The Political Heat and Band Friction Behind the Rolling Stones' 'Undercover'

The Rolling Stones’ 1983 album Undercover arrived in the middle of the Reagan–Thatcher era, with Cold War tension spiking and U.S. military interventions in Central America escalating. Mick Jagger had become vocal about these issues—the title track “Undercover of the Night” isn’t about sex or drugs, but about death squads, political disappearances, and the violence propped up by U.S. policy in countries like El Salvador and Nicaragua. It was the