Man, I only sleep two hours a day so I've been conscious for several lifetimes. Shame I've missed most of them by being completely out of it. But hey, this is my best guess at what happened so you cats better chill and come for the ride. It ain't free, but we've all gotta pay our dues to the Man.

Dartford. Town of short sentences. It was hard, man. When I got kicked out of the school choir, I thought, "Fuck these cats." That was me done with authority. My guitar. I slept with it, man. You've gotta. It's like running a whorehouse. Fats, Muddy. Music, I was on the black side of town. Mick. He was the greatest R&B singer I ever heard. And I don't mean maybe. Charlie, Bill and Brian. When we were playing Alexis's club it was like we were on another planet. We moved to Edith Grove. Man, that was poverty. Pooftahs living above. Bank robbers below.

Andrew Oldham threw Mick and me together. Said, "Write songs, dudes." Man, my guitar was a mangling, dangling, tangling kinda thang. Tuned it to C. Played a couple of minor breaks. Bobby twiddled some knobs. Charlie hit some back beats. Bill stood in another room. Guess you kinda had to be there.

Satisfaction. Wrote it in my sleep. Then it was hard to tell. They don't make downers like they used to these days. Mandies, reds, Tuinal. Yeah! And the acid. I was tripping with Johnny Lennon. What a lightweight. The chicks. Anita was some sexy bitch. She made the make on me. Then Mick and his small cock made the make on her. Couldn't resist. He was like that. So I had the boinky-boinky-boing with Marianne. I guess we're quits. And she never had the Mars bar. Get me, brother?

We'd had enough of Brian. Long before he died. We heard later some motherfucker said he killed him. Who knows? But even if he did, it would only be manslaughter. Cos Brian was a whining son of a bitch. He could take his narcs, mind. Heroin. Man, it was all around. Gram Parsons. You couldn't find a nicer cat to do cold turkey with. Then, like, it was we gotta get out of town. The pigs were out to bust us. The Man wanted all our cash.

France. Mick was starting to fuck us all off. He got off on flattery. I got off on smack. And how. Exile was epic. Anita looked after Marlon. Yeah, I had a kid. Cool. Perfect accessory for stashing my drugs. I had discovered open tuning. So I played these chords. Mick would sing something in the basement. Bill and Charlie would be in the kitchen. Someone else would be twiddling knobs somewhere. Then someone would move a mike a quarter of an inch. Yawn.

The 70s were hard, man. I hung out with rastas. It is because I is black. And Toronto. Man, what a fuss about an ounce of smack. And it ain't like I was mainlining. Strictly skin-popping. Bill bought me some gear in Canada. One and only time he did anything. It was emotional. Late 70s. Had to stop the heroin. Killing me, man. Luckily, I still had the coke, spliff and Jack Daniels. So I still didn't have a clue what I was doing.

The Stones almost died in the 80s. Mick and me weren't talking. Mick was sucking establishment ass. Anita was just being heavy. So I dumped her. First time I met Patti was in Studio 54. Surrounded by faggots. I was trying to escape Britt Ekland. Nice chick. But Britt, my agenda is full. With Patti I felt safe. It takes a special kind of chick to put up with a rock star only really capable of thinking about himself.

Mick and I kinda made up in the late 80s. Though he's basically still a tosser. And the last 20 years get written off in just a few pages: we haven't made a decent record in years, and the Stones have become kinda dull. But I'm still that dude. Fighting authority. Playing with guns and knives. Hanging out with crims. Counter-cultural in the way only some tax-exile stoner with several hundred million in the bank can be.

Digested read, digested: Inside every ex-junkie. . . is a trainspotter waiting to get out.