ABSTRACT
In this essay, I draw on two existential principles to explore the role of excess as a value not only for the construction of the Rolling Stones’ notorious image and as a fundamental theme in their music but for the band members themselves, and especially for Brian Jones. The first is Jean-Paul Sartre’s notion of the gratuitous excessiveness of human reality as ‘too much’ (de trop), which provides a useful concept for demonstrating how the freedom and responsibility inherent in our very nature became a burden that Jones simply could not bear, especially as the Stones morphed increasingly into cultural avatars of excess. The second is Ludwig Binswanger’s principle of ‘extravagance’ (Verstiegenheit), the neurotic condition of having gone too far or too high in our attempts to become the masters of ourselves and our being-in-the-world. It is in this latter state that Jones began his ultimate free fall during the making of Beggars Banquet, the victim of his own existential self-exile as much as his abandonment by his bandmates, just as the Stones were ascending beyond pop stardom and into the realm of rock superstars.
