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Shattered


This is the Rolling Stones trying to make a punk song by ripping off The Kinks whilst simultaneously setting the stage for a career of lyrical copycat crimes by evil mustardmind Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. That alone should have gotten Jagger thrown out of the league three years before he was allowed to repeat his lyrical hate crimes with Start Me Up

Shattered was already strike three for Mick Jagger, who had written previous felonious lyrics on at least two other counts; Brown Sugar, a song so drenched in objectification and fetishism that it is emotionally excruciating - and She's A Rainbow, which sounds like the predecessor to every book quote that young women share in social media to make flattering third person statements about themselves. 

Her love radiates like moonbeams
As she dances in the starlight
Unafraid to let her soul glitter
And drown out the darkness of despair

Fucking. Kill. Me. Now.

Uh huh shattered, uh huh shattered
Love and hope and sex and dreams
Are still surviving on the street
Look at me, I'm in tatters!
I'm a shattered
Shattered

It is suggested here that the person telling this tale is someone living on the streets. Throughout this song we switch perspectives. Sometimes the song seems to be about a street character, sometimes it seems to be Mick talking about himself, and other times its just some outside observer/narrator. This is primarily because this song is about absolutely nothing, and so there is no onus whatsoever for any of it to make any sense at all.

Friends are so alarming
My lover's never charming
Life's just a cocktail party on the street
Big Apple
People dressed in plastic bags
Directing traffic
Some kind of fashion
Shattered

Nothing at all. It is a gaudy curation of tropes about New York City and life in general. There is no poetry or commentary, just snack-size snapshots of life in the Big Apple for, uh...somebody.

Laughter, joy, and loneliness and sex and sex and sex and sex
Look at me, I'm in tatters
I'm a shattered
Shattered

These are generic human experiences, not even confined to the United States, which is the kind of lyrical disarray that happens when you improv most of your lyrics while peacocking into a fugkn microphone in the studio.

All this chitter-chatter, chitter-chatter, chitter-chatter 'bout
Shmatta, shmatta, shmatta, I can't give it away on 7th Avenue
This town's been wearing tatters (shattered, sha ooobie shattered)

What Mick does here for New York City, Anthony Kiedis will be spend decades doing for California.
*gibberish blah blah gibberish NEW YORK*
*gibberish ibberish CALIFORNIA blahgibberornia*
Both of these monsters need to pay for their geolyrical crimes and polluting the airwaves with toxic scat bop. 5G ain't got shit on these guys, you need to move underground immediately to keep you and your family safe.

Work and work for love and sex
Ain't you hungry for success, success, success, success
Does it matter? (shattered)
Does it matter?
Ah look at me
I'm shattered
I'm shattered
Look at me, I'm a shattered, yeah (shattered)

Remember what I said about perspective? The guy above who is attending cocktail parties on the street, ie: in some filthy alleyway out of sight behind a dumpster, is not too hung up about success. 

Pride and joy and greed and sex
That's what makes our town the best
Pride and joy and dirty dreams and still surviving on the street
And look at me, I'm in tatters, yeah
I've been battered, what does it matter
Does it matter, uh-huh
Does it matter, uh-huh, I'm a shattered
Mmm, I'm shattered, unh
Sha oobie, shattered, unh

Just in case you were unsure, pride and joy and sex and greed are not something NYC has a monopoly on. This is why you need to write your lyrics down long before you get to the studio, and then spend time refining them. After you are done with that try to find somebody around you who isn't battling multiple addictions and mental health issues, and ask them for some input in case you missed anything. You may even want to find somebody who has any amount of experience whatsoever as an actual writer, and learn something from them. Just because you became insanely famous when you were young enough to be excused for this kind of nonsense doesn't earn you a lifetime pass to insult your listeners with this sort of effortless jibber jabber.

Don't you know the crime rate is going up, up, up, up, up
To live in this town you must be tough, tough, tough, tough, tough!
You got rats on the West Side
Bed bugs uptown
What a mess this town's in tatters, I've been shattered
My brain's been battered, splattered all over Manhattan
Sha oobie, shattered, shattered, what say
Sha oobie, shattered

Now this part is kind of funny, actually. This is 1978 and NYC is just one giant festering cesspool of ugliness, in so many ways. The first 3/4ths of the song just name drops NYC in such a way that people from there predictably sang along pridefully, because people from the Big Apple think that any time their city is mentioned that it is some sign of their superiority. But now the song takes a quick turn and talks about how shitty NYC is, and I instantly picture a thick-accented cabbie screaming violently at his radio during this part of the song. That might have made it worth it, but only if I didn't just get a bad sha oobie without my consent, which I have gotten too many of by this point to ever forgive or forget.

Uh-huh, this town's full of money grabbers
Go ahead, bite the Big Apple, don't mind the maggots, huh
Sha oobie, my brain's been battered
My friends they come around they
Flatter, flatter, flatter, flatter, flatter, flatter, flatter
Pile it up, pile it up, pile high on the platter

'This town is full of money grabbers' is the kind of thing a guy like Mick Jagger would say, not the guy who is drinking Night Train by a garbage fire. This is the gratuitous part of the rock song where the millionaire gets to vent a bit about how tough their fame and fortune is. Even more hilarious is that Jagger is in NYC because he left his native country in order to dodge their taxes, which is understandable on one hand, but pretty ridiculous when this same guy accuses other people of being too driven by money.

I'm all for drugs. Lot's of people should responsibly try lots of drugs, if they want to. But when this is what you are forced to do to feed your habit, it's time to stop cold turkey, or at least have some self-respect and dignity as an artist and suck a dick for that money instead.

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