Remember When Mick Jagger Sang a Song About Japanese Cannibals and THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE?

SHOCK flashes back to the time when THE ROLLING STONES sort of made a horror movie.

In 1983, venerable rock ‘n’ roll Gods THE ROLLING STONES were looking to re-invent themselves for the modern age; rather, front man and co-founder/songwriter Mick Jagger was looking to re-invent them-and thus, himself- for the modern age. His partner Keith Richards, however, was keener to keep chugging out the same, tried and true dirty blues sound that the band made their bones on.

The resulting creative tensions resulted in one of The Stones’ darkest and most underrated offerings, UNDERCOVER. And while its blistering lead single “Undercover of the Night”, with its amalgam of new wave, pseudo-reggae percussion and grim lyrics served as the ideal primal scream to announce the leaner, meander incarnation of the Jagger/Richards machine, there’s a track on the album that is of specific interest to horror fans…

“Too Much Blood” was Jagger’s almost experimental riff on violence in the media and in horror films. It’s also a loose musing on the macabre case of Japanese born Issei Sagawa, who murdered and cannibalized a Dutch girl in Paris in 1981. Sagawa has since become a celebrity in Japan and, at one point, was even writing restaurant reviews…

Jagger’s lyrics contain many gruesome passages:

A friend of mine was this Japanese

Who had a girlfriend in Paris

He, he had to date her for six months

And eventually she said yes

You know, he took her to his apartment

Cut off her head, put the rest of her body

In the refrigerator, ate her piece by piece

Put her in the refrigerator, put her in the freezer

And when he ate her he took her bones

To the Bois de Boulogne

By chance, a taxi driver noticed him

Burying the bones, you don’t believe me?

Strong stuff from Jagger who, truthfully, never really shied away from confrontational lyrics. STONES classics like “Gimmie Shelter”, “Sympathy for the Devil” and “Paint it Black”, were essentialky pre-punk, proto-Goth expressions of darkness. “Gimmie Shelter” was even famously covered by Goth godfathers THE SISTERS OF MERCY.

But “Too Much Blood” is over the top.

In another section of the song, Jagger takes a swipe at Tobe Hooper’s THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE:

Did you ever see ‘The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’?

Horrible, wasn’t it?

You know people ask me, “Is it really true

You know where you live in Texas

Is that really true what they do around there, people?”

I say, “Hey, now every time I drive through the crossroads

I get scared there’s a bloke running around

With a fuckin’ chain saw

Oh, no, he’s gotta cut off me

Oh no no! Don’t saw off me leg, don’t saw off me arm”

Wild!

Incredibly, “Too Much Blood” was released as a 12′ single in 1984.

In fact, British filmmaker Julien Temple made a video for the track, using a slightly sped up, more dance-floor friendly version as the basis.

And man…what a video!

In it, a woman watches Frank Henenlotter’s BASKET CASE on TV (!) before THE ROLLING STONES take over the airwaves, performing in a kind of stone mausoleum while Keith Richards and guitarist Ron Wood chase Jagger around with freaking chainsaws!

Meanwhile, blood pours out of the TV, out of faucets, from the heroine’s nose…

It’s just all kinds of insane. And MTV effectively banned it.

What’s that? You don’t believe me?

Well…watch it yourself below!

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