...but I like it...

 
Merle Haggard

Considering the Rolling Stones recently, and thinking about Mick Jagger, it occurred to me, as it has before, how some people in show business have names that are exactly right for their genre, and those are their actual, real names:  they aren't names that were selected, or dreamed up, to use as their stage name.  (To me, it's a marvelous coincidence.)

        Now, there isn't anything wrong with having an invented stage name - you know, I'm not criticizing that, at all.  Some of them take a stage name because it's easier to spell, pronounce, remember, than their real name.

        In earlier times - more in the 20th Century than our current Century - some actors and actresses with "ethnic"-sounding names were pressured by studios to change to a more Anglo-Saxon sounding name:  hence, Anna Maria Louisa Italiano became "Anne Bancroft."

And some of them take a different name because when they go to get their Screen Actors Guild card, to work professionally, sometimes it happens that someone already in the Guild has that name already, so the person selects a different name, or a variation, or uses a middle initial.

        For example, I read that when Julia Roberts was going to get her SAG card, her name was Julie Roberts, & there was already an actress registered with that name.  So the "Pretty Woman" changed hers from Julie to Julia.

But the ones I'm thinking of here, are people who are show-business performers and they use their real name and it's absolutely perfectly fitting for the type of entertainment they do.  I can think of three, and they're all singers:

Mick Jagger

Loretta Lynn

Merle Haggard

--------------------------- I mean, imagine - if you were born with the name Merle Haggard, you can't really become a minister, or a bond trader, or a college professor - you just have to be a country singer!  LOL - I mean, it just fits.

Loretta Lynn - great name for a country singer.  And Lynn is her real married name.  (Her family name was Webb.)  The alliteration - both the first and last name starting with the letter "L" - helps make it memorable.

        And Mick Jagger - born with that moniker, you're going to have to grow up to be a force to be reckoned with in Rock & Roll, that's it.  

        His name is Michael Philip Jagger.  Mick is a common nickname for Michael, in the UK.  (In the U.S., we use "Mike" more often....)

Mick.  Jagger.

Would it be enough for your cheatin' heart, child? - I said, 

I 

know, 

it's only rock and roll but I like it.  I know, it's only rock and roll, but I like it, like it, yes I do. 

Well I like it - I like it - I like it - I said, can't you see, this ol' boy's been a-lonely?

...

If I could sing - a love song so divine -

Would it be enough for your cheatin' heart,

If I broke down and cried?

I said, I know - it's only rock and roll - but I like it, like it.......................

-30-