Music Friday: Mick Jagger Is 'Dancing on Diamonds' in 2023's 'Dreamy Skies'

Welcome to Music Friday when we bring you awesome songs with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the title or lyrics. Today, we take a closer look at The Rolling Stones' 2023 country ballad, "Dreamy Skies," which tells the story of Mick Jagger's yearning to escape the city's sirens and maddening crowds.

Written by Jagger and Keith Richards during the COVID lockdown, "Dreamy Skies" is a place of solitude and recovery — a sanctuary. In the song's first verse, Jagger explains the challenge at hand: "Well, I got to take a break from it all / 'Cause the wind and the wilderness calls / And I just need some peace from the storms / I got to take a break from it all."

And Jagger is not simply looking to book a holiday retreat on some tropical island. He wants to head "way off the grid" where there are no people around for hundreds of miles. Once there, he sings, "I'll be dancing on diamonds, I'll be skating on glass."

"Dreamy Skies" is the sixth track from The Rolling Stones' 24th studio album, Hackney Diamonds, the group's first collection of original music in 18 years. Critics praised this newest work and fans around the world agreed. The album charted in 30 countries and rose to #3 on the US Billboard 200 albums chart.

The reference to "diamonds" in the title of the album was explained by Jagger during a press conference in September of 2023. Hackney is a borough on the north side of London and "Hackney Diamonds" is a slang term to describe pebbles of broken glass that shimmer on the road in the evening.

“Yeah, it’s like when you get your windscreen broken on Saturday night in Hackney, and all the bits go on the street," said Jagger. "That’s Hackney Diamonds.”

With estimated album sales of 240 million, The Rolling Stones rank second on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the Greatest Artist of All Time. The Beatles were #1.

The Rolling Stones formed in London in 1962, and more than 60 years later, original group members Jagger and Keith Richards (both 80) are still selling out the biggest venues on the planet. Upcoming performances are scheduled for East Rutherford, NJ; Las Vegas, NV; Seattle, WA; Foxboro, MA; Orlando, FL; Atlanta, GA; Philadelphia, PA; Cleveland, OH; Denver, CO; Chicago, IL; Vancouver, BC; Los Angeles, CA; and Santa Clara, CA.

Please check out the lyric video of "Dreamy Skies." The lyrics are below if you’d like to sing along…

"Dreamy Skies"
Written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Performed by The Rolling Stones.

Well, I got to take a break from it all
'Cause the wind and the wilderness calls
And I just need some peace from the storms
I got to take a break from it all

And I got to take a break for a while
Where there ain't another human for a hundred miles
I hate being enclosed by the walls
And I got to take a break from it all

I'll be dancing on diamonds, I'll be skating on glass
I'll be chopping up wood, I'll be splitting the halves
An old AM radio is all that I've got
It just plays Hank Williams and some bad honky-tonk
'Cause I got to take a break from it all

And I got to break away from it all
From the city and the suburbs and sprawl
And the small town chatter and the know-it-alls
To a place where no one can call

And I won't hear the sirens or the maddening crowds
Just the bark of a fox and the hoot of an owl
I ain't got no connections or a satellite phone
I'm avoiding the pictures and the people back home
And I just got to break free from it all

You see, it can't last forever, I'll be diving back in
It's good for my soul, yes, it's saving my skin
'Cause I love the laughter, the women, the wine
I just got to break free from it all

But I’m way off the grid, off the trail
I ain’t gonna post and I ain’t gonna mail
I just need some peace from the storm
Well, I got to break away from it all

And I got to break away from it all
And I got to break away from it all
To a place where no one can call
And I got to break away from it all

Credit: Photo by Raph_PH, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.