Keith Richards Calls America ‘A Bit of a Disappointment’ Ahead of New Stones Album

The guitarist’s comments come as the band’s new album ‘Foreign Tongues’ arrives July 10, featuring a song widely read as a meditation on American decline.

Keith Richards, who has lived in Connecticut since 1985, told the Sunday Times that America feels like ‘a bit of a disappointment at the moment,’ framing the remark around the Rolling Stones’ upcoming album ‘Foreign Tongues,’ due July 10. The comments center on ‘Ringing Hollow,’ a track on the record that both Richards and Mick Jagger have addressed in separate interviews, with each stopping short of calling it a direct anti-Trump statement while acknowledging its roots in the current American political and social climate.

Richards and Jagger Address ‘Ringing Hollow’

Richards, speaking to the Sunday Times, described ‘Ringing Hollow’ as being about having ‘a nostalgic love affair with America, and [it being] a bit of a disappointment at the moment.’ He declined to confirm or deny whether the song directly references President Trump, but added that he has ‘got my steel helmet and live[s] in a bunker’ and that the financial strain felt by people around him is palpable. ‘All you hear is the moaning about the price of gas. This is where it hurts people,’ he said.

In a separate interview with MOJO, Jagger offered his own framing. He said the song is about ‘America generally and your experiences of it,’ and while it isn’t ‘only about’ Trump’s America, it engages with broader questions of national identity and power. ‘The American Dream is intact for some people, and I’m sure we can find some wonderful immigrant stories that happened in the last 12 months, but we read about the decline of the American Empire,’ Jagger said. ‘It’s not the same at all, but there are a lot of questions about imperial overreach, and the lobbying system.’

According to reporting by Far Out, the song includes the lyric: ‘Lady Liberty don’t look so good when there’s a tear in her gown.’

A Long History of Clashes With Trump

The Stones’ complicated relationship with Trump stretches back nearly a decade. In May 2016, the band issued a statement saying they had not given permission for Trump to use their 1969 song ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ at campaign events and demanded he ‘cease all use immediately.’ Trump defied the request, playing the track at the end of his 75-minute speech to Republican party members in Cleveland that July.

In the summer of 2019, Jagger took a dig at Trump onstage following comments the president made in his Independence Day speech. Later that year, Jagger also condemned Trump’s environmental rollbacks directly. ‘We are in a very difficult situation at the moment, especially in the US, where all the environmental controls that were put in place have been rolled back by the current administration so much that they are being wiped out,’ Jagger said at the time. ‘The US should be the world leader in environmental control but now it has decided to go the other way.’

In 2020, the band issued another formal warning, threatening a lawsuit if Trump continued using their music at rallies and events.

What Else Is on ‘Foreign Tongues’

Beyond the political undertones of ‘Ringing Hollow,’ ‘Foreign Tongues’ arrives with a notable guest list. The album features contributions from Paul McCartney, Robert Smith of The Cure, Bruno Mars, and Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, among others. It also includes a cover of Amy Winehouse’s ‘You Know I’m No Good.’

Jagger has separately indicated that the creative momentum is not slowing down, telling one outlet that he is already writing material for a follow-up record.

What we know

• The Rolling Stones’ album ‘Foreign Tongues’ is scheduled for release on July 10.
• Keith Richards has lived in Connecticut since 1985, more than four decades.
• Richards described ‘Ringing Hollow’ as being about a ‘nostalgic love affair with America, and [it being] a bit of a disappointment at the moment.’
• Mick Jagger told MOJO the song is about ‘America generally and your experiences of it’ and is not ‘only about’ Trump’s America.
• The album features contributions from Paul McCartney, Robert Smith of The Cure, Bruno Mars, and Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and includes a cover of Amy Winehouse’s ‘You Know I’m No Good.’
• In May 2016, the Stones issued a statement saying Trump had not been given permission to use ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ and demanded he cease use immediately.
• In 2020, the Rolling Stones issued a warning to Trump that he could face a lawsuit if he continued using their music at rallies.

The take

The Rolling Stones have never been shy about politics, but they have historically preferred the oblique to the explicit. ‘Street Fighting Man,’ ‘Sympathy for the Devil,’ and ‘Salt of the Earth’ all carried social weight without becoming campaign literature, and the band’s instinct here appears similar. Both Richards and Jagger are threading a careful needle with ‘Ringing Hollow,’ acknowledging the song’s American subject matter while resisting the reductive ‘anti-Trump anthem’ label that would flatten its meaning and invite the kind of rally-playlist controversy the band has spent years fighting in court. That history matters. The Stones have had to formally threaten legal action against Trump’s campaign more than once, and a song explicitly named as opposition research would only invite another round. The guest list on ‘Foreign Tongues’ also signals something worth noting: at this stage of their career, the Stones are operating less as a touring juggernaut and more as a curatorial institution, pulling in collaborators across generations and genres. McCartney, Bruno Mars, and Robert Smith on the same record is a statement about the band’s cultural reach as much as it is a creative choice. For a band now recording without Charlie Watts, each album carries additional weight as a document of what the Stones still are.

Why it matters

For Classic Rock listeners, the Stones remain one of the last acts whose new material carries genuine cultural stakes. A record that grapples with American decline, features a who’s-who of rock and pop collaborators, and arrives amid real political turbulence is the kind of release that demands engagement beyond nostalgia. Whether ‘Foreign Tongues’ lands as a definitive statement or a transitional record, the conversation Richards and Jagger are starting around it confirms the band still sees itself as a participant in the culture, not a museum piece.

What’s next

The Rolling Stones’ album ‘Foreign Tongues’ is due for release on July 10. Mick Jagger has indicated he is already writing material for a subsequent album.

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