Feeling My Age

Went to see Pirates Of The Caribbean with Child K, and was astonished when she told me Johnny Depp’s dad had been played by Keith Richards – inventor of  the killer riff on Satisfaction among much else.

When my parents saw The Stones miming to it on TOTP in 1964, Mum declared the band were yobs, the song was filth and both of them ought to be banned.  I later wrote out the lyrics (which contained nothing filthy at all) and triumphantly flourished them at her, but she refused to change her verdict. “It’s just so suggestive” she insisted. She was right of course – compared to the straitlaced Beatles, the Stones were sex on legs.

Fast forward 47 years and the granddaughter she never met or even dreamed of is heading off to a friend’s birthday party dressed as Capn Jack Sparrow – ie Johnny Depp dressed up as a wildly exaggerated version of Keith Richards. And now – sorry for being one movie and several years late in this realisation – we have Keith Richards dressed up as a wildly exaggerated version of Johnny Depp’s wildly exaggerated version of himself.

In 1964 at age 43 Mum developed a sudden inexplicable taste for pop music and bought “It’s Over” by Roy Orbison. This was odd because she’d never shown the slightest interest in anything else we’d seen on Top Of The Pops, yet she played it constantly on the family gramaphone. “A lot of young people do sometimes feel like that” was all she would say. After lunch every day she would retire to her bedroom for an afternoon nap and lock the door. “Mummy’s crying in there” my eight year old sister said one day with wide eyed wonder. We shook our heads together in sorrowful incomprehension. Orbison’s next hit was the considerably raunchier “Oh Pretty Woman” which I bought, imagining that Mum - as a newly converted fan of the Big O - would be pleased. But after the first few lines she refused to listen to another word, for some reason or other. Women, eh ?