Cigarettes, sex and chocolate bars – “Satisfaction” has been rocking the world for 60 years

There are millions of pop songs, but few are as ingrained in the global memory as "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction," which even Generation Z knows. In 2004, the US music magazine "Rolling Stone" voted it the second-best track of all time (behind Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone"). And for decades, it served as the king of the party-goers. Generation Golf also loved the electropop version by the wave band Devo.

There have been countless cover versions—by Otis Redding, by Britney Spears, and most recently by Dolly Parton (with Pink and Brandi Carlile), but none have matched the intensity of the original. To this day, many identify the Stones with this song. And the musicians eventually became so irritated by the shadow of the "five notes that shook the world" (Newsweek) that they removed it from their live repertoire for a while. Mick Jagger once said he would rather die than still be singing "Satisfaction" at 45.

During the 1981/1982 tour, "Satisfaction" was back on stage—in a faster version, and has remained so to this day in concerts by Jagger, Keith Richards, and Ronnie Wood. At the band's final gig to date, on July 24, 2024, in Ridgedale, Missouri, rock pirate Richards scraped the riff of all riffs from the strings. The final song of the evening—Jagger, then two days away from his 80th birthday, led the crowd in a chorus of "I can't get no, / oh no, no, no. / Hey, hey, hey, that's what I say..."

"Satisfaction" is turning 60. On the night of May 7, 1965, Keith Richards suddenly had the notes in his head and couldn't sleep for excitement at the Fort Harrison Hotel in Creedence, Florida. And the next day, his songwriting partner Mick was so impressed that he immediately continued to work on the title line Keith suggested: "I can't get no satisfaction!" – a double negative expressing double outrage.

The lyrics are about the extreme commercialization of life in America. Consumption is king, turning consumers into clowns who see buying as the purpose of life. A middle finger to the USA, the number one consumer country. The piece was recorded on May 10th at Chess Studios in Chicago and completed on May 12th and 13th at Hollywood's RCA Studios – just one week after the initial idea.

Mick Jagger never gets "satisfaction" anywhere, as he sings in the hit. He can't believe the guy on TV who promises him the whitest shirts if he uses his super detergent. Because he doesn't smoke the same cigarettes as him, and so he can't be a real man. He also doesn't find "satisfaction" in the last verse with the girl he wants to "snare" on his world travels as a musician.

He should come back next week, she says, she's currently "on a losing streak," she's on her period, sorry. An outrageous line. Five months later, in the Beatles song "Norwegian Wood," John Lennon was ordered to sleep in the bathtub by the woman in the song, with the tame excuse that she had to go on shift early the next day.

In 1965, male-dominated rock 'n' roll was clearly not yet ready for emancipation; women were objects of macho desire (and rage—the rejected Lennon sets fire to the woman's apartment in "Norwegian Wood"). So, it was only the young men who liberated themselves first, and when they sought their gratification through singing, it was certainly an expression of sexual liberation. But it was also quite misogynistic.

Richards originally wanted his riff played by horns, but the rest of the Stones convinced him to keep it guitar-based. To achieve the distorted effect, he used a Maestro Fuzztone FZ 1 as an effects unit. This, too, was met with protest and downvoted by the majority of the band.

And the "Satisfaction" guitarist suffered a third setback: Richards didn't want a single release at all costs, fearing a plagiarism lawsuit. To him, the riff sounded like it was stolen from "Dancing in The Street" (Martha & the Vandellas).

Jagger couldn't play the tambourine well in the studio, so Jack Nitzsche stepped in. The rest is history. On July 10, "Satisfaction" became the first Stones song ever to top the US charts, staying there for four weeks. In the UK, "Satisfaction" wasn't released until August and reached number one on September 9. In Germany, it topped the charts for a month, starting on October 15, 1965.

A year and a half later, the Stones finally had some sexual satisfaction, and it was now a matter of give and take. "I satisfy all your needs / and I know you'll satisfy me," Jagger sang in January 1967 in the song "Let's Spend The Night Together" (although the band had to replace the "night" in the song title with "a little time" for the tame American Ed Sullivan show).

Of course, one has to allow for a certain dialectic when the consumer-critical "Satisfaction" becomes a commercial hit. However, for fans of the pure doctrine, the great song's darkest hour came in 1989. The Snickers chocolate bar makers licensed a cover version of "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" for a commercial. The middle finger to capitalism, of all songs, drummed up support for the "nutty treat in chocolate coating." But ultimately, it didn't hurt.