On top of a whole bunch of stuff, Mick Jagger and his legendary Rolling Stones have the merit of still being able to raise epic parties at an age where most of us would be in a nursing home. He has that magnetism, that seduction, energy that just radiates, even through age. Even though I know darn well he's old enough to be my grandfather, I can understand pretty well what got my grandmothers so excited about him in their days. It's still all there beyond the wrinkles and it's still alive and well! You have a lot of respect for those guys, who are some of the last living figureheads of a decade that saw big changes. The rest of the World called it the Swinging Sixties, we here called it the Quiet Revolution.
The Catholic Church had a huge influence on Quebec and Acadian culture until them. Therefore, the Devil became a very important stock character in our folklore. According to one of the most widespread legend, he would take away girls that danced after midnight like so many groupies...straight to Hell.
The message from the authorities was clear: don't be a party animal.
But then along came Vatican II...and Expo 67...and the Rolling Stones, and Pink Floyd, and the Doors, and Hendrix and The Beatles, and the Pill, and Martin Luther King and then Kennedy, and Lévesque, and then Mai 68, and then Vietnam... Some sentences tell the whole decade in a few words: "I have a dream", "Vive le Québec Libre", "Ask not what your country can do for you", "C'est le début d'un temps nouveau", "All you need is love!", "Maitres chez nous", "Hell, no, we won't go!", "Chances égales pour tous".
And, another sentence that is famous both in French and English, "The State has no place in the Bedroom". That's how prime minister Trudeau said it. Boom. The sexual revolution, birth control, homosexuality, divorce all in one sentence. Catholic morals outta here.
It is pretty ironic that in Canada, the biggest icon of that moral revolution was the prime minister himself and not a musician. He was roughly the canadian Kennedy that was not shot. Ladies thought he was handsome (for reasons that baffle me to this day, honestly. At least Justin's sorta cute!) and he was even friends with Fidel Castro.
There's a rumour that's not proven, but that so symbolic of the time that even if it didn't happen at all, we would have made up the legend. According to it, Pierre Trudeau's much younger wife, Margaret Trudeau had an affair with Mick Jagger.
Virtual high five, girl! nurf nurf.
