Mick Jagger – Master of Systems ManagementJim Morrison and Mick Jagger are arguably the best lead singers rock has ever produced: Morrison’s comportment and lyrics, Jagger’s energy and flair. Jim Morrison’s short wild ride was fueled by his enigmatic stage presence and brazen thought images, built around a mystique of chaos. He wallowed in the haunting darkness, enamored with the great unknown beyond death. He lived in chaos, too, awash in alcohol and drugs, abusing his physical and mental processes. He died at the age of twenty-seven after just four years of performing and recording. His too-short existence was the antithesis of systemization and order.
Mick Jagger, however, has been hammering away for literally fifty years, more than ten times longer than Morrison. Essentially, Jagger is the Rolling Stones’ GM and CEO, carefully attending to the operational detail of the band’s enormously sophisticated touring/recording machine. Eschewing drugs and alcohol in his twenties, and now approaching seventy years of age, he is as fit as a thirty-year-old. Whether he’s creating music, performing, recording, or managing the complexity that is his world, he is a master of systems management.
