Slumpin’ Jack Flash

I’ve just about given up on the Rolling Stones. Consider this the last, desperate plea of a lapsed fan.

Help me, Jerry Hall. You’re my only hope.

On record, if not on stage, it’s obvious that Jumpin’ Jack Flash has been out of gas, gas, gas for 18 years--or half the Stones’ existence.

To remind myself of all that’s gone wrong, I recently took on the chore of revisiting the half-dozen albums of new material dating back to “Tattoo You.” That 1981 release, with its satisfyingly messy rockers and warm ballads, was a pleasure to hear again--the Stones’ last dance with a muse willing to tango.

Listening to the five albums that followed was strictly a professional obligation. They yielded a small handful of tracks that wouldn’t be dwarfed on a mythical box set of Stones goodies. To wend one’s way through “Undercover” (1983), “Dirty Work” (1986), “Steel Wheels” (1989), “Voodoo Lounge” (1994) and “Bridges to Babylon” (1997) was, with rare exceptions, to hear old bones rattling by rote, waiting for the flesh of inspiration to be restored to them in an increasingly unlikely creative resurrection. Listening to late-period Stones is like watching the cut-off tail of a lizard go on twitching after the living creature has skedaddled.

This is where you come in, Jerry.

Massacre Mick in your divorce suit. Don’t settle for just a share of his reported pile of $250 million; grab it all. And while you’re at it, see if you can find a way to clean out Keith Richards too. Something has to get these guys off of their cloud, because living on that stack of loot and playing all those stadium mega-tours clearly has taken them too high in the atmosphere to relate as artists to life on the ground.

For years, most of the Stones’ songwriting has blandly recycled romantic cliches and played off their own tired aura of bad-boy rock ‘n’ roll arrogance. At their best, whether the stance was tenderness, disdain, leering lust, revulsion or jaundiced detachment, Jagger and Richards wrote songs that were teaming with people. With the taunting, debonair Lucifer of “Sympathy for the Devil,” the loathsome libertine of the magnificent “Stray Cat Blues,” the lonely, yearning sojourner of the gorgeous and majestic “Moonlight Mile” and many more, the Stones’ songwriting team fleshed out those sturdy musical bones with memorable characters and images.

But for the second half of their career, they seem to have been writing in front of a mirror, seeing only themselves and the public myth they’ve come to live.

None of this is to disparage the Stones as a live act. Their talents as musicians remain distinctive and undiminished. On the new live album, “No Security,” the heat of the band’s performance allows even the set list’s five helpings of latter-day dross to turn, if not golden, at least into serviceably rocking entertainment while one waits for another classic to come around. I won’t go so far as to say that folks who shelled out $300, $150 or $90 for the best seats at the two Pond shows will get their money’s worth by any sensible economic measure, but I’m sure they will have a good time, and I expect I will too.

Nor are the Stones alone in their second-half creative slump. They’re part of a trend in which Hall of Fame British acts of the ‘60s have little artistic follow-through past the age of 35 or 40. The late ‘80s and ‘90s have brought us flaccid Pink Floyd albums, unbecomingly slick ones by Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood and Rod Stewart, and the (at-best) workmanlike later output of the Kinks, the ex-Beatles and the Who’s Pete Townshend.

It doesn’t have to be that way. There is no lack of ‘60s veterans who still can deliver on record as well as on stage. But they tend to be the ones who stayed grounded and either failed, or refused, to become commercial juggernauts living on clouds.

Consider Neil Young, the epitome of long-running creative vitality in rock. He grew up coping with epilepsy and has raised two sons who have cerebral palsy--experiences bound to steep a creative spirit in the essential stuff of life. Whenever mega-stardom beckoned, Young calculatedly avoided serving up more of what the mass public wanted. He didn’t want to risk the staleness that so often comes with an over-inflated career. Van Morrison, Randy Newman, Lou Reed, Richard Thompson and Merle Haggard are other ‘60s-vintage songwriter-performers who have managed to stay immersed in whatever mysterious stuff it is that fuels an imagination and keeps creativity burning strong.

As for the Stones, I wish they’d give up writing their own stuff and start looking for classy cover material--think of Bob Dylan going back to his sources in traditional folk and blues for two releases after his miserable 1990 album, “Under the Red Sky,” showed that his own songwriting powers had withered. It took the better part of a decade, but with the 1997 album, “Time Out of Mind,” he regained a spark.

Maybe the Stones can follow Dylan’s example. Otherwise, it’s up to you, Jerry. Clean Mick out. Cut him down. Show no sympathy for the devil, and you might just save his artistic soul.