Exile on Main St.
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Cocksucker Blues is an unreleased documentary film directed by Robert Frank chronicling The Rolling Stones' North American tour in 1972 in support of their album Exile on Main Street.
There was much anticipation for the band's arrival, with them having not visited the United States since the 1969 disaster at Altamont Free Concert, in which a fan, Meredith Hunter, was stabbed and beaten to death by Hells Angels. The tour fulfilled its promise of tremendous rock and roll performances on stage. Behind the scenes, the tour embodied debauchery, lewdness and hedonism.
The film was shot cinéma vérité, with several cameras with plenty of film left lying around for anyone in the entourage to pick up and start shooting. This allowed the film's audience to witness backstage parties, drug use, roadie antics, fey artists and the Stones with their defenses down.
"Cocksucker Blues" was the title of a song Mick Jagger wrote to be the Stones' final single for Decca Records, as per their contract. Its context and language was chosen specifically to anger Decca executives. The track was refused by Decca and only released later on a West German compilation in 1983, although the compilation was discontinued and re-released without the song.
