Listen to Mick Jagger’s New Song ‘Strange Game’
Mick Jagger has released a new solo song called "Strange Game." The track serves as the theme for a new Apple TV+ series titled Slow Horses. The first two episodes are available today.
"Working with Mick Jagger has been one of the most exciting collaborations of my professional career," song cowriter Daniel Pemberton said in a press release. "I think we have managed to create an incredibly unique and original [title] theme.”
You can listen to "Strange Game" below.
Slow Horses, a spy thriller starring Gary Oldman, is based on a book series by Mick Herron that follows a group of British intelligence agents that works at Slough House on the outskirts of London, the MI5 branch where demoted or disgraced spies are typically stationed. Gary Oldman stars as one of the spies, Jackson Lamb. The six-part series also features Kristen Scott Thomas, Jonathan Pryce, Olivia Cook and Jack Lowden.
Jagger was already familiar with the story when Pemberton approached him about the project. “It’s a quite popular series of books, so I knew what it was about,” the singer told Variety. “I knew the vibe really well, so as soon as he sent the track to me, I just dashed off a few pages of notes of what I thought it was about. It came very, very quickly, which is always a good sign.”
After Pemberton played him a basic guitar part over Zoom, Jagger started working on the rest of the song. "I just recorded it on my iPhone and sent it to him, and he loved it," the Rolling Stones singer said. "And then we had to do a bit of crafting, trying to get a chorus, calling it ‘Strange Game’ and trying to get the verses from the point of view of the main character. ... It’s quite irreverent, but the Gary Oldman character is irreverent. It’s also slightly eerie, so it combines those two things. You don’t want to make it too serious.”
"Hearing the track for the first time was utterly thrilling," said series director James Hawes. "Mick’s lyrics and performance have totally nailed the mood of Slow Horses, with all the humor and swagger I dreamed of."