Nellecôte was a crumbling pile, and the musicians, some of them with serious drug problems, moved around it in a constant hedonistic reverie which recalled the doomed grandeur of a Scott Fitzgerald novel. Richards, a kind of junk sick Louis XIV, a countercultural sun king, adapted to this Gatsby on heroin aesthetic very easily, falling out of bed at midday and strolling downstairs to work on the album that many music fans consider the greatest rock and roll record ever made. Somehow an English band, working in France, managed to lay down a record that toured through the short history of rock & roll (and some of it's long pre-history) conjuring up the mystery, the sensuality, darkness and sheer exuberance of an art form that had begun centuries before in Africa, found root in the southern states of America, and was honed and perfected by anonymous black guitar
players, who trudged the cotton fields and back roads at night, beneath the
Mason-Dixon line. Many people believe the title of seminal work relate to the Stones leaving English shores. The truth is sensationally different.

One imagines the Stones intended no overall statement, their modus operandi simply being the making of good records for a massive fan base that stretched to the four corners of
the earth. This viewpoint was the polar opposite to James Douglas Morrison of California, who had become famous for making ever more didactic, bombastic, half baked, self aggrandising music, which had grown from adolescent braggadocio, through booze sodden poetics to bearded obfuscatory jeremiads usually aimed, in a subliminal way, at America: mass graveyard of native Indians; America: expert purveyor of mindless rubbish; America: hatchery of sexually small-minded women and charnel house of dreams...

By '71 Morrison was also in France, gay, sprightly land of refinement and considered hedonism. A fully paid up wine bibbing drunken acid casualty, overweight and bearded, he had moved, to borrow from Melville, from being Billy Budd to Father Mapple, a hairy finger wagging mystic glowering at the world from his pulpit of rock & roll fame.  Jim had reached the
staring-into-mirrors-and-questioning-one's-sense-of-identity stage of rock star-hood and it's concomitant drink and drug abuse. He'd always been an admirer of the Stones, but on meeting them in a hotel room some time after Altamont, he’d come off rather badly in freewheeling conversation with Mick and Keef about the responsibilities and ethics of the rock star.

So, after reading in Le Monde that the Dartford rockers were creating a ranagazoo on French soil, he set off to find them, this time grimly determined to make an impression.

                        Morrison arrived on a sweltering afternoon. The rusty Renault that had brought him from the station pulled up outside Nellecôte and the driver leaned around and shook the obese singer. Morrison, who'd consumed a litre of red wine on the train down, shook his head and awoke, coughing.
Handing the rabbity French cabby a handful of notes he staggered up the front steps. His hair fell around his head like parched foliage; his belly stuck out like a middle aged construction worker and his beard was covered in the grease of a large carnivorous Parisian lunch. Silence reigned but for the scrape of his cowboy boots. Somewhere in the distance he could hear an
electric guitar.

He hammered on the front door and lit a Gauloise. Five minutes passed and Anita Pallenberg opened the front door looking only slightly rougher than when she had opened the door of Jagger's house to James Fox in Performance four years earlier. She looked Morrison up and down. 

"Uh huh, and uh who are you?"

Morrison gave his trademark grin, which didn't make him look elliptical anymore, just bibulous and fat.

"I'm Jim. Man."

"Jim who?"

"Jim Morrison of the Doors."

"The Doors? Oh yeah...... Come in...."

She showed Morrison through the hall. 

"What brings you here? You know the boys don't like being interrupted."

"Well, I just thought I'd pop my head round the door man..."
 
 

As they approached a set of large double doors, Morrison became aware of an incredibly loud, chiming electric guitar sound. Churning riffs, clanging chords and the odd melodic fill.  Pallenberg indicated the door with a flourish of her arm.

"He's in there. Hope you got ear goggles."

Morrison opened the door and walked into a large room, full of sunlight.  The walls sloped away to a distant ceiling and standing the middle, slashing away at a telecaster, was Keith Richards, his face lean and ravaged, eyes in shadow, wearing a sort of frayed gaucho outfit. He nodded to Morrison. In a chair somewhere on the distant left, sprawled Gram Parsons, his drug buddy and country music tutor, milk white in the face, apparently asleep. Richards looked Morrison up and down. He didn't stop playing.  Indeed he played on for another six or seven minutes, hitting chord extensions and striking poses whilst the lizard king sat down took in the room. Bare floorboards, numerous amps, an unattended drum kit, empty wine bottles and more than a dozen ashtrays scattered around. Richards’ playing penetrated into Morrison. Much to his inner chagrin, he got a buzz out of the music. It's clanging melodies chimed inside him. It struck him that here was just the sort of guitar player he could gel with. Ravaged beauty with a dark rhythm.

Eventually, Richards stopped playing and put his guitar down. Morrison stood up and went
over to Richards.

"Nice place."

Richards flicked those eyes up and gave Morrison his 'good evening, I'm Count Dracula' look.

"It's...Morrison isn't it?" he said in his dissipated English drawl.

"That's right."

"You look like you've been..........enjoying yourself."

Morrison patted his stomach.

"Yeah, looks like I'm going to have to get some bigger clothes."

Richards lit a cigarette and grinned.

"To much Morrison and not enough trouser, eh? If you've come down to….. score some poppy, I've got just about enough to keep everyone here going.  Sorry old cock, that's the way things are......"

"No man, no I was just passing through...."

 Richards began to walk towards the door.

"Well" he said, looking over his shoulder, "I think that pretty much goes for all of us......y’know.”

Richards disappeared to find out who exactly had let the fat singer in.  Morrison glanced over at Gram Parsons. He went and sat down next to the pasty-faced singer and nudged him. Parson's opened his eyes, his swollen veal white face looking a country mile different from the handsome singer who stared out from the cover of the Burrito Brothers albums.

Parsons' eyes swiveled round to Morrison.

"Morrison?..... is this real?"

Morrison patted Parsons on the back.

“Yeah, it's real.... it's me, Jim."

Parsons, like Morrison, had given himself up to debauch, and was now regularly committing excesses above his strength, in his efforts to keep up with Richards, who had the constitution of a lion and, of course, two livers.

"We're a long way from home Jim......."
Parsons spoke in cracked delirious whisper.

"That we are.... That...we are."

"We're in........exile..."

"...exile..man..."

At that moment Parsons' long suffering bile duct rebelled and he projectile vomited a greasy foul smelling admixture of half digested eggs and bacon, red wine and heroin all over Morrison. 

"Yuck jeeezus man!"

Parsons wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his decaying Nudie suit.  Morrison picked up a towel that was wrapped around a Gretch and did his best to wipe the vomit out of his hair and eyes.

"Sorry Jim" said Parsons, spitting into an ashtray. He sat back wearily and closed his eyes; “I’m not feelin’ well you know….”

Mick Taylor, the youthful replacement of Brian Jones, strolled into the room. Two years up the wrong end of the playground with the big boys had wiped the bloom of youth off him, and today he looked particularly gloomy, a saturnine young man with a large boil on his neck. He strapped on his red and black Gibson and began to play savage Chicago blues. He looked across at Morrison.

"Morrison."

"That's right. Hi there..."

"What's that in your hair?"

"Gram was ill."

“Oh. Right.”

Bill Wyman came in next, a beaky little man whose expectations as a musician had stretched no further than playing weddings, pubs and the occasional bingo hall, he walked carefully through the rock & roll madness, with a baleful stare and a Rothmans cigarette idling at all times between his fingers; much the same as Charlie Watts, the drummer, whose hang dog expression spoke of a general regret and mourning for a time when
trousers were not flared, suits had style and you bought your Durex with your weekly haircut. Wyman began tuning up and Watts kicked at the bass drum pedal. Taylor turned to Wyman.

"Is the star arriving today?"

"Dunno, I fink that's the plan" said Wyman in a lowered voice with his eyes on the door.

"And" continued Taylor "Is he bringing Bianca The Wanker with him?"

"Dunno" said Charlie.

Then Richards reeled back in, cackling demonically at some wisecrack of Bobby Keyes’, clearly in an euphoric, dosed-up state. Keith picked his Fender up and turned to the band.

"Let's jam in G."

He hit a chiming chord and the rest followed him in. Keyes adjusting his mike for the saxophone around his neck. Richards set up a strutting rhythm, Taylor throwing in ice cold lead lines with Keyes tooting a rude saxaphonic leer over the top. It was a great sound. Morrison, watched, tapping his feet and dragging on a cigarette. He noticed a bottle of wine on the floor next to him; taking a long drag he stood up; he had an idea.
 
 

"I fink Keef's idea of slumming it down here was bloody stoopid."

Michael Philip Jagger, hair at shoulder length, lips apout, sat with his legs crossed genteelly in the rear of a chauffeur driven Bentley, holding hands with his exotic new wife, Bianca. He was dressed in a fashionably cut, immaculate white suit, which he'd purchased in Paris that morning.  Bianca was reading about herself in Vogue. Jagger looked out at the
French countryside.

"I wouldn't read whilst we're driving honey, you might get sick. Keef was sick in here a couple of months ago and the cost of the cleaning job made me a bit cross. Actually. It's astonishing what they charge for a full valet on a Bentley."

Bianca looked up from the paper.

"Maybe we should buy a Harley Davidson."

"I fink motorbikes are for hooligans." he replied airily, “I wonder what sort of domestic arrangements Keith's sorted out? I suppose he's approached it with his usual finesse: three smack dealers living in the west wing and a load of cold shepherd’s pie in the kitchen. God, I wish I was in LA. I'm on a short fuse today Bianca my dear..."

Meanwhile, at the Chateau, Morrison was fronting the Rolling Stones. Moving and shaking at the microphone, finger snapping and stamping his feet. Richards was chopping out his rhythms and grinning. Wyman looked disgusted; Taylor had a bemused smile and Charlie ploughed on grimly, thinking about the day's first dry martini. Morrison leaned into the mike stand, huge, heavy and bawling, where Jagger was sprightly, energetic and drawling.  They were running through 'Brown Sugar', and Morrison was making his mark on this rocking paean to poontang:

Zum bum bumba zamma hoobahooba hooba
Shooookerookakak just around midnight
Hey brown sugar
Death and my cock are the world!
whooooooooh yeah brown sugar
the killer awoke before dawn yeah man
hooba hooba hooba

He took another slug from the wine bottle. Wyman rolled his eyes.  Bobby Keyes, severely fucked, lay down on the floorboards on his back, playing the sax with his eyes shut. Richards kept slashing away at his guitar, eyes shut, grinning. 

Jagger's Bentley rounded into the long drive at Nellecôte and cruised down between lines of sun dappled chestnut trees. He looked out the window warily at the crumbling chateau.

“Blimey, old Keith's gone all Jane Eyre inne? Mind you I bet it's a shit hole inside."

Jagger retrieved a tiny phial of cocaine from a special compartment beneath the back seat. He tapped a small amount out on his finger and unobtrusively sniffed it. When he made entrances, he liked to have that little extra edge and he imagined that the band wasn't going to be exactly friendly towards him, absent member, prima donna of the jet set rockerocracy. The Bentley pulled up and he and Bianca climbed out putting on their his-and-hers mirror aviator sunglasses, Jagger adjusting his enormous leopardskin trilby hat in the windows of the car. He spoke to the chauffeur.

"I wouldn't unload our luggage just yet, we might not be staying long."

In the music room, the band was jamming a grinding blues progression out. Morrison was now three parts drunk and scatting along to the music.

heheheheheeeehhaaaaapapa
We is in Exile! Exile from the man
Exile from the wooo man
We is far from home, driven away by suits and pay
We is in exile in the main
Exiles! Exiles! Eeeeeeeeeeeexxxxxxxxiles Exiles on........Main
Streeeeeet!!!

Keith nodded. Jagger walked in. Nobody stopped. Morrison continued his reeling at the mike. Jagger, who had not removed his hat or sunglasses, walked slowly up and down in front of the band, looking at Morrison, examining the bloated singer's vomit dregged head. Eventually the music came to a halt, and Morrison, who had had his eyes shut, slowly opened
them. 

Jagger took off his hat and sunglasses and looked at the Lizard King.

"James. You're looking very well. Very well indeed. Keith, how are you?"

Richards lit a Marlboro.

"Afternoon."

Jagger caught Richards' eyes. They stared at each other.

 "New singer?"

"You weren't around baby, so.... our American friend took over.  I liked it, it .....er was real and that was....nice. Made a change. You know?"

Jagger looked affronted; he spoke in a high peevish whine.

“Made a change? Made a bloody change?"

Richards, his dope eyes moving slowly in his head, picked up a glass of wine and sat down on an antique sofa.

"Look Mick....."

Morrison was still standing the position he'd been in when Jagger walked in: legs akimbo, head resting on one shoulder, his eyes following Jagger around the room.

Jagger continued.

"Don't look Mick me. What the fuck is going on?"

In the corner Gram Parsons leant forward and was sick on the floor.  Jagger pointed to him.

"He's still hanging around? I thought I told you to get rid of him?"

Keith grimaced.

"That's it baby.....keep on. The cat started singing alright? Matter of fact he was doin' a good job of it. Made a change not having fucking Noel Coward down the front, bitchin' and moanin', you know?"

"And now, not content with having son of Hank Williams over there hanging around, we've also got 'im."

Mick went over to the door.

"Could somebody get me and my wife a cup of coffee?" he shouted.

Morrison spoke,

"Mick man, I just dropped by."

Jagger was waltzing past Morrison, his hands on his hips.

"Well, you can just un-drop by, can't you?"

Richards stood up unsteadily.

"Maybe I want him to stay."

Charlie watched from his drum stool. He could smell trouble. He dragged lightly on his cigarette.  Wyman yawned and farted, very quietly.  Jagger who was mincing past Richards, performed a cartwheel and came out of it standing in front of Gram Parsons. He looked down at the American singer.

"Urrrrrrghgh. How disgusting." he turned and walked back towards Keith.

"Lovely company you're keeping Keith, I suppose you want to be hauled out of a fucking swimming pool do you?”

Richards flicked his cigarette at Jagger, hitting him on the side of the face. Jagger leapt back.

"What the fuck's got into you?"

Morrison took a slug on his wine bottle and spoke.

"Maybe he's had enough of you?"

Jagger whirled around grinning.

"What? And you're gonna be frontman? Heheheheh. You don't really know Keith all that well do you James? He's cooked up at the moment. By half eight tonight he'll have you slung out with the trash. Isn't that right Keith?"

Jagger looked in a mirror, wet his fingers and smoothed out his eyebrows.

"Charles, what do you say?"

Watts loosened his $175 tie and blew smoke.

"I think it's a storm in a tea cup."

Morrison tapped Jagger on the back.

"I said maybe he's had enough of you?"

Jagger leapt back into a pseudo martial art stance.

"Take your fucking hands of me fatso."

Morrison laughed. He looked at Richards.

"Hey Keith-"

"Don't call me Keith baby. I ain't in the mood for singers you know?  Not skinny prima donnas, not fat crooners..."

He walked over to a small table and picked up a pencil and started to write on the wall, on the antique wallpaper.

Jagger watched him, they all did.

"Exile on Main St.?" said Mick.

Richards stood back and admired his handiwork.

"Yeah, that's the record I'm making here. Now you can fuck off Mick, and take him with you. I'll see you in LA."
Jagger began to protest. Richards picked his Fender up and began to clang away at it, drowning him out. The rest of the band joined in.  Morrison grabbed the mike but Richards switched it off. He shouted in Morrison's ear.

"Here, take this.... by way of payment..."

He dropped a small amount of heroin into Morrison's hand, then mouthed the words 'Fuck off'.

Jagger had already flounced out. Morrison followed slowly, his jowly midriff lolling at every step. Wyman smiled at Charlie. In the corridor, thinking the heroin was some French green hashish; Morrison swallowed it down in one.

Outside on the gravel, Jagger was standing near his Bentley, drinking coffee from a small chintzy cup. Morrison creaked slowly down the steps in his vomit splattered cowboy boots.

“Mick, could I grab I ride with you?"

Mick looked vexed. He didn't want this vomit stained weird beard anywhere near him.

"Well, it's not terribly convenient, actually James."

Bianca leaned out of the window.

"Jim! Hey Jim Morrison! I love your songs. Where are you going?"

"Hi, back to Paris."

"Hey, well so are we! It'll be fun Mick! Jump in!"

"Oh bleedin' hell...."

Morrison looked at him.

"Bleeding hell? You know you've got a way with words Mick. Much like myself"

Morrison climbed in; little bits of Gram Parson's vomit flaking off him. Jagger climbed in, with a look of severe displeasure.

"Right, to Paris and don't spare the horses."

The Bentley slid down the drive. Inside Morrison sat between Jagger and
Bianca. Jagger seething, staring out of the window.  Morrison began to feel extremely unwell, the heroin beginning to dissolve in his stomach.

"Jesus man."

Jagger turned to him.

"What's the matter with you?"

Morrison threw up, his wine stained effluvium spurted fountain-like from his mouth, spattering Jagger, Bianca, the back of the chauffeur's head, the pristine white interior and the walnut and silver drinks cabinet.  Bianca screamed and Jagger turned slowly to Morrison, his white suit now horribly defiled with sick. He opened his mouth to speak.

Back at the chateau, Richards was singing new words the improvisation they started with Morrison.

"You gotta ro-ooooooooooooooll me and call me the tumblin' diiiiiiiice!"

The English vampire chugged on.............
 

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