Album: Out of Our Heads (U.S.)
Year: 1965
. . .
In 1975, I bought a single at White Front, the poorly-named department store on Blackstone. On the one side was “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” and on the other side was “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.” I seem to recall that the label was something like “rock classics” maybe there was like an anvil on it, but looking back on it, I’m not even sure if it was a legally-issued single or if it was a quasi-bootleg or even a flat-out bootleg.
Now, I know it sounds like I’m making this up, but since I wrote the above paragraph, I did one last Google search, and lo and behold, I found it on Discogs!
Given that I haven’t owned that single in probably 40 years, my memory wasn’t too bad: I got the anvil on the label and that the “rock” was in the name of the label. And it clearly seems like its a dodgy licensing job if not just a flat-out boot.
All I know is that I played the ever-loving shit out of that single, because — for the first time in my life — I’d found myself with not just my own room, but my own record player, as well!
I don’t know if this is a picture of me listening to that single, but it very well could be! In any event, this is where my Rolling Stones fandom well and truly started, by listening to “Satisfaction” and “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” about a hundred million times. Like, I guess, everybody else.
Here are the things that I think that everybody reading this knows about “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction:” that Keith Richards wrote it in his sleep, waking up to find the cassette recorded next to his bed was at the end of the tape (and this was pre-heroin Keith); that Keith intended that fuzz part as a stand-in for the horns he heard on; that it’s about Mick’s frustration about not getting laid enough; that it was the first Rolling Stones #1 hit single in America; that it has the greatest use of tambourine in all of popular music; that there is nothing on this planet more fun than singing along with this song.
I can’t get no satisfaction
I can’t get no satisfaction
‘Cause I try and I try and I try and I try
I can’t get no, I can’t get no
OK, maybe I’m just projecting.
Actually, no, I’m not: there is objectively nothing more fun than singing along with “Satisfaction,” which in my case means singing the opening fuzz-tone riff, which — fucking genius — dips in and out of the song instead of being there the whole time. But right from the beginning, singing that opening, quiet “I. Can’t. Get. No. Sat-is-faction” and then getting progressively louder until you’re screaming “I can’t get no!!!!” and we haven’t even gotten to a verse yet. Each one of which is brilliant, Mick’s best yet.
When I’m driving in my car
And that man comes on the radio
And he’s telling me more and more
About some useless information
Supposed to fire my imagination
I can’t get no, oh no, no, no!Hey, hey, hey! That’s what I say!
When Mick wrote the lyrics for “Satisfaction,” the Rolling Stones had been an absolute whirlwind of activity: if they weren’t touring, they were recording. If they weren’t recording, they were touring. And all along, they were releasing music: four albums in the U.S., three albums and three EPs in the U.K. It all moved much faster then, of course, because the shelf life of a pop group was like 6 months, not 60 years, and “Satisfaction” tapped into that, both musically and lyrically.
When I’m watching my TV
And a man comes on and tells me
How white my shirts can be
Well he can’t be a man ’cause he doesn’t smoke
The same cigarettes as me
I can’t get no, oh no, no, noHey, hey, hey, that’s what I say
Of course, beyond the fuzz box, and beyond the lyrics — and perhaps beyond space and time — is the beat. Which is literally two things: Charlie Watts’s terrifyingly relentless double time: thwacka-thwacka-thwacka-thwacka , and Jack Nitchze’s glorious tink-tink-tink tambourine counterpoint, which, once heard, pretty much dominated my hearing of “Satisfaction” for years. In any event, what comes out is thwacka-thwacka-tink-tink-tink, thwacka-thwacka-tink-tink-tink, thwacka-thwacka-tink-tink-tink over and over and over and over and over — as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen
Listen harder, and you hear Bill Wyman playing a stunning bassline throughout, and some great chunky blocky rhythm guitar — which might have also been Keith — and Keith sometimes not quite hitting the fuzz at the right time, but yes please, leave the fucking mistakes in, as well. Because musical satisfaction is pretty elusive, too.
When I’m riding round the world
And I’m doing this and I’m signing that
And I’m trying to make some girl
Who tells me baby, better come back, maybe next week
‘Cause you see, I’m on a losing streak
I can’t get no, oh no, no, noHey, hey, hey! That’s what I say!
Oh, did I mention the breakdowns? Where everything shuts down for a couple of measures except the thwacka-thwacka-tink-tink-tink and then the fuzz and bass kick back in and Mick and Keith (and you and me) all scream “hey hey hey, that’s what I say” having more fun singing a song about having no fun than any human should possibly have, right up to the end of the song, when he just repeats bits of the title over and over to the fade.
And that’s the key — OK, one of the keys — to “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” of course: it’s a fun song about having no fun at all. But I think it’s actually deeper than that. I mean, you can have fun fun fun without ever being satisfied. I mean, Mick isn’t singing about digging ditches or working in an office: he’s driving in his car, he’s hanging out watching TV, he’s riding round the world, and you know that the girl he’s trying to make is off-the-charts gorgeous, so, it’s like pooooor you, Mick.
Except, or course, it isn’t, because Mick Jagger nearly always distances himself from his lyrics — that’s part of his genius, to be able to deliver a wonderfully believable performance and still keep a skosh of himself for himself — you never feel like he’s asking you to look him in the eyes and tell him that he’s satisfied.
One of my all-time favorite Mick Jagger interview sequences comes from Gimme Shelter — prior to Altamont, of course, when he has this exchange with a reporter:
Reporter : Are you any more satisfied now, as far as your career goes?
Mick Jagger : Do you mean, do you mean sexually or philosophically?
Reporter : Both.
Mick Jagger : Yeah, we are more satisfied now, sexually,
Reporter : How about philosophically and financially?
Mick Jagger : Financially – dissatisfied. You know, sexually – satisfied. Philosophically – trying.
I know that I wrote that “everybody knows” that “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” was about sexual frustration, but I honestly believe that it’s really about philosophical frustration, as Mick was beginning to deal with his stardom, making it nearly as deep as another of the groundbreaking summer of 1965 singles, “Like a Rolling Stone,” and probably meant that the two songs were inextricably linked in people’s minds who heard them on the radio that whole summer, regardless of the original intent of any of the songwriters.
I mean, if the Rolling Stones were telling you about how they weren’t satisfied and Bob Dylan was asking you how it felt to be on your own like a Rolling Stone, how could that not get forever linked? (A linkage the Stones made formal when they covered it 30 years later and Dylan kinda winked at last year on “I Contain Multitudes.”)
Or maybe it’s just me. It could be just me.
In any event, “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” was a #1 single all around the fucking world, a radio staple and still incredibly popular in the streaming era: 365,587,770 plays on Spotify as of this writing, and a lyric video on YouTube that went up in 2015 has over 105,000,000 streams in a little over five years.
That’s staying power, kids, and probably why even though Mick Jagger said as a 31-year-old in 1975 that he’d rather be dead than singing it at 45, it’s entirely possible that he’ll be singing it as an 81-year-old in 2025.
“(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” Official Lyric Video
“(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” live in Ireland, 1965
“(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” live on the Ed Sullivan Show, 1965
“(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” live in Hyde Park, 1969
“(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction live” in Madison Square Garden, 1969
“(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” live New Jersey, 1981
“(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction live, 1990
“(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction live, 1998
“(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” live in Glastonbury, 2013
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