Rejecting the banalities of their own culture and adopting instead the more realistic, if less "noble" and comfortable, attitudes of the black American ghetto resident, the Stones laid the foundation for the counter-culture by translating these black attitudes into an attractive image for alienated white youth. The importance of this black "blues" influence is nowhere more apparent than in the argot of the Stones' lyrics, and an examination of the existence of a black blues lexicon in the Stones' lyrics provides a unique method of studying the Stones' acceptance and extension of black urban cultural attitudes. (p. 367)

Jagger's fascination with what his father … called "jungle music" extended to a deep interest in the blues argot. He has been quoted as saying that lyrics are not very important in rock music, but his own admission that he used to put his head to the speaker until he had deciphered...