Words by Riley Fitzgerald
Graphic by Press

Mick Jagger has responded to Paul McCartney‘s comment that the Beatles were “better” than the Rolling Stones.

The remark arrived last week when, in conversation with radio host Howard Stern, McCartney contended the Fab Four were better.

“The Stones are a fantastic group,” Paul stated, “I go to see them every time they come out because they’re a great, great band and Mick can really do it, the singing and the moves, and Keith and now Ronnie and Charlie. They’re great. I love ’em.”

“They are kind of rooted in the blues though,” the Beatle continued, “so when they’re kinda writing stuff it’s to do with the blues you know? Whereas we had more influences.”

“There’s a lot of differences,” he then concluded, “I love The Stones, but I’m with you: The Beatles are better.”

Now Jagger has offered his own take on the age old Beatles-Rolling Stones debate.

“That’s so funny,” Jagger informed Apple Music host Zane Lowe. “He’s a sweetheart. There’s obviously no competition.”

“The Rolling Stones being a big concert band in other decades and other eras,” Jagger added, “when the Beatles never even did an arena tour, Madison Square Garden with a decent sound system. They broke up before that business even started. The touring business for real didn’t start until the end of the ’60s.”

“The Stones went on and we started doing stadium gigs in the Seventies and [are] still doing them now,” The Rolling Stone asserted. “That’s the real big difference between these two bands. One band is unbelievably, luckily, still playing in stadiums, and then the other band doesn’t exist.”

Mick then modestly notes that the Stones weren’t the only act he considered to have were moving past the Beatles in this regard.

“The Led Zeppelin and the Pink Floyd were the two other bands doing that stuff were almost in the same time frame,” the Rolling Stone noted, “there were other bands in there.”

Born more from media sensation than any ill will between the members of either group, The Beatles-Stones rivalry stretches back more than half a century.

The Beatles first met the Stones in 1963 at London’s Crawdaddy Club.

With both bands living in London at the time, members of the respective groups spent a good deal of time together,

“That was a great period,” John Lennon recalled in his 1970 interview with Rolling Stone, “We were like kings of the jungle then, and we were very close to the Stones. I don’t know how close the others were but I spent a lot of time with Brian and Mick. I admire them, you know. I dug them… I spent a lot of time with them, and it was great. We all used to just go around London in cars and meet each other and talk about music with the Animals and Eric and all that. It was really a good time, that was the best period, fame-wise. We didn’t get mobbed so much. It was like a men’s smoking club, just a very good scene.”

During this period McCartney and Lennon would even write the Stones’ the first chart hit ‘I Wanna Be Your Man‘.

As the Stones began dominating British and later American charts the two bands struck up a friendly rivalry.

“We went through some pretty strange times,” Mick Jagger shared while inducting the Beatles into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame in 1988.  “We had a sort of — a lot of rivalry in those early years, and a little bit of friction, but we always ended up friends. And I like to think we still are, ’cause they were some of the greatest times of our lives, and I’m — I’m really proud to be the one that leads them into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.”