“Have you heard Foreign Dialogue yet?” asked Martin. “It’s fantastic.”

Elaine sipped her coffee.

“I heard it.”

“Do you agree?”

“Depends.”

“It sounds like Some Girls.”

“That’s a problem.”

Martin laughed.

“You want them to sound top 40?”

“No. I want them to sound like eighty-year-olds who lived through eighty years.”

Martin leaned back.

“Listen to the guitars, Keith Richards and Ron Wood weave around each other.”

“I know.”

“So what’s missing?”

“Courage.”

Martin nearly spilled his coffee.

“Courage? It’s the Rolling Stones.”

“Was.”

“What does that mean?”

“They used to provoke people because they seemed genuinely uninterested in pleasing anyone. Now I feel like they’re provoking nostalgia.”

Martin frowned.

“You want another Brown Sugar?”

“I wish they would write about why they stopped playing it. That would be more radical than caving to the herd.”

Martin paused.

“That’s… different.”

“Imagine Mick singing about what it’s like to have written a song that millions loved and millions later found offensive. Imagine wrestling with that instead of pretending the conversation never happened.”

“They don’t owe an explanation.”

“But it would be interesting…more interesting if you asked me.”

Martin shrugged.

“They’re entertainers.”

“I think they claimed to be artists too.”

“So what else should they sing Ms. smartypants?”

Elaine looked out the café window.

“Memory? Regret? Becoming old without becoming wise. Or Anita Pallenberg.”

Martin looked surprised.

“Why?”

“Three Stones involved with one lady. She was at the centre of one of the most mythologized periods in their history. Now she’s gone. Imagine writing about that. Not gossip. Memory. Affection. Confusion. Loss. Way more powerful, no?”

“Might be too personal.”

“The artists I like best take difficult roads.”

Martin smiled.

“You think real rebellion would be vulnerability?”

“Yup.”

“But their career was pretending not to care.”

“And now they’re old enough to admit they did.”

Martin stirred his coffee.

“I still think it’s a great record.”

“I want the sound of someone risking the truth after learning how to avoid it.”