Sir Michael and the Origin and Reception of “Street Fighting Man”

Abstract

The political stance of Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones during the tumultuous year of 1968, specifically its expression in the song “Street Fighting Man,” has in the last few years increasingly become an object of ridicule after his acceptance of establishmentarian accolades such as a knighthood. But revisiting his comments at the time and for decades afterwards on events of that year–the Grosvenor Square protest of the Vietnam War, in which he participated, and the May Revolution in France–and their influence on the extended genesis of “Street Fighting Man” complicates the prevailing portraits of his unequivocal foolishness and hypocrisy.