No Expectations [Keith Richards & Brian Jones]

VI. All Tomorrow's Parties

The issue with photographs is that they never show you reality, but only what the photographer wants you to see. 

There was a picture of my bare upper body covered in whipped cream and Lana looking up at the camera while licking the cream off. It was printed in a newspaper and was followed by an article with the title "the wild sex lives of British pop stars "or something as defaming. I forever wondered how they had even got a hold of the picture. I suspected the guy developing the pictures had made some copies for himself and when he saw who else was on the photographs, he sold them to a newspaper, that had nothing better to do than make a headline out of a misconception. There had been no "pop star" involved nor had it to do with anything sexual. It had merely been Lana and I fooling around, even if no one believed us. At some point you could say what you wanted and no one would listen, even if you spoke the truth, because they already had settled on an opinion for you and wouldn't change it for anything in the world. 

Over the years I had heard many different versions on how we met the Rolling Stones and one was crazier than the other- my favourite one involved mushrooms, a dead fish and a naked Lana, but the story that most people believed in was the one were Keith Richards fell in love with me when our eyes met across the room on a party. With a smile I had averted my eyes slightly blushing and disappeared in the crowd for Keith to chase after me. When he found me, he held out his hand and I took it. We didn't need any words, when we danced the whole night, because we both knew what on the mind of the other was: Love.

Reality never was that pretty or simple, which is probably why we prefer good stories over the far too often ugly or boring truth.

* 

Most part of spring and early summer 1965 was dominated by Lana's new found friendship with Keith Moon and Bo not being there. He left notes for me in the mailbox among other things and called occasionally, but he no longer lived with us. I didn't know where he stayed, nor did I ask to be honest. If Bo didn't want to tell you something, he wouldn't say a word about it no matter how much you asked and so I kept quiet and listened to the things he did want to tell me. Often it was just about some painting he had seen, a book he had read or a movie he had watched, but sometimes in between his voice broke and he told me how much he missed to be with us. "We miss you too", I always replied and he just sighed. We both knew the truth, which was that Lana had replaced him. I truly felt sorry for Bo, but Lana seemed to shine when she was with Keith. They were happy together, so how could I be angry with her? Bo might have been like a brother to me, but Lana was far more and even if I wasn't very fond of Keith Moon I just wanted her to be happy. 

Maybe it was hypocritical of me to think of Keith as a bad influence, especially when our lifestyle hadn't changed a bit in the least, but Keith and Lana were too similar and often egged each other on in their destruction. Maybe it only was the same jealousy that haunted Bo, that made me cautious of Keith as well, but I couldn't shake the feeling off that he would be Lana's doom. Unbeknownst to me at that time somebody else had nearly a very similar fear, though the other way around; John.