Sympathy for the Devil

            Doing what society wants an individual to do can eat a person alive. Being different mixes things up and makes the world an interesting and more unique place to live. Life of Keith Richards is an autobiography about Keith Richards, a musician and founder member of the band The Rolling Stones, which tells the story of his life growing up before the life of fame to his crazy adventures to the rock n’ roll lifestyle. Keith Richards takes readers into full detail and emotions on his life growing up as a child with very little, to the struggles of adolescence and bullying and on to the journey towards rock n’ roll fame. Keith’s characteristics are what make him who he is, and what makes him who he is helps him find himself towards the rock n’ roll lifestyle of being, imaginative, brave, academic hatred, artistic and blunt are characteristics that show Keith was born to be a rock n’ roll star all along.   

            Keith Richards was born in December of 1943 east of London in Dartford near the end of World War II and was an only child. Keith being an only child and having two busy working class parents meant that he either had to find friends or use his imagination to entertain himself throughout his childhood. Camping with his parents near a local community during the summer gave Keith a chance to branch out and find some new friends. Sometimes it was hard for Keith and became jealous of other brothers and sisters that had each other instead of being alone but in the end it made him grow up faster.

“Being an only child forces you to invent your world. I’d get a bit jealous sometimes when I saw a family with four brothers and two sisters. But at the same time it makes you grow up. In that you’re basically exposed to the adult world unless you create your own. The imagination comes into play then, and also things to do by yourself” (Richards 38).

Keith was a very brave lad. He was very skinny, scrawny, and had big ears as a kid and didn’t have much defeat against school bullies. Keith would get beat up almost every day after school for no apparent reason. The only reason he could think of was that it was because he was smaller, a year younger than everyone in his class, and called “Monkey” for his big ears. No matter how many times Keith got beat up or how bad the beating was he wouldn’t run away like a coward and he would try his hardest to fight back. All of the bullying lasted up from when he was a younger child to being a teenager, where he became more brave and stood up for other kids getting beat up.  Keith never wanted to fight anyone he just wanted to prevent it.

“I’d spend the whole day wondering how to get home without taking a beating. Which is hard work. Five days a week. There was nothing I could do about it and I would live in fear all day, which ruined my concentration. It took me a long time to figure out how to knock somebody else out instead of me getting it. Then I had a lucky break where I did a bully in by total sheer luck. I was twelve or thirteen.”