“When I was oh so young I used to want to go to Mars,” sings Mick Jagger — that staccato voice still remarkably sharp and clear — on “Foreign Tongues,” the Rolling Stones’ 25th studio album.“Now I’m older,” the frontman notes, a few lines later. “I would like to ask you if tonight we could stay at home.”Say what?Are these the Stones, our perennial bad-boy Brits with yet-full heads of hair, our proud Peter Pans of rock ‘n’ roll, singing about growing old? But we’ll allow this slight nod to mortality in the tune called “Mr. Charm,” especially because plans for this evening at home DO sound nice — with the promise of cocktails and wine. “You see I’m really quite polite,” the song goes.Polite is not always the word associated with this 64-year old band — remember the run-ins with various police departments? These days, Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood are neither rebels nor degenerates — they’re natty multimillionaires. But they’re cheeky enough to add a jab, in “Mr. Charm,” at “mad mogul Mr. Musk.” A compliment, it is not.
More seriously, the Stones get downright political in one song on the excellent and eminently listenable “Foreign Tongues,” an album that expands on an improbable late burst in creativity launched by the Grammy-winning 2023 “Hackney Diamonds.” That song, “Ringing Hollow,” is at turns biting and depressing, since it chronicles a failing love story between the band and the country they conquered decades ago: the United States.
