The Rolling Stones song “even better” than ‘Satisfaction’, according to Neil Young
While The Rolling Stones connoisseurs most likely prefer a deeper cut, if you had to ask an average rock fan to name their favourite songs by the legendary band, ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’, most would place it in their top three.
After all, ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’ was the song that proved to America that The Stones were the real deal, becoming their first US number one in 1965, while also demonstrating the perfect chemistry between Keith Richards, Brian Jones and Mick Jagger at their very best.
It’s one of those few songs that doesn’t get tiresome, no matter how many times you’ve heard it and a song that every other band wishes to have written. I can’t even begin to imagine how fresh, explosive and captivating it must have sounded as a wide-eyed teenager becoming besotted with rock ‘n’ roll in 1965.
All these years later, it’s still making kids want to jump in a garage with some friends and make a shit-tonne of noise in pursuit of the rock ‘n’ roll dream.
It’s indeed a dream that The Stones have been living their entire adult lives, even now as octogenarians. Neil Young is another rock veteran who remains equally committed to his craft. Like The Stones, he’s been at the forefront of popular culture since the 1960s, who’ll only retire once he’s drawn his final breath.
Young first admired The Stones from afar before he gained fame himself and got to know the band on a personal level. Still, the version of The Rolling Stones he finds most appealing is their early work, which first made him infatuated with their work. At this stage, they were slightly unrefined, which appealed to Young and gave him the confidence that he could also make it without being a virtuoso.
“What I really liked about the Rolling Stones was Brian Jones and Keith Richards playing together,” Young once professed about the group. “Even though Brian Jones was just kind of a bratty, sub-blues kind of guy. He still had the exuberance”.
From Young’s perspective, Jones was the band’s jewel in the crown and the key ingredient to their early riches. Jones’ excellence was captured in the recording of ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’, which provided them a platform for greatness. However, typically, the music industry instantly demanded that the group recreate the song’s success, which is, of course, impossible.
Nevertheless, The Rolling Stones attempted to appease their label executives by recording ‘Get Off Of My Cloud’. While it largely failed to meet the label’s lofty ‘Satisfaction’-sized expectations, Young thinks it’s even better than the song it was designed to imitate.
“‘Satisfaction’ was a great record. ‘Get Off Of My Cloud,’ even better record,” he once explained. “Looser, less of a hit. More of a reckless abandon. ‘Get Off My Cloud’ – I know it’s not as good of a song, and I know the performance is probably not as good as the ‘Satisfaction’ performance, maybe it is.”
Young then explained precisely why ‘Get Off My Cloud’ is his number one Stones anthem, adding, “The thing about it is it’s obviously just such a throw-together song that they came up with on the way to the studio or the night before, y’know? That’s what I liked about it. It really sounded like the Rolling Stones“.
Despite Young’s glowing assessment of the track, Keith Richards would happily forget about its existence. The guitarist told Rolling Stone in 1971: “I never dug it as a record. The chorus was a nice idea, but we rushed it as the follow-up. We were in L.A. [Los Angeles, where ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’ was recorded], and it was time for another single. But how do you follow up ‘Satisfaction‘?”
‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’ and ‘Get Off My Cloud’ will always be interlinked, because the latter wouldn’t exist without the former, which has perhaps blurred Richards’ vision and made it impossible to view it as its own entity.
Even Young’s decision to compare the two songs demonstrates that ‘Get Off My Cloud’ will always be in the shadow of its more famous older brother. However, the Canadian has never been one to follow public opinion; therefore, it should come as little shock that he considers ‘Get Off My Cloud’ to be the superior song.
