How the Rolling Stones Confronted Time on Dirty Work and Steel Wheels

By the mid-80s, the Stones were pushing 40 and dealing with a band on the verge of breaking up. Dirty Work (1986) is their most frayed album—recorded during Jagger’s solo detours and Richards’ heroin battle—so the weariness feels real. Keith’s vocal on “Slipping Away” is a quiet, drawled meditation on losing ground: “I’m slipping away / I think I’m falling down / I feel it coming ’round again.” No defiance, just a guy watching his own fade.

Steel Wheels (1989), the reunion record after a three-year gap, is more combative. “Mixed Emotions” was written by Jagger as a public attempt to patch things up with Richards, but the lyrics also grapple with getting older in the spotlight: “You say you’ll take a pound of my flesh / It’s only the beginning of the end.” The whole album trades the punk hangover of Dirty Work for a rock-hard acceptance—“Almost Hear You Sigh” and “Slipping Away”’s bookend on the later Flashpoint live set show they weren’t done yet, just slower.