would you like a .38 or a .45?’

“It was this kind of thing that inspired Mick’s song ‘It’s Only Rock ’n’ Roll’, with those self–pitying lines about fans wanting him to stick his pen in his heart and to commit suicide right on stage.

“At this point the great Lord Weidenfeld persuaded Mick that the time had come to write his own book. This, he said, would close the floodgates forever on all the unauthorised ones.” Despite initial interest from Jagger in releasing the book, he soon cooled on the idea and would not entertain the idea of publishing.

Blake suggested Jagger could charge premium buyers $1,000 a book if he so wished. He wrote: “Leaving aside the historical importance of the story, the financial potential is almost J.K. Rowlingesque. Mick could start by signing and numbering 1,000 copies of the manuscript.

“I think, worldwide, there are enough rich fans to sell these at $1,000 a pop, especially if Mick were to put aside an hour to meet and greet the purchasers in a small theatre. That’s a million dollars, and we haven’t even got around to typesetting the thing yet.”

A more traditional run of the book, at “£20 a pop” would be much more lucrative, according to Blake. He added: “Then would come the real party. The book could be published simultaneously in hardback in 50 languages — at £20 a pop.

“Keith Richards’s autobiography, Life, went to the top of bestseller lists in almost every country in the world. Keith is, of course, the human riff, on every level the real deal. But Mick is the embodiment of something bigger.” Whether we see the release of Jagger’s autobiography isn’t so much up in the air as it is dead and buried.