What is The Rolling Stones’ greatest number one hit?
Scoring a number one hit can secure a long career for almost any artist, even for those who never achieve the feat again. That said, history has repeatedly shown that the best songs—even the crowning achievements of our most cherished bands—don’t always dominate the charts. In the case of The Rolling Stones, however, good timing was often on their side.
They totalled up eight top spots on each side of the Atlantic, with double honours going rightfully to four of their finest compositions: ‘Satisfaction’, ‘Get Off My Cloud’, ‘Paint It Black’, and ‘Honky Tonk Women’. The question is, with 60 years of context now at our disposal, can we pick an absolute number one from all the number ones in the Stones’ catalogue?
Despite six decades of stadium-filling relevance, The Rolling Stones’ actual window of chart-topping success is surprisingly brief. In the UK, their last number one hit was ‘Honky Tonk Women’ in 1969, while in the US, it was ‘Miss You’ in 1978. Notably, all of their songs that topped both charts were released between 1965 and 1969—a period that accounts for less than 10% of the band’s recording career. For comparison, Ed Sheeran has racked up fourteen UK number one hits in the past decade, six more than Mick and Keith managed over their entire career, pulling him even with… Cliff Richard and Westlife. Let it be said again: the charts are not, and never have been, a fair measure of quality.
I suppose, though, that when faced with an impossible task like picking the greatest Rolling Stones song of all time, it probably helps to have your options dramatically reduced by a critical stipulation. Left with only the number-one hits to consider, we can quickly cast aside classics like ‘19th Nervous Breakdown’, ‘Sympathy for the Devil’, ‘Beast of Burden’, ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’, ‘Wild Horses’, and ‘Start Me Up’.
That was painful, but we’ve still got plenty to work with. Combining the number ones from the UK and US Charts, there are 12 tracks in all that are automatically nominated into our contest; they are:
- ‘It’s All Over Now’ (UK, 1964)
- ‘Little Red Rooster’ (UK, 1964)
- ‘The Last Time’ (UK, 1965)
- ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’ (UK & US, 1965)
- ‘Get Off My Cloud’ (UK & US, 1965)
- ‘Paint it Black’ (UK & US, 1966)
- ‘Ruby Tuesday’ (US, 1967)
- ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’ (UK, 1968)
- ‘Honky Tonk Women’ (UK & US, 1969)
- ‘Brown Sugar’ (US, 1971)
- ‘Angie’ (US, 1973)
- ‘Miss You’ (US, 1978)
Those first two tracks are cover songs from the Stones’ pupal stage, so we can eliminate them. ‘The Last Time’ is significant as the band’s first number one hit penned by Jagger/Richards, but it was torpedoed in cultural and historical impact by ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’ in 1965, the Stones’ first entry into number one status in both the UK and America.
When it comes to instantly recognisable guitar riffs, ‘Satisfaction’ edges out ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’. While ‘Ruby Tuesday’ is a personal favourite—capturing the Stones during their somewhat divisive psychedelic hippie phase—it doesn’t embody the signature swagger and tongue-logo attitude of the band quite like ‘Honky Tonk Women’. Similarly, the yearning ’70s ballad ‘Angie’ and the funk-disco relic ‘Miss You’ showcase different sides of the Stones but stray from their archetypal vibe. For the sake of avoiding a 21st-century re-examination of Jagger’s lyrical choices, let’s set aside ‘Brown Sugar’. That leaves us with just three contenders remaining.
‘Satisfaction’ is arguably the Stones’ statement of arrival—the lick heard around the world—while ‘Honky Tonk Women’ established a final, defining persona for the decades to come. If a choice must be made, though, it’s the other, more unusual candidate that feels like the most enticing selection: ‘Paint It Black’.
Released in the spring of 1966—and oddly titled ‘Paint It, Black’, with a seemingly inexplicable comma—this song offers no prelude to the summer of love. Featuring a sitar, castanets, and a Hammond B3 organ—not to mention an unconventional melody and Charlie Watts’ ominously driving beat—‘Paint It Black’ emerged during a distinctly experimental phase of mainstream British rock. Yet it manages to break just enough with late ’60s psych-hippie conventions to achieve a timeless, endlessly fascinating quality.
The lyrics are central to this enduring appeal. Bleak, even by grunge standards, they resist easy interpretation, which adds to the song’s mystique. It’s no wonder that outcasts from every generation find something deeply resonant in its haunting narrative and otherworldly sound.
“Sometimes you don’t feel you write them, you just have to be there and receive them,” Keith Richards once said about ‘Paint It Black’. “I’m still wondering what it’s about myself. To me, it’s a half Gypsy and half Jewish sort of melody, and it went through so many different sort of convolutions before it ended up as we know it now. . . . It’s a genuine Jagger/Richard collaboration in which I gave him the riff, the song, and the basic idea, and then I left it to Mick to fill in the details, and Mick can be quite convoluted at times. But it’s a great song to play on stage and is just such a different rhythm. . . . It is slightly off the mainstream of the other stuff. Where it came from, I don’t know.”
Where ‘Paint It Black’ has ended up, at least on this one tiny, insignificant ballot, is atop the list of the greatest Rolling Stones number one hits of all time.
