The eighth song on the 24th studio album by the Rolling Stones is called Live By the Sword, a succession of variations on the titular maxim about dying by the sword. In truth, it’s not one of the strongest lyrics on Hackney Diamonds. You rather get the impression Mick Jagger came up with the song’s central conceit, realised he’d run out of ideas for variations on the aforementioned titular maxim around the end of the first verse, but boldly decided to press on regardless. “If you’re deep in the crime, you’re deep in the slime,” he avers. “If you live like a whore, you better be hardcore”: well, if you say so, mate.
