You Can't Always Frack What You Want

Susan Phillips

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Susan Phillips tells stories about the consequences of political decisions on people's every day lives. She has worked as a reporter for WHYY since 2004. Susan's coverage of the 2008 Presidential election resulted in a story on the front page of the New York Times. In 2010 she traveled to Haiti to cover the earthquake. That same year she produced an award-winning series on Pennsylvania's natural gas rush called "The Shale Game." She received a 2013 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Journalism Award for her work covering natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania. She has also won several Edward R. Murrow awards for her work with StateImpact. In 2013/14 she spent a year at MIT as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow. She has also been a Metcalf Fellow, an MBL Logan Science Journalism Fellow and reported from Marrakech on the 2016 climate talks as an International Reporting Project Fellow. A graduate of Columbia School of Journalism, she earned her Bachelor's degree in International Relations from George Washington University.

October 15, 2012 | 2:39 PM

Mark Ralston / AFP/Getty Images

Mick Jagger performing onstage during the Grammy Awards Show at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. February 13, 2011.

But if you try some twenty years later, you just might find that you get another hit song. Fracking gets a mention in the Stones’ new single Doom and Gloom, released ahead of their forthcoming greatest hits album GRRR!. But it’s not so much of a comment on the most popular form of gas and oil drilling, as it is part of a long list of doomy and gloomy things Mick Jagger croons on about including drunken airplane passengers, Louisiana zombies, and dark, lonely rooms. There’s no excuse, you have to have heard about fracking by now.
“Fracking deep for oil but there’s nothing in the sump, the kids are pickin’ at the garbage dump. I’m runnin’ out of water so I better prime the pump. I’m tryin’ to stay sober but I end up drunk.”
No surprises here, it sounds like every other Rolling Stones song you’ve ever heard, including the heart wrenching wail of adolescent male angst. Forget about fracking and dry, spent wells, the refrain reveals what it’s always about, getting the girl.
“I’m feelin’ kinda hurt, baby won’t you dance with me.” Oh yeah, and … “take a chance with me.” Groundbreaking stuff.
You can listen to the whole fracking song here.