‘I Can’t Get No (Satisfaction)’: The Rolling Stones song Keith Richards once hated
Usually, a band understands almost immediately after finishing a song whether they have carved out a hit or not. However, that isn’t always the case. Initially, Keith Richards detested ‘I Can’t Get No (Satisfaction)’ by The Rolling Stones, and he couldn’t foresee it reaching any level of credible success. Yet, to his surprise, the song has become one of the band’s defining moments.
The hit single can be traced back to the Stones’ US tour in 1965, which included rather more humble venues than the stadiums they’d soon go on to play. It was an exciting experience for the group, and chaos seemed to follow them at every turn. Every show was wilder and more outrageous than the last, particularly one night in Clearwater, Florida. Sadly, the Rolling Stones were forced to evacuate the stage after playing only four songs when a fight broke out between fans and police officers.
Although the 3,000 supporters who attended the concert left upset after they didn’t get to see The Stones perform a full set, the night would lead to the group writing ‘I Can’t Get No (Satisfaction)’. “I wrote ‘Satisfaction’ in my sleep. I had no idea I’d written it, it’s only thank God for the little Philips cassette player. The miracle being that I looked at the cassette player that morning, and I knew I’d put a brand-new tape in the previous night, and I saw it was the end,” Richards wrote in his autobiography, Life. He added: “It was just a rough idea. There was just the bare bones of the song, and it didn’t have that noise, of course, because I was on acoustic… But the bare bones is all you need.”
Interestingly, Richards omitted his initial hatred of ‘I Can’t Get No (Satisfaction)’ from his autobiography. However, Mick Jagger took it upon himself to make this fact public knowledge in the BBC documentary, My Life as a Rolling Stone, and revealed that Richards didn’t want the track to be released as a single. Jagger recalled: “There’s this motel in Clearwater, Florida, and I remember sitting with Keith and writing the song Satisfaction. [Our manager] Andrew Oldham said, ‘This is like a number one single, this is great!’ Keith was like, ‘I don’t really like it. It can’t come out as a single.’ And it went to number one like instantly.”
He continued: “It was like a big moment; it became your signature tune, your cri de coeur, your sexuality, your controversy. You need to have that song that everyone remembers. It makes a huge change, and it also brings you into a much more confident era of writing, production and stuff.”
While artists are typically correct to trust their instincts, occasionally, their gut will let them down, as ‘I Can’t Get No (Satisfaction)’ proves. Thankfully, everybody else in The Rolling Stones recognised the song’s brilliance, and the rest is ancient history.
