Did Keith Richards write The Rolling Stones song ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’ in his sleep?
There is no simple formula or cheat code to help artists master the art of songwriting. It can often be inexplicable, with inspiration arriving from the unlikeliest places, even to the artist responsible for birthing the song into the world, something The Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards knows firsthand.
“Don’t chase the rabbit,” Neil Young once said of his songwriting process. Rather than spending his days locked in a shed with his guitar and a typewriter, attempting to write new creations, Young prefers to wait until an idea springs into his mind unexpectedly. “If the song happens, then it happens,” he added. “If the song doesn’t happen, then it doesn’t happen. It doesn’t matter.”
Although Young’s approach appears relaxed, it has yielded plentiful classic albums and made him a musical giant. It also means he needs to be alert at all hours of the day to catch a song in the air when it comes to him, which requires him to be on standby to spring into action.
Artists that have famously used this technique include Paul McCartney, who woke up in the middle of the night with the melody for ‘Yesterday‘ planted in his head. For a month, he was confident the song must already exist before finally accepting it came to him in a dream. Similarly, Keith Richards had a similar experience when creating one of The Rolling Stones’ most beloved tracks.
In 1965, The Rolling Stones undertook their first US tour. During the troublesome adventure, every night was more chaotic than the last. One particularly problematic evening occurred at the Jack Russell Stadium in Clearwater, Florida, which was disrupted by violence between fans and the police.
As a result of the disorder, The Rolling Stones only performed four songs before leaving the stage, much to their frustration. However, if not for the incident, Richards may have never begun work on the song that eventually became ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’.
In his hotel room, Richards abruptly awoke from a dream to record a riff and lyrics that appeared in his mind on a cassette he fortunately had on his person. Recalling the song’s incarnation, Richards said: “I woke up in the middle of the night and put it down on a cassette. I thought it was great then. Went to sleep, and when I woke up, it appeared to be as useful as another album track. It was the same with Mick too at the time, you know. It goes ‘da-da, da-da-da’…, and the words I’d written for that riff were ‘I can’t get no satisfaction’.”
At the time, Richards believed it was nothing more than the bones of a potential new song that could be included on their next album. He didn’t sense that it was a hit in the making and didn’t think too deeply about what he had recorded on cassette. Yet, according to Richards, it’s the most important track of their career. He added: “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.”
Unlike Richards, Mick Jagger knew immediately that ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’ was a rock ‘n’ roll anthem of the highest calibre. However, he claimed that his bandmate was “too close” to the song to realise the scale of its greatness.
As Jagger was confident ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’ could help The Rolling Stones advance to the next step of the ladder, they didn’t waste any time releasing the track. Only a month after Richards’ sleep was disrupted, the track was released for everyone to hear, becoming their first number-one single in the United States.
In a parallel universe, Richards sleeps soundly through the night while in Clearwater, and the fate of The Rolling Stones may have looked starkly different. While they’d had hit singles before, ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’ signified their evolution and made audiences view them in a new light. Almost 60 years later, it remains the first song that many consider when they think about The Stones.
