Let the Creative Juices Bleed...!!!

They have rhythm, they have linguistic appeal, they have a communicated greater message... such can clearly be said about the great American poets like Robert Frost and T.S. Eliot. But can't it just as easily be said about the rock band The Rolling Stones? With masterful lyrics cranked out by the new and unstoppable collaboration between Mick Jaggers and Keith Richards, The Rolling Stones should be credited for having a fair handle on rhythm and on manipulating language to generate appealing and even poetical pieces. As for communicating a 'greater message' - with tracks like "Gimme Shelter" and "You Can't Always Get What You Want", it's clear that The Rolling Stones had a point of view and an array of insights they meant to articulate to the public. The difference between The Rolling Stones and individuals like Robert Frost or T.S. Eliot is, obviously enough, that the Stones used song while the likes of Frost and Eliot used the more conventional form of poetry as modes of their creative and artistic expression. But the question remains: Can The Rolling Stones be considered poets in their own right? Or, somehow, does their use of popular image and mass media exposure cheapen their creative works?

While the answers to these questions are certainly subjective, we find it hard to degrade the genius of The Rolling Stones by suggesting that their work was not that of pure poetry. "Let It Bleed" reached a certain level of artistic merit, and thus deserved the allocation of 'poetic'.

Many people would be tempted to say that poetry is a dying genre of literature. However, the reality is that the older, more traditional form of poetry (the poetry of Emily Dickinson, Ernest Hemingway, and E.E. Cummings to name a few of our favorites) is not dying - it is just evolving, changing shapes and going in a new direction, and that direction is rock and roll. So has the popular image and mass media that automatically comes with rock music and the Stones cheapened their creative ability and work? Absolutely not. It has just given it a new face, but the raw emotion, beauty, passion and spirit of poetry is very much alive and present in the music of The Rolling Stones, especially their 1969 album "Let It Bleed", which can be accurately described as raw, emotional, beautiful, passionate and spiritual. Thus, "Let It Bleed" is not just a great rock album, and not even just an epic, history-making album... it is a work of art and of poetry. This designation can only add to the value "Let It Bleed" has within both the music and art cultures.