Creativity Quote by Keith Richards

Richards is needling a culture that loves the brand name of rock more than the bodily experience it was built to deliver. “Rock” is the part that photographs well: attitude, leather, riffs you can merchandise. “Roll” is messier. It’s swing, looseness, sex, groove - the sense that the music is pushing your hips before it flatters your taste. By setting up the line like a throwaway complaint, he smuggles in a hierarchy: virtuosity and volume are cheap; feel is rare.

The wit is in how small the pivot is. One missing word becomes an entire indictment of modern rock’s self-seriousness. Richards isn’t arguing that rock has disappeared; he’s saying it’s been embalmed. When people “talk about rock,” they talk about identity - what it signals socially - rather than the physical engine that made it dangerous in the first place. “Forget” is the key verb: the loss isn’t accidental so much as convenient. Roll requires surrender, a little un-coolness, a willingness to be corny or ecstatic. Rock culture, especially in its later canonized forms, prizes control.

Context matters: Richards is a custodian of an older lineage where rock and roll is a hybrid music (blues, R&B, country) whose power lives in timing and taste, not just distortion. Coming from a Rolling Stone, it’s also a self-policing statement: a reminder that rebellion isn’t a pose, it’s a pulse. He’s telling younger bands - and aging legends - that if the groove is gone, the mythology is just noise.