(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction

Keith Richards wrote "Satisfaction" in his sleep and recorded a rough version of the riff on a Philips cassette player. He had no idea he had written it.[4] He said when he listened to the recording in the morning, there was about two minutes of acoustic guitar before you could hear him drop the pick and "then me snoring for the next forty minutes".[5] Sources vary as to where this story happened. While they make reference to a hotel room at the Fort Harrison Hotel in Clearwater, Florida,[6] a house in Chelsea, and the London Hilton,[7] Richards wrote in his most recent autobiography that he was in his flat in Carlton Hill, St. John's Wood. He specifies that Mick Jagger wrote the lyrics by the pool in Clearwater, four days before they went into the studio,[4] hence the confusion.

The Rolling Stones first recorded the track on 10 May 1965 at Chess Studios in Chicago, Illinois,[8] which included Brian Jones on harmonica. The Stones lip-synched to a dub of this version the first time they debuted the song on the American music variety television programme Shindig![9] The group re-recorded it two days later at RCA Studios in Hollywood, California, with a different beat and the Maestro fuzzbox adding sustain to the sound of the guitar riff.[10][11] Richards envisioned redoing the track later with a horn section playing the riff: "this was just a little sketch, because, to my mind, the fuzz tone was really there to denote what the horns would be doing."[10] The other Rolling Stones (Jones, Watts, and Wyman), as well as producer and manager Andrew Loog Oldham and sound engineer David Hassinger eventually outvoted Richards and Jagger so the track was selected for release as a single.[11][12] The song's success boosted sales of the Gibson fuzzbox so that the entire available stock sold out by the end of 1965.[13]

Like most of the Stones' pre-1966 recordings, "Satisfaction" was originally released in mono only. In the mid-1980s, a true stereo version of the song was released on German and Japanese editions of the CD reissue of Hot Rocks 1964–1971. The stereo mix features a piano (played by session player Jack Nitzsche, who also provides the song's iconic tambourine) and acoustic guitar that are barely audible in the original mono release (both instruments are also audible on a bootleg recording of the instrumental track). This stereo mix of "Satisfaction" also appeared on a radio-promo CD of rare stereo tracks provided to US radio stations in the mid-1980s, but has not yet been featured on a worldwide commercial CD; even later pressings of the German and Japanese Hot Rocks CDs feature the mono mix, making the earlier releases with the stereo mix collectors' items. For the worldwide 2002 reissue of Hot Rocks, an alternative quasi-stereo mix was used featuring the lead guitar, bass, drums, and vocals in the center channel and the acoustic guitar and piano "split" left and right via a delay effect.[14]

Guitar riff from "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction"

The song opens with the guitar riff, which is joined by the bass halfway through. It is repeated three times with the drums and acoustic guitar before the vocal enters with the line: "I can't get no satisfaction." The key is E major, but with the 3rd and 7th degree occasionally lowered, creating – in the first part of the verses ("I can't get no ...") – a distinctive mellow sound. The accompanying chords (i.e. E major, D major and A major) are borrowed from the E mixolydian scale, which is often used in blues and rock.

The title line is an example of a negative concord. Jagger sings the verses in a tone hovering between cynical commentary and frustrated protest, and then leaps half singing and half yelling into the chorus, where the guitar riff reappears. The lyrics outline the singer's irritation and confusion with the increasing commercialism of the modern world, where the radio broadcasts "useless information" and a man on television tells him "how white my shirts can be – but he can't be a man 'cause he doesn't smoke the same cigarettes as me", a reference to the then ubiquitous Marlboro Cowboy style advertisement. Jagger also describes the stress of being a celebrity, and the tensions of touring. The reference in the verse to not getting any "girl reaction" was fairly controversial in its day, interpreted by some listeners (and radio programmers) as meaning a girl willing to have sex. Jagger commented that they "didn't understand the dirtiest line", as afterwards the girl asks him to return the following week as she is "on a losing streak",[15] an apparent reference to menstruation. The song closes with a fairly subdued repetition of the song's title, followed suddenly by a full shout of the line, with the final words repeated into the fade-out.[16]

In its day the song was perceived as disturbing because of both its sexual connotations and the negative view of commercialism and other aspects of modern culture; critic Paul Gambaccini stated: "The lyrics to this were truly threatening to an older audience. This song was perceived as an attack on the status quo."[13] When the Rolling Stones performed the song on Shindig! in 1965, the line "trying to make some girl" was censored,[17] although a performance on The Ed Sullivan Show on 13 February 1966 was uncensored. Forty years later, when the band performed three songs during the February 2006 Super Bowl XL halftime show, "Satisfaction" was the only one of the three songs not censored as it was broadcast.[18]

"Satisfaction" was released as a single in the US by London Records on 5 June 1965, with "The Under-Assistant West Coast Promotion Man" as its B-side.[19] The single entered the Billboard Hot 100 charts in America in the week ending 12 June 1965, remaining there for 14 weeks, reaching the top on 10 July by displacing the Four Tops' "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)". "Satisfaction" held the number one spot for four weeks, being knocked off on 7 August by "I'm Henry the Eighth, I Am" by Herman's Hermits.[20] While in its eighth week on the American charts, the single was certified a gold record award by the RIAA for shipping over a million copies across the United States,[21] giving the band their first of many gold disc awards in America. Later the song was also released by London Records on Out of Our Heads in America.[12] Billboard ranked the record as the No. 3 song of 1965.[22] Billboard said of the single that a "hard-driving blues dance beat backs up a strong vocal performance."[23]

"Satisfaction" was not immediately released by Decca Records in Great Britain. Decca was already in the process of preparing a live Rolling Stones EP for release, so the new single did not come out in Britain until 20 August,[19] with "The Spider and the Fly" on the B-side. The song peaked at number one for two weeks, replacing Sonny & Cher's "I Got You Babe", between 11 and 25 September, before being toppled by the Walker Brothers' "Make It Easy on Yourself".[20]

In the decades since its release, "Satisfaction" has repeatedly been acclaimed by the music industry. In 1976, Britain's New Musical Express listed "Satisfaction" 7th among the top 100 singles of all time. There was a resurgence of interest in the song after it was prominently featured in the 1979 movie Apocalypse Now. In 1991, Vox listed "Satisfaction" among "100 records that shook the world".[24] In 1999, BMI named "Satisfaction" as the 91st-most performed song of the 20th century. In 2000, VH1 listed "Satisfaction" first among its "Top 100 Greatest Rock Songs";[25] the same year, "Satisfaction" also finished runner-up to "Yesterday" in a list jointly compiled by Rolling Stone and MTV.[26] In 2003, Q placed the song 68th out of its "1001 Best Songs Ever". Newsweek magazine has called the opening riff "five notes that shook the world".

The song and its opening riff are widely considered both iconic and one of the greatest musical hooks of all time.[27][28][29][30] "Satisfaction" was ranked number 2 on both Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list in 2004,[31] and the magazine's list of the band's best songs.[32] A 2021 update ranked the song number 31.[33] According to Acclaimed Music, it is the 10th most celebrated song in popular music history.[34] In 1998, the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.[35] It was added to the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry list of sound recordings that "are culturally, historically, or aesthetically important" in 2006.

Jagger commented on the song's appeal:

It was the song that really made the Rolling Stones, changed us from just another band into a huge, monster band ... It has a very catchy title. It has a very catchy guitar riff. It has a great guitar sound, which was original at that time. And it captures a spirit of the times, which is very important in those kinds of songs ... Which was alienation.[12]

The song has become a staple at Rolling Stones shows. They have performed it on nearly every tour since its release, and concert renditions have been included on the albums Got Live If You Want It!, Still Life, Flashpoint, Live Licks, Shine a Light, Hyde Park Live, and Havana Moon. One unusual rendition is included in Robert Frank's film Cocksucker Blues from the 1972 tour, when the song was performed by both the Rolling Stones and Stevie Wonder's band as the second half of a medley with Wonder's "Uptight".

According to authors Andy Babiuk and Greg Prevost:[36]

The Rolling Stones

• Mick Jagger – vocals, blues harp
• Keith Richards – backing vocals, fuzz guitar, electric guitar, acoustic guitar
• Brian Jones – electric rhythm guitars, backing vocals, acoustic guitar, blues harp, piano, organ
• Bill Wyman – bass
• Charlie Watts – drums

Additional personnel

• Jack Nitzsche – piano, organ, tambourine
• Ian Stewart – piano, organ, marimba

• "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" official lyric video on YouTube
• "The Greatest Songs Ever! Satisfaction" at Blender
• "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" (Devo version) on YouTube
• "Origin of 'Satisfaction' (2020 article)"
• "[I Can't Get No] Satisfaction" on YouTube
• "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" at Discogs (list of releases)