It’s been 13 years since Maroon 5 and Christina Aguilera topped charts with “Moves Like Jagger,” and still nobody loves it more than Mick Jagger himself. On Wednesday, he posted an Instagram Reel of himself dancing to the song as played by a covers group in a bar with a decent crowd on the dance floor. But the band performs the song as if it’s too a stadium full of rabid Marooniacs, and Jagger responds by showing how, at age 80, he’s still got the moves.
The Stones singer waves his arms, and smiles for the camera, laughing at the irony with his friends in the clip. He crouches and grabs his crotch, strutting around like it’s the “Start Me Up” video, while everyone else in the place remains completely oblivious. “Moves like who !” Jagger captioned the video.
Jagger’s enthusiasm for the song isn’t surprising, though, since he embraced it pretty much since right when it came out in 2011. A few years ago, Ultimate Classic Rock complied a few quotes from Jagger reacting to the tune, and they’re all positive. “It’s very flattering, isn’t it? Hilarious,” Jagger told the BBC.
And he told The Sun he was jealous of the tune. “I wish I had written it,” he said. “But wouldn’t that be weird? It’s not really like a Maroon 5 song, so they’re probably as surprised by the success of it as I am. … It’s very catchy. It’s funny. Only thing is, it puts pressure on me when I go out dancing!”
During a Top 10 bit on The Late Show With David Letterman titled “Top 10 Things I, Mick Jagger, Have Learned After 50 Years in Rock N’ Roll,” one of his teachings was: “You don’t earn a cent when someone does a song called ‘Moves Like Jagger.’”
Shortly after the tune came out, Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine unpacked how it was made for NPR. “Only Jagger has the moves like Jagger,” he said. “That being said, if there was ever someone to aspire to … I don’t think anyone could claim to have the moves like James Brown, or the moves like Michael Jackson, or the moves like Prince. There’s something about the way [Jagger] moves that is uniquely his own and hard to imitate, but also accessible and silly and fun, and not taking itself too seriously.”
But Jagger, who is a well-documented James Brown fan may disagree. In a 2012 Rolling Stone article by his brother, Christopher Jagger, Mick said he appreciated the cross-generational appeal of the song. “It’s good, isn’t it?” Mick said. “Sure, I was very flattered by it, and it’s nice to see the connections between generations, because I used that in my time, too.”
