Forty Years Apart: Why Foreign Tongues Reminds Me of Dirty Work
- Blair Morgan
- 6 days ago
- 7 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
The reviews are still coming in for Foreign Tongues, and most critics seem relieved simply to have another Rolling Stones album. Fair enough. Mick Jagger is now approaching 83, Keith Richards is 82, and nobody seriously expected another studio record after Hackney Diamonds.
Listening to it, though, I kept thinking of another Stones album - one that almost nobody rates - Dirty Work.
At first glance the comparison sounds ridiculous. One album arrived in the middle of the band's civil war in 1986; the other comes forty years later with Charlie Watts gone and the Stones seemingly in their twilight. Yet the more I listened, the more similarities I heard.
Here are ten reasons why Foreign Tongues feels like the spiritual successor to Dirty Work.
It isn't really a Glimmer Twins album
The official line is that Keith Richards' arthritis has limited both his playing and his ability to tour. Whatever the cause, Foreign Tongues marks the second consecutive Rolling Stones album on which Keith feels more like a supporting player than one of its creative architects.
A clue lies in the songwriting credits. More than a quarter of the album is credited not simply to Jagger/Richards, but to Jagger/Richards/Andrew Watt or Jagger/Richards/Matt Clifford. Watt, the album's producer, and Clifford, from Jagger's inner circle, are hardly household names among Stones fans. Yet their names appearing alongside Jagger and Richards suggests that much of the writing was developed elsewhere rather than emerging solely from the Glimmer Twins. Whether that means they "wrote" the songs is impossible to know, but the final name in the credit often gives a strong clue as to where the fresh creative input came from.
Keith is certainly present. There are flashes of his unmistakable rhythm guitar, and his familiar backing vocals and the omnipresent lead vocal track. More often than not, however, those contributions are folded into Andrew Watt's dense production. The dominant guitar tones belong to Mick Jagger and Ronnie Wood.
Forty years earlier, Dirty Work reflected the opposite problem. Mick's attention was firmly on his first solo album, She's the Boss, leaving Ronnie Wood to co-write several songs with Keith. CBS Records threw its full promotional weight behind Jagger's solo career, Keith felt deeply betrayed, and what became known as "World War III" erupted between the two camps.
Different reasons, same result: a Rolling Stones album where one half of the Glimmer Twins feels like a guest rather than an equal partner.
Great opening... then disappointment
Both albums make a terrific first impression.
Dirty Work opens with one of the most surprising intros in the Stones' catalogue. An off-kilter acoustic guitar strum is suddenly interrupted by one of Keith Richards' trademark chord stabs, raising hopes that "One Hit (To the Body)" will become an instant classic. For a moment, it sounds magnificent. Then Steve Lillywhite's heavily processed, unmistakably 1980s drum sound arrives and the track never quite recovers.
Foreign Tongues offers a similar glimpse. "Rough & Twisted" begins with a wonderfully loose blues riff that could have wandered off Beggars Banquet or Exile on Main St. Ronnie Wood's Faces era ragged slide guitar joins in, and for the first minute you're convinced the Stones have rediscovered their old magic. Then, around the 1:14 mark, the production takes over. The oversized drum sound crashes into the mix, flattening the groove and robbing the performance of the space and swing it promised.
Forty years apart, both albums open by hinting at a classic Rolling Stones record before modern production choices get in the way.
Ronnie Wood becomes indispensable
Whenever the Rolling Stones have become dysfunctional, Ronnie Wood has quietly become the glue holding the sessions together.
With Keith Richards playing a much smaller role on Foreign Tongues, Ronnie steps into the breach just as he did on Dirty Work. Throughout the new album he is everywhere; lead guitar, bass, pedal steel . More than ever, he sounds like the band's principal guitarist.
The same thing happened forty years ago. During the Dirty Work sessions, Charlie Watts' well documented heroin addiction limited his involvement, forcing Ronnie to broaden his contribution even further. As well as co-writing songs with Keith, he played bass and even drums on a couple of tracks. Whenever one of the Stones has been missing in action, whether through injury, addiction or creative disengagement, Ronnie has invariably been the one to fill the gap.
It's easy to overlook Ronnie Wood because he joined the band after its golden era, but these two albums remind us just how indispensable he has become.
Charlie is missing
There is, of course, a very good reason for this in 2026. Charlie Watts passed away in 2021.
Charlie's absence reminds you just how much of the Rolling Stones' swing depended on his relationship with Keith Richards. Steve Jordan is an outstanding drummer, but the feel is fundamentally different. He's also playing under very different circumstances. Without Keith's distinctive rhythm guitar driving the songs, Jordan is often locking in with Mick Jagger's rhythm playing instead. The result is technically accomplished but rarely delivers that unmistakable "roll" which made the Stones unique.
If you want to hear what Steve Jordan sounds like when paired with a fully engaged Keith Richards, put on almost any track from Keith's 1992 solo album Main Offender. The chemistry is immediate, loose and alive-qualities that are often missing from Foreign Tongues.
Ironically, one of the album's strongest moments features Charlie himself on a track recorded before he passed away. "Hit Me in the Head" opens with a trademark Watts drum roll, and his posthumous appearance gives the song a spark and swagger that much of the rest of the album struggles to match.
The producer becomes the fourth Stone
After years of working with Chris Kimsey (the underrated run from 1978 Some Girls through to 1983 Undercover) the Stones turned to Steve Lillywhite then the wonder boy of British guitar bands (U2, Big Country, Simple Minds). Here on Foreign Tongues Andrew Watt, the 35 year old New Yorker continues his association after Hackney Diamonds and working with "oldies" acts (think Paul McCartney, Ozzy Osborne Elton John, Madonna - one cynic went so far to refer to this as "elder abuse")
Both albums bear the fingerprints of the producer as much as the band. Lillywhite brought 1980s arena-rock sheen to Dirty Work. Watt brings compressed, modern rock production to Foreign Tongues. Whether you enjoy either approach probably determines how much you'll enjoy the albums themselves.
Strange cover versions
If you had to pick any song that the Rolling Stones would ever cover , I doubt that Amy Winehouse "You're No Good" would be in any list anywhere. Clearly Jagger likes it and does a good job with some sterling harmonica and subltle changes of lyrics yet the sum doesn't add up to much.
On Dirty Work , Keith took his love of regaae to the hilt and covered "Too Rude", an obscure reggae track by the Jamaican act Half Pint , complete with backing vocals by Jimmy Cliff and drums by Ronnie. It was one of the weaker tracks on the album
Promotion revolves around Mick and Ronnie
The shift isn't confined to the music, it extends to the album's promotion.
Across many of the major interviews, television appearances and media features surrounding Foreign Tongues, Keith Richards appears increasingly peripheral. The spotlight falls overwhelmingly on Mick Jagger and Ronnie Wood, a pattern that continued at the London launch party where the pair performed several songs live minus Keith.
It's an echo of the Dirty Work era, albeit for very different reasons. In 1985 and 1986 the public face of the band revolved around Mick as he pursued his solo career. Today, the partnership that seems to define the Rolling Stones is Mick and Ronnie, with Keith appearing more like an elder statesman than one half of the Glimmer Twins.
The artwork misses the mark
For a band whose tongue and lips logo is one of the most recognisable images in popular culture, the Rolling Stones have had remarkably little luck with album covers over the past fifty years. Personally, I don't think they've produced a genuinely great cover since Black and Blue in 1976.
Foreign Tongues does nothing to change that opinion. Its cover is a garish collage of what appear to be weather beaten images of Mick Jagger, Ronnie Wood and Keith Richards, somehow managing to look both overworked and unfinished.
Then again, Dirty Work wasn't exactly a triumph either. Who thought dressing the band in pastel suits in 1986 was a good idea? The awkward pose, complete with Keith delivering a not so subtle knee into Mick's midriff, perfectly captured the uncomfortable mood surrounding the band at the time. It remains one of the least compelling album covers in the Stones' catalogue.
They are not touring
One of the most striking similarities between Dirty Work and Foreign Tongues is that neither album has been accompanied by a tour.
In 1986, the Rolling Stones simply weren't functioning as a band. Mick Jagger was focused on his solo career, Keith Richards was insisting the band should hit the road, and the relationship between the two had deteriorated to such an extent that a world tour was never a realistic possibility.
Different causes. Same outcome. Both albums arrived at moments when the Rolling Stones were unable,or unwilling,to take their music onto the stage.
The last album
In 1986, many of us genuinely believed Dirty Work would be the final Rolling Stones album. The band seemed exhausted, divided and creatively spent. Somehow they regrouped and went on to enjoy another four decades.
This time feels different.
Charlie Watts is gone. Keith Richards contributes less than ever. Mick Jagger remains astonishingly energetic, Ronnie Wood has become the band's mainstay and Andrew Watt has helped drag them into another decade. But Foreign Tongues has the unmistakable feel of a closing chapter.
Then again, we all thought that forty years ago.
As Mick quipped while accepting a Lifetime Achievement Grammy in 1986, just as Dirty Work was about to arrive: "For those who took the piss, the joke's on you."
With the Rolling Stones, predicting the end has always been a dangerous game.
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