From the "This is what happens when you fall out of a palm tree" department:
The London Telegraph has reported that Keith Richards is contemplating releasing a CD in which the Rolling Stones guitarist renders renditions of some favorite songs that one--maybe make that everyone else on the entire planet except him--probably wouldn't think could dent, let alone lodge, inside the notorious musical bad boy's bean.
Then again, the soon to be 65-year-old Richards has somehow outlived his own "Live fast, die young, leave a beautiful corpse" credo of existence. And while he may be the miraculous exception to the rule of the actuarial outcome of a lifestyle based on sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll and the occasional transfusion (as in the longstanding one-liner "Every February I have to go to Switzerland to get my blood changed")--it's still something of a shock to find out that over the last few years in his Stones down time, when he hasn't been busy snorting his old man's ashes, Keef has been recording versions of some songs that, if nothing else, should immediately go into heavy rotation at assisted living facilities worldwide.
We're talking tunes like "The Nearness of You," written in 1941 by "Stardust" composer Hoagy Carmichael; "I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now," once recorded by that notorious ne'er do well, Perry Como; and, oh yes, a "jazzy" take on Judy Garland's Wizard of Oz classic "Somewhere Over The Rainbow."
Of course, we're not going to put it past Mick Jagger's fellow Glimmer Twin to make it all somehow work. And the list of 20 or so songs supposedly on the Richards set list does include several cool country classics, such as Tammy Wynette's "Apartment No. 9" and fellow rock 'n' roll survivor Jerry Lee Lewis' "She Still Comes Round (To See What's Left Of Me)."
As "Captain Teague" told his boy Jack Sparrow: The trick isn't just surviving; it's to survive living with yourself, forever."
Just as long as he doesn't try "Wild Horses" as "Wild Wheelchairs."