Cocksucker Blues

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COCKSUCKER BLUES 1972

The Rolling Stones 1972 tour on film. Whew, wild movie! Sex, drugs and rock n roll! Songs: "Cocksucker Blues," "Brown Sugar," "Midnight Rambler," "Uptight" (with Stevie Wonder), "Happy," and "Street Fighting Man." Keith and Mick snort up and hit the stage. Sin and debauchery. Girl shoots up. Keith tells Mick it's best to snort coke through a rolled up dollar bill. Bobby Keyes and Keith toss a TV off their hotel balcony. Dick Cavett asks Bill Wyman, "What's running through your nervous system right now?" Many, many amusing scenes! Cast of "characters" includes: Bianca Jagger, Tina Turner, Stevie Wonder, Dick Cavett, Truman Capote, Andy Warhol, Ehmet Ertegun, Marshall Chess. Once you see it you'll know why the Stones decided not to release it! Cocksucker Blues! Bonus Selection: Excerpt from the film "Groupies" about party girls who'll do anything to hang with the band!

Cocksucker Blues is an unreleased documentary film directed by Robert Frank chronicling The Rolling Stones' North American tour in 1972 in support of their album Exile on Main Street.

There was much anticipation for the band's arrival, with them having not visited the United States since the 1969 disaster at Altamont Free Concert, in which a fan, Meredith Hunter, was stabbed and beaten to death by Hells Angels. The tour fulfilled its promise of tremendous rock and roll performances on stage. Behind the scenes, the tour embodied debauchery, lewdness and hedonism.

The film was shot cinema verity, with several cameras with plenty of film left lying around for anyone in the entourage to pick up and start shooting. This allowed the film's audience to witness backstage parties, drug use (Mick Jagger is seen snorting cocaine backstage), roadie antics, fey artists and the Stones with their defences down.

"Cocksucker Blues" was the title of a song Mick Jagger wrote to be the Stones' final single for Decca Records, as per their contract. Its context and language was chosen specifically to anger Decca executives. The track was refused by Decca and only released later on a West German compilation in 1983, although the compilation was discontinued and re-released without the song.

The film itself is under a court order which forbids it from being shown unless the director is physically present. This ruling stems from the conflict that arose when the band, which had commissioned the film, decided that its content was inappropriate and didn't want it shown. The director felt otherwise and thus the ruling. However, bootleg copies of the film are available. It has somewhat of a popular aura surrounding it around fellow rockers, such as Marilyn Manson, who mentioned viewing it and seeing his living room in it (parts of it were filmed at the Mary Astor House, on Appian Way in Laurel Canyon where Manson has resided since late 1997).