ROLLING STONES LIVING IN A GHOST TOWN

The Rolling Stones

The Rolling Stones release Living In a Ghost Town, first original music since 2012

Mick Jagger says new single will ‘resonate through the times we’re living in’ and references coronavirus with the lyric: ‘Life was so beautiful, then we all got locked down’

Going to work … the Rolling Stones performing in 2019. Photograph: Greg Allen/Invision/AP

The Rolling Stones have released their first original music since 2012, a new – and rather apocalyptic – single called Living in a Ghost Town.

Mick Jagger said the band were “recording some new material before the lockdown and there was one song we thought would resonate through the times that we’re living in right now. We’ve worked on it in isolation. And here it is.”

Keith Richards said: “We cut this track well over a year ago in LA for a new album, an ongoing thing, and then shit hit the fan. Mick and I decided this one really needed to go to work right now and so here you have it.”

A moody, typically strutting track, its lyrics seem to reference the coronavirus crisis, in the lines: “Life was so beautiful / Then we all got locked down … Please let this be over / Stuck in a world without end.”

Elsewhere, Jagger sings of chaos (“Glasses were all smashing / Trumpets were all screaming”) and societal collapse:

Preachers were all preaching

Charities beseeching

Politicians dealing

Thieves were happy stealing

Widows were all weeping

There’s no beds left for us to sleep in

Always had the feeling

It would all come tumbling down.

Last Sunday, the isolated band performed together You Can’t Always Get What You Want via four separate video links for One World: Together at Home, a concert to benefit charities and the World Health Organisation, co-organised by Lady Gaga. A 79-song album version of the eight-hour event has since been released.

The Rolling Stones’ most recent original material came out as part of the 2012 best-of compilation Grrr!, which featured two new songs: Doom and Gloom, and One More Shot. They have since released an album of blues covers, Blue and Lonesome, in 2016, and another hits compilation, Honk, in 2019. Their last album of original material was 2005’s A Bigger Bang.

The quartet are approaching the milestone of 60 years in the business, after Jagger and Richards formed the group in 1962.

Despite a combined age of 302, they still frequently perform live, and have toured each year since 2012. Their No Filter tour began in September 2017, with the next leg originally scheduled for north America in early May. The band postponed it due to the coronavirus crisis, apologising and saying they were “hugely disappointed”. Replacement dates have not yet been scheduled.

Speaking in more depth about Living In a Ghost Town to Zane Lowe on Apple Music, Jagger said he originally wrote the song in 10 minutes, but made minor rewrites in the wake of the coronavirus crisis.

He also sympathised with those suffering: “It’s 20 million people lost their jobs completely for something that’s nothing to do with them at all. And also the less money you have, the more worries you have. So for lots of people, it’s really tough. I mean, I have friends and they live in really small apartments in a big city and they don’t have anywhere to go and they’ve lost their job. I’m very, very lucky and I’m very aware how lucky I am, but not everyone’s as lucky as me.”

FALSE ALARM

Yesterday when I weighed myself, I was somewhat disgusted when the scale stopped at 230.3 lbs.  I honestly did not think that this was correct.  I knew I had had a 'bulky' dinner late on Friday night and thought that this was skewing my result.  Saturday morning, before I did anything, I weighed myself again, and this time the 'needle' rested at 228 lbs.  Much better.  Saturday's weight was a false alarm. Well...it was still an alarm... but things were not quite as bad as they seemed.  Yay.

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Your Food Diary For:

Saturday, March 5, 2016

BREAKFAST	Calories	Carbs	Fat	Protein	Sodium	Sugar
Cheerios - Small Box 5/8 Oz., 5/8 oz.	60	12	1	2	85	1
Jason's Deli - Organic Flatbread Cracker, 3 cracker	150	18	6	6	285	3
Smoked Salmon Pinwheels -  3 oz	240	0	21	12	660	0
	450	30	28	20	1,030	4
L U N C H
Jason's Deli - Organic Flatbread, 4 cracker	200	24	8	8	380	4
	200	24	8	8	380	4
D I N N E R
Orecchiette Pasta	300	62	2	11	0	3
Schwan's - Southwest Roasted Corn, 0.67 c	160	17	9	3	260	3
Milanese Chicken Breast, 1 breast	500	37	26	28	520	3
YOGURT PRETZELS, 40 g (approx 8 pcs)	190	28	0	2	180	19
YOGURT RAISINS, 40 g	170	28	7	1	15	25
	1,320	172	44	45	975	53
S N A C K S
Larabar - Larabar, 2 bar	440	52	22	12	120	38
	440	52	22	12	120	38
Totals	2,410	278	102	85	2,505	99
Your Daily Goal	4,883	610	162	245	2,300	183
Remaining	2,473	332	60	160	-205	84
	Calories	Carbs	Fat	Protein	Sodium	Sugar
	*You've earned 2,953 extra calories from exercise today

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       Your Exercise Diary for:

Saturday, March 5, 2016

Cardiovascular	Minutes	Calories Burned
STAR TRAC ELLIPTICAL	92	1,634
STAR TRAC ELLIPTICAL	92	1,554
MFP iOS calorie adjustment	N/A	-235
Daily Total / Goal	185 / 30	2,953 / 590
Weekly Total / Goal	1052 / 210	14,368 / 4,130

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total calories consumed 2410 calories

total calories burned (elliptical) 3188 calories

total net 778 calorie defecit

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fitbit day 185

20721 steps  
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NOT FADE AWEIGH

NOT FADE AWAY was written by Buddy Holly and first recorded in 1957 by Holly's band, the Crickets. In 1964, The Rolling Stones recorded a cover version of NOT FADE AWAY. It was the very first 'single' released by the Stones in the United States and it appeared on the Stones' first US released album, England's Newest Hitmakers. Back in the 1960's the song served as the opening number at many Stones shows. During the 1994-95 Voodoo Lounge Tour - the song was again used as the opener.

If there was talk about me fading away, that does not seem to be the current problem. Lately I have been overdoing it on snacking, overdoing it on some portions and overdoing a bit with some drinking at a couple of back-to-back trade shows.  My thing now is to make sure that all my results don't fade away.  I think I may need to return to a 1000 calories per day to correct the recent direction of my weight changes.

224.4 lbs

I weigh 224.4 lbs.

I gained 6.4 lbs this week.

I lost 84.6 lbs in 157 days. Today begins Day 158.

I have lost 14 inches from my waist. 

I will always be at the beginning of a journey that never ends.

I weigh 224.4 lbs. (157 days ago I weighed 309 lbs)

I have lost 27.4% of my weight since Dec 24.

Considering how different my calorie count has been - eating much larger portions of still mostly nutritious foods - I am not shocked at the recent weight gain - but this trend must stop...soon.

I have a BMI, body mass index of 30.02 (far away from obesity!)

I had a 42.0 BMI on 12.24.14 just 150 days ago (Class III obesity)

I wonder about achieving a 'normal weight' - the charts say 186.8 lbs - I'm not too sure about that...

I know this, regardless of what the BMI charts show - Marc Jacobs is no longer a fat man!

I have four words to describe how I feel right now - time to course correct

...I know how to begin this week... 

32 minutes ELLIPTICAL

It would be great to ascribe recent weight gain to muscle building.  And the truth is, there may be a small degree of that... I can feel my body hardening.  I can physically do things now that I would not have dared dream of doing just a few weeks ago.... for example....

RIDDLE:
When is a 12 story hotel equal to 72 story skyscraper?
When you climb its stairs beginning at the sub-basement level and continue all the way to the rooftop level and you repeat this exercise four times as I did at the Hilton Hotel yesterday.   I counted steps.  Each floor was 16 steps. The number of steps from top to bottom was 289.  I walked 1156 steps total.  That works out to the equivalent of one 72 story climb.  Unlike at home where I have simply gone up 25 flights of stairs, worked out on the elliptical machine and walked down the same staircase 25 flights, at the Hilton Hotel, I climbed the equivalent of of up 18 stories, and back down 18 stories, and repeated this four times.  I was not racing, nor was I resting between ascents and descents.  The whole event took 37 minutes.  Although I have loosely calculated that I might have burned nearly 400 calories - that is not the point. I have a mountain facing me in the not-too-distant future, and I think that I am going to need two things to be successful. I believe these two things to be stamina and confidence. My confidence is building each day, in direct proportion to increased stamina. I no longer fear this adventure. I embrace it.

On the same day that I did this, I had my best workout on an elliptical machine....ever.  I got into a groove and I kept up upping the time until my workout was exactly one hour. The specific elliptical machine (PRECOR AMT ADAPTIVE MOTION TRAINER) requires much more energy of its user and many more calories are allegedly burned on this machine than a standard elliptical machine.

And one more thing I did yesterday, after working out on the elliptical machine was begin to learn how to use dumb bells for muscle building in the upper body.

My physical strength and stamina have never been stronger.
This of course, makes it a bit ironic that I am seeing a gastroenterologist to determine the source of anemia.  Anemia does not outwardly appear to be anything that I am suffering from!

Yesterday, I received a phone call from the Gastroenterologist office advising me that all the biopsies of tissue sampled from my colonoscopy and endoscopy were negative.  Although the source of my anemia remains a mystery, pending the results of still more additional testing, some of my worst fears have been erased.

Yesterday, was quite a momentous day....
72 story stair climb, massively exhilarating accomplishment...
1 hour on the treadmill, massively exhilarating workout...
Call from Gastroenterologist, massively exhilarating news...

and one more interesting thing....

Last night in the Hilton Bar around 12:30AM I had the opportunity to meet the musical director of The Rolling Stones who are in Columbus getting ready for a concert tonight at Ohio Stadium.  Chuck Leavell has recorded and toured with The Rolling Stones for 33 years. On stage he plays keyboards and as musical director he is said to be charged with creating set lists for each show (with the input and approval of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards) I asked Chuck if it was really true that setlist creation was his responsibility and he confirmed that it really was.  The guy was extremely gracious and happy to pose for a photo with me. (Just look at the photo, he looks at least as happy I do!)

Chuck Leavell graciously poses for a photo with me at 12:30 AM (Saturday morning)
About 21 hours after this photo was taken, Leavell will be onstage with Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and Ron Wood in front of approximately 60,000 fans at Ohio Stadium as one more stop on the Rolling Stones 'ZipCode Tour'

FRIDAY MENU

breakfast   two bowls oatmeal, two apples, eggs, bacon, fruit                               1036  calories
lunch         Ahi Tuna Tacos, two apples, granola                                                      960 calories
dinner        lamb with noodles, beet salad                                                                 536 calories
snacks (drinking)  5 double Glenlivet's on the rocks                                                690 calories

caloric consumption  3223 calories

calories burned
stair climbing (72 stories) up and down                                384 calories
ellipical, 60 minutes                                                             1222 calories

total calories burned 1606 calories

FRIDAY NET CALORIES  1617 CALORIES