In 1967 the police busted the Rolling Stones at Redlands, Keith Richards' beautiful country estate. Among other things, they found Marianne Faithfull wrapped in a fur rug but otherwise naked. They also found a small quantity of speed, for which Jagger and Richards were convicted of drug possession. The story put about at the time was that MJ and MF had been engaged in chocolatey-goodness-flavored hanky-panky with a Mars Bar. (English Mars Bar, not American. More like an American Milky Way, which is different from an English Milky Way.)
I found this (later) comment from Marianne's biography interesting:
"The Mars Bar was a very effective piece of demonizing. Way out there. It was so overdone, with such malicious twisting of the facts. Mick retrieving a Mars Bar from my vagina, indeed! It was far too jaded for any of us even to have conceived of. It's a dirty old man's fantasy... a cop's idea of what people do
on acid!"
So for a rock band in 1967, speed was normal but shennanigans with Mars Bars were a dirty old man's fantasy – a very revealing comment on the mores of the time.
The full article is on Another Nickel In The Machine here, and there is a lovely picture of the World in Action program where Jagger discussed drugs and other pressing issues with such establishment figures as William Rees-Mogg (the editor of the Times) and the Bishop of Woolwich.
The incidents were parodied in the Rutles movie All You Need is Cash. Unfortunately the Rutles clip is not available on YouTube, so you might take a look at this one instead. This is on the evils of tea.
Is fiction always more fun than the real thing? Probably.
Here's the Rutles' fake headline.
And here's the real headline, being carried by the real Marianne.
Keith Richards had this to say: "The fur rug - yes. The Mars Bar no. We were out of Mars Bars."
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