Retirement is not all easy money and cheap, superb, healthcare.  Some of us don’t sleep so well.  I have frequent bad dreams that for the most part have little to do with my life, actual or imaginary.  Last night I woke up twice with dreams so real it was necessary to take walks around the campground to shake them.  You see, Life on the Blues has followers we care about — more than a few — and one of you was involved.

President Trump used several tunes by The Rolling Stones in his campaign, and again at his inauguration.  The Stones objected repeatedly, but Trump’s digital band played on.  His campaign theme was You Can’t Always Get What You Want (… “but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need”!)  He walked onto the stage the night before inauguration to Heart of Stone, an odd choice for a narcissist (they crave approval).  I thought Microsoft owned the rights to Start Me Up, but he used that one at times during the primary season.  George W. Bush should have been asked, as common courtesy to another Republican, for permission to use Brown Sugar (which was W’s nickname for Condoleezza Rice) but even The Google cannot say whether W was or was not asked.

One of our followers is close to the “Greatest Rock ‘n Roll Band in the World”, The Rolling Stones.  This guy really enjoyed our stories about fake IRS agents, my bestiality-crazed English cousin, and the one about me singing Beachboys Christmas songs in Wal-Mart.  He granted permission for this post on condition that I only identify him a ‘member of the band.’

So I called him up (he spends most of his time in the States … women love his Cockney accent here) and I asked, Are you a Trump guy?  “’ell no!  Why would you think such a thing?”  He’s using your music; doesn’t that require your consent?  “Not in the USA.  Our lawyers have been all over it, but so long as he pays BMI a few cents royalty, it’s his right.  Public domain and all, wot!”

Well, ol’ Donald has good taste in music.  I would have used a lot of your stuff myself, but I do think Sympathy for the Devil would fit his campaign better.  “Ha-ha, that’s a good one old man!  But I’d customize the lyrics:   ‘A man of wealth and taste … been around for a long, long year … stole many a bank’s cash to waste!  Yeah, that woulda been much better, Jackson.”

Sure, the music rocks but sometimes your words mock him.  Given Trump’s long record of sexual assault, why do you think he chose Heart of Stone as his walk-on music last night?

“There’s been so many girls that I’ve known
I’ve made so many cry, and still I wonder why
Here comes a little girl, I see her walking down the street
She’s all by herself, I try to knock her off her feet

‘Cause you’ll never break, never break, never break, never break
This heart of stone, oh no, no, this heart of stone.”

“Jackson, ol’ sod, don’t want to sound like I got the big head, you know, but the man envies me.  He wants to be me!  And why not?  I’ve ‘ad fifty birds to each of his, I got more money, less debt, and I don’t need no bloody taxidermist to do my hair.  ‘ell, using our music is the most honest form of flattery.  And after talking to you, I kinda like it.”

I must have dreamed the whole conversation; Mick’s not a follower.