The key to the success of The Rolling Stones is that they have always been the sum of their parts. Regardless of the era, each member has brought something vital to the fold and instilled the group with renewed energy, allowing them to dodge the changing of the zeitgeist. One man who was crucial to it all was bassist Bill Wyman, who featured in the lineup during the golden era of 1962 to 1993.
Like his bandmates, frontman Mick Jagger and guitarist Keith Richards, Wyman would also embark on a solo career. Although not as prominent as The Rolling Stones’ principal songwriters, he did score a hit in 1981 with ‘(Si Si) Je Suis un Rock Star’, the lead single from his eponymous third album.
The track was such a success that it peaked at number 14 on the UK Singles Chart and spent nine weeks in the top 40. Wyman originally wrote the song for influential pub rocker Ian Dury. However, after struggling to find anyone interested in taking it, he reluctantly recorded the material himself, using a strange accent he would later call “Cockney French”.
In the track, the bassist sings about picking up a South American woman and flying her to the south of France, where he had lived as a tax exile alongside the rest of The Rolling Stones. However, given the context of the songwriter’s love life and the nature of the lyrics, it makes for some pretty uncomfortable listening in 2023.
Wyman discussed the hit track in 50 Licks: Myths and Stories from Half a Century of The Rolling Stones. “It’s really exciting — it’s like the first time we as a group had a hit; everything feels new again,” he says. “We all have our insecurities and doubts about whether we as individuals are as good alone as our position in a famous band implies we should be.”
“We all feel this way — Mick, Keith, Charlie, Ron — so you always try to do something outside the band to build your confidence and assuage those doubts,” he continues. “I’d attempted that before with two solo albums, but they were done much more for the fun of it and to learn a bit about producing and arranging.”
Despite reluctantly coming around to the idea of recording it himself, ‘(Si, Si) Je Suis un Rock Star’ was what changed everything for his solo career. “But then this song came up, and I did a demo, and everybody said, ‘You’ve got to record that,’” he concluded. “So I did … reluctantly, I might add!”
The track now makes for pretty uneasy listening. Whilst Wyman was famously moderate in his use of alcohol and drugs in comparison to his hedonistic bandmates, he did admit that he became “girl mad” as a psychological crutch instead.
He said in 1987: “This life is incredibly destructive. (You overcome it) but the scars are still there. You still have bad dreams. And you still need a crutch sometimes to get you through. I’m lucky because I don’t know what my crutch has been. I suppose it’s been women. There are so many famous people who turned to drugs and alcohol, but I suppose I became totally girl-mad as my crutch. All of us need to compensate somehow. You’re not normal anyhow. Look at any member of this band. They’re not normal people. We’re all completely nuts in a certain way, aren’t we?”
But the difficult moments for a modern audience arrive when you note the following portion of the lyrics: “We could go on the hovercraft / Across the water / They’ll think I’m your dad / And you’re my daughter”.
This might have been a joke, a simple jibe about an older man with a younger woman, but when you note that the 52-year-old Wyman married the 18-year-old Mandy Smith in 1989, things get decidedly more uncomfortable. Wyman met Smith in 1984 when she was just 13, and he was touching 50. According to in his 1990 autobiography, Stone Alone, he writes of meeting her: “She took my breath away… she was a woman at thirteen.”
Prosecutors even aimed to bring charges against Wyman but ultimately refrained from doing so. In 2013, he claimed he went to the police because of the historic celebrity sex scandals, but they didn’t want to talk to him. “I went to the police, and I went to the public prosecutor and said, ‘Do you want to talk to me? Do you want to meet up with me, or anything like that?’ and I got a message back, ‘No,’” he said. “I was totally open about it.”
Furthermore, the marriage to Smith ended in divorce after only two years. Shedding more light on what occurred, Smith called for the age of consent in the UK to be raised from 16 to 18 back in 2010: “People will find that odd coming from me. But I think I do know what I’m talking about here. You are still a child—even at 16. You can never get that part of your life, your childhood, back. I never could.”
Wyman also regrets his relationship with the teenage Smith. In the 2019 documentary The Quiet One, he says: “I always thought she was the right girl from the moment I met her, but it was the wrong time. She was too young.”
