Bill Wyman’s birthday yesterday makes it as good a time as any to get past Stones stuff onto the blog. From the anniversary of the release of a great album.

May 12, 2011, haiku

Exile on Main Street
Released 39 years back
On a dark May day

The Stones were exiled
To France and LA, fleeing
Britain’s back taxes

Music deep in blues
Vocals buried in mixes
Murky, layered, drugged

Country, calypso
And soul sank into the songs
Blurring the picture

Musicians drifted
In and out, heroin shot
Through Keith Richards’ veins

The dissolution
And delays bugged unstoned Stones —
Mick, Bill and Charlie

Despite everything
The beast was corraled, not tamed,
Baffling to many

Dice tumbled, joints were
Ripped, hips shaken, a light shined
And Keith got happy

A time of excess,
Restless music, “more is more”
Captured brilliantly

And the Voice critic
Robert Christgau got it right:
“Fagged-out masterpiece”