Song of the Day 6/4: The Rolling Stones, “Slipping Away”
As El Somnambulo keeps pointing out, Trump has entered the lame duck portion of his presidency. With more court decisions going against him and more Republican lawmakers going rogue, he can feel his grip on power, his stranglehold on the GOP throat, slipping away. They have always been the only potential check on his demands, and now that he’s alienated them by endorsing against incumbents, just enough of them are slipping away that some of autocratic dreams will be thwarted.
Even as his power ebbs, he will keep doing tremendous damage, of course. As Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo has noted for months, with his domestic fortunes waning he will turn to foreign policy, the area where Congress and the courts can do the least to restrain his impulses. But even there, as the Iran misadventure shows, he cannot bully the world to his command, because he already alienated his old allies and proved incapable of protecting his new ones, the oil sheiks.
There might not be much left of Trump’s deteriorating brain and sense of reality, but he knows he’s passed his peak, and with the grim reaper getting closer every day, it’s all slipping away.
The Stones closed their 1989 comeback album, “Steel Wheels,” with this wistful ballad with Keith Richards on lead vocal, and I wonder if they thought it might be their musical swan song. Ronnie Wood later credited the album with bringing Richards and Mick Jagger back together after a several-year hiatus that came close to being permanent.
The previous two Stones albums were duds, and the band was increasingly seen as relics of a bygone age. The songwriting duo were at odds over musical direction, and after Jagger released his first solo LP in 1985, Keith questioned his commitment to the band. After each released a solo album in 1987 (Keith’s got the better reviews) “Steel Wheels” represented a truce. If the accompanying tour hadn’t been successful – wags dubbed it Steel Wheelchairs, because at age 46, both Mick and Keith were considered ancient – they might have called it quits.
But they’re still at it today, and they’re even older than Trump.
The tune didn’t get a lot of attention at the time – you had to listen all the way through the album to reach it, and while it was better than their other ’80s efforts, “Steel Wheels” was no masterpiece – but it’s made the set list on most subsequent tours because it’s a great vocal showcase for Keith.
