More Than a Riff -- Iconic "Satisfaction"

“Satisfaction” is defined by Webster's as “fulfillment of a need or want.” Long ago, the Rolling Stones' grammatically unstable, double negative affirmation of failing to achieve a measure of self-gratification – “I can't get no satisfaction … oh, no, no, no” affirmed my own teenage conundrum of an allusive search for satiation.

I won't elaborate on all the reasons for my personal frustration, but, suffice it to say, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards made sure that sad sentiment of denial was planted indelibly in my brain in 1965. Their signature song literally rocked the world.The list of countries in which “Satisfaction” topped the charts reads like a geography lesson.

It ruled in Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bermuda, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burma, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the UK, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, South Africa, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the USA, and Yugoslavia.

“(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones is listed as the #1 greatest rock song of all time by VH1 (based on a poll of 700 music-industry movers and shakers). Rolling Stone Magazine ranked it #2 behind Dylan's “Like a Rolling Stone” in their evaluation of the “500 Greatest Rock Songs of All Time.” The song was eventually added to the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress in 2006.

To me, “Satisfaction” is the best rock song ever. With its simple yet original guitar riff, defiant lyrics, and “feel the need” exultation, the iconic recording hit the establishment in the face. What other rock anthem addresses anger over corporate control, sexual frustration, and blue collar alienation in one three minute, forty-five second groove? This is the rock song that broke the models of rickety jump rhythms and puppy love lyrics of early rock & roll into rock.

“Satisfaction” had tremendous impact and established enduring appeal. The single entered the Billboard Hot 100 charts in America in the week ending June 12, 1965, remaining there for 14 weeks. While in its eighth week on the American charts, the single was certified a gold record award by the RIAA for shipping over a million copies across the United States, giving the Stones their first of many gold disc awards in America. Later the song was also released by London Records on the album Out of Our Heads.

With an instantly recognizable guitar hook (Richards) and distinctive vocals (Jagger), “Satisfaction” hit a raw nerve” in the soul of rock music fans. According to Rolling Stone, Richards' "primal temper," Jagger's "sneering" vocals, and the "avenging strut" of the rhythm guitar, bass, and drums all combined to take rock and roll beyond the comparative innocence of its early years. Edgy and filled with attitude, this was "the sound of a generation impatient to inherit the earth"

(Rolling Stone, 9 December 2004, 68). 

Jagger commented on the song's appeal:

“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 ... which was alienation.”

To me, the original Rolling Stones' recording is the paragon of all the versions of the song. “Satisfaction” is a concert staple in the long career of live performances of the Stones, yet, I believe no other version captures the rhythm, the dynamics, and the muscle of the tune like the '65 studio recording. There is so much more to the original recording than the simple three-note ostinato (continually repeated) riff, the three-chord progression, and the confronting vocals.

I feel the Stones typically perform the song as a hastily perverted cover of their own inventive sound. I have seen performance after performance of the song – to me, each perfunctory rendering pales in comparison to the original recording. Some renderings simply drone the signature riff to absurd lengths, losing all other more subtle structure of the composition. What a pity. What magic ingredient(s) have become lost in replication?

Was it something special about the recording or was it the contributions of Brian Jones and Jack Nitzsche that bolstered the song's composition and lasting appeal? Was it Chess Studio? I can't adequately verbalize the definitive elements; however, my ears remain convinced there is only one classic recorded version – that of May 12, 1965.

The story of the song is well-documented. In 1965, the Rolling Stones were in the middle of their second U.S. tour as headliners. The band had already scored two Top 10 hits – “Time Is On My Side” and “The Last Time” – but in the ranks of the British Invasion, they were still a notch below Herman’s Hermits. (Oh, how dated that sounds now.) They needed a defining single that would put them over the top.

Sources vary as to where this all took place, but here is the most common explanation …

During the early morning hours of May 7, 1965, in his motel room at the Jack Tar Harrison Hotel in Clearwater, Florida, Keith Richards had a dream. He woke up, grabbed a guitar and a cassette machine, and he played the run of notes from his dream once, then fell back to sleep.

Richards said years later …

“When I woke up in the morning, the tape had run out. I put it back on, and there’s this, maybe, 30 seconds of ‘Satisfaction,’ in a very drowsy sort of rendition. And then it suddenly—the guitar goes ‘CLANG,” and then there’s like 45 minutes of snoring.” This was the birth of what would later become known as “the riff heard 'round the world.”

“He only had the first bit, and then he had the riff,” Jagger recalls. “It sounded like a country sort of thing on acoustic guitar—it didn’t sound like rock. But he didn’t really like it, he thought it was a joke… He really didn’t think it was single material, and we all said ‘You’re off your head.’ Which he was, of course.”

Jagger wrote most of the lyrics (reportedly by the pool in Clearwater). Richards had already come up with the line “I can’t get no satisfaction.” And, indeed, it was the lyrics that later drew the most heated discussion of the song. Shmoop Editorial (2008) describes the lyrics …

“The song begins with a critique of ad-driven consumerism: radio shills peddling 'useless information,' television hacks hawking whiter shirts and brand-dependent manhood, and so on. But then, the song shifts abruptly to a more visceral theme, as Jagger's Madison Avenue dissatisfaction gives way to his international girl-chasing frustration.”

“I can't get no satisfaction
I can't get no girl reaction
'Cause I try and I try and I try and I try
I can't get no, I can't get no”

The anti-commercial rant rubbed some folks the wrong way, but Jagger's blunt recapitulation of his failed attempts to "make some girl" was the real problem. Although manager and record producer, Andrew Loog Oldham, decided to bury it in the mix, some radio stations hesitated to play the song.

“When I'm ridin' round the world
And I'm doin' this and I'm signing that
And I'm tryin' to make some girl
Who tells me baby better come back later next week
'Cause you see I'm on a losing streak”

Ironically, the most graphic line of “Satisfaction” was seldom questioned. The dissatisfied narrator having to “come back later next week 'cause you see I'm on a losing streak” refers to a woman being on her period. Jagger labeled that the “dirtiest” line in the song, but defended it by saying: “It's just life. That's what really happens to girls. Why shouldn't people write about it?”

Critic Paul Gambaccini stated:

"The lyrics to this were truly threatening to an older audience. This song was perceived as an attack on the status quo.”

When the Rolling Stones performed the song on Shindig! in 1965, the line "trying to make some girl" was censored, although a performance on The Ed Sullivan Show on February 13, 1966, was uncensored. Forty years later, when the band performed three songs during the February 2006 Super Bowl XL halftime show, "Satisfaction" was the only one of the three songs not censored as it was broadcast. Times do change, don't they?

A Magical Record(ing)

The Stones took the song into the Chess studios in Chicago just three days later on May 10, 1965. Chess was home to some of their biggest influences – Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley and Muddy Waters, so that studio seemed the perfect location to lay down their new song-in-progress. In fact, some critics claim Chuck Berry’s song “30 Days” was an undeniable inspiration …

“If I don't get no satisfaction from the judge
I'm gonna take it to the FBI and voice my grudge
If they don't give me no consolation
I'm gonna take it to the United Nations
I'm gonna see that you'll be back home in thirty days”

Others claim Muddy Waters recording “I Can’t Be Satisfied” was drew the muse …

(Chorus)

“Woman I'm troubled, I be all worried in mind
Well baby I just can't be satisfied
And I just can't keep from crying”

The Rolling Stones completed “Satisfaction” on May 12 after a flight to Los Angeles and an 18-hour recording session at RCA. There, Richards hooked up an early Gibson “Maestro” fuzz box to his guitar and recorded the recognizable riff giving “Satisfaction” its distinctive, iconic sound. He’d initially envisioned that riff being played by horns. The song's success boosted sales of the Gibson fuzzbox so much that the entire available stock sold out by the end of 1965.

Note – Richards had no intention of using the Gibson Fuzz Box sound on the record, but Gibson had just sent him the device, and he thought the fuzz box would create sustained notes to help sketch out the horn section. The band thought it sounded great and wanted to use the sound because it would be very unusual for a rock record. Richards thought it sounded gimmicky and did not like the result, but the rest of the band convinced him to ditch the horn section and use the distorted guitar sound.

Some say the guitar riff modeled itself after the horn arrangement from Martha & the Vandellas’ “Nowhere to Run” and had Richards succeeded in adding brass to the song, it would’ve sounded even more similar.

Of “Satisfaction,” Keith Richards admits:

“If I’d had my way, ‘Satisfaction’ would never have been released. The song was as basic as the hills, and I thought the fuzz-guitar thing was a bit of a gimmick … I never thought it was anything commercial enough to be a single.”

Richards wrote in his 2010 autobiography, Life …

“The fuzz tone had never been heard before anywhere, and that’s the sound that caught everybody’s imagination. As far as I was concerned, that was just the dub. [But] ten days on the road and it’s number one nationally! The record of the summer of ’65 … I learned that lesson – sometimes you can overwork things. Not everything’s designed for your taste and your taste alone.”

Like most of the Stones' pre-1966 recordings, "Satisfaction" was originally released in mono only. In the mid-1980s, a true stereo version of the song was released on German and Japanese editions of the CD reissue of Hot Rocks 1964–1971.

The stereo mix features a piano (played by session player Jack Nitzsche, who also provides the song's iconic tambourine) and acoustic guitar that are barely audible in the original mono release (both instruments are also audible on a bootleg recording of the instrumental track).

For the worldwide 2002 reissue of Hot Rocks, an alternative quasi-stereo mix was used featuring the lead guitar, bass, drums, and vocals in the center channel and the acoustic guitar and piano "split" left and right via a delay effect.

“Satisfaction” set the seal on the Jagger/Richards writing partnership, and also confirmed the band’s movement away from the leadership of Brian Jones. Keith has commented how Jones lost interest in the guitar, experimenting instead with the likes of the harpsichord and dulcimer. Next would come the Mick Taylor influence, then the Ronnie Wood changeover. The Stones remain a working band to this day.

A dream? A riff? A gimmick? A cover? Whatever the case, “(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction” became a humongous international hit song. It remains instantly recognizable and wildly popular. Maybe an extensive analysis of this tune is not really warranted.

After all, who really thinks about the specifics of the recording upon hearing that opening guitar salvo? Instead, people just relive the groove and mouth the simple lyrical negation. In the words of Friedrich Nietzsche: “Ultimately, it is the desire, not the desired, that we love.”