First thing first, some tunes:

Now that we heard the tunes, let’s talk about it’s history…

release

The single was released on May 27. Despite the murky vocals, the song became a target for the anti-rock establishment. Newsweek dubbed the Stones a “leering quintet” and said “Satisfaction” was full of “tasteless themes.” A select ban in certain cities couldn’t stop the song’s rise. On July 10, it hit number one for the first of four weeks.

It was the Rolling Stones first American #1 hit.

The Production

The song features Mick Jagger’s vocals, with guitar work from Keith Richards and Brian Jones, Bill Wyman’s work on the bass guitar, Charlie Watts on the drums and Jack Nitzsche on the Tamborine and piano.

Production work by their then manager Andrew Loog Oldham with Sound engineer Dave Hassinger.

How the song wad created

On May 7, 1965, Keith Richards woke up in the middle of the night with a melody in his head. He was in a room at the Gulf Motel in Clearwater, Florida. His guitar was on the bed beside him. Fumbling around in the dark, he found his portable cassette recorder on the nightstand. He pushed the record button and played an eight-note riff. It was accompanied by the mumbled vocal line, “I can’t get no satisfaction.” Then he fell back asleep.

What triggered him to inspect the tape was the fact that the tape recorder was stationed at the end, clearly when he remembered to have inserted a new tape in the previous night. What he discovered was the rough idea for the main riff…accompanied with 40 minutes of snoring.

The lyrics and their meaning

The lyrics outline the singer’s irritation and confusion with the increasing commercialism of the modern world, where the radio broadcasts “useless information” and a man on television tells him “how white my shirts can be – but he can’t be a man ’cause he doesn’t smoke the same cigarettes as me”, a reference to the then ubiquitous Marlboro Cowboy style advertisement.

Jagger also describes the stress of being a celebrity, and the tensions of touring. The reference in the verse to not getting any “girl reaction” was fairly controversial in its day, interpreted by some listeners (and radio programmers) as meaning a girl willing to have sex.

Jagger commented that they “didn’t understand the dirtiest line”, as afterwards the girl asks him to return the following week as she is “on a losing streak”, an apparent reference to menstruation.

The success

It is ranked number 2 on both Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list, and the magazine’s list of the band’s best songs.

According to Acclaimed Music, it is the 10th most celebrated song in popular music history.

In 1998, the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and it was added to the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry list of sound recordings that “are culturally, historically, or aesthetically important” in 2006.

In 1990, the Stones’ former manager Allen Klein signed a $4 million deal allowing the song to be used in a TV commercial for Snickers candy bars. In 2000, a VH1 poll of 700 music-industry movers and shakers voted “Satisfaction” as the top rock song of all time

The song was covered by many artist, here are some of the honorable mentions:

Otis Redding-

Otis Redding recorded a rendition of “Satisfaction” for his album Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul, released in 1965. Redding claimed that he did not know the lyrics of the song. “I use a lot of words different than the Stones’ version,” he noted. “That’s because I made them up.

The Residents-

The American avant-garde/experimental collective the Residents recorded and released their own performance of “Satisfaction” in 1976. Originally released in an edition of only 200 copies, the cover quickly became a cult sensation, thanks in part to the success of Devo’s cover the following year, necessitating a re-press in 1978 of 30,000 copies

Britney Spears-

Britney Spears recorded the song with producer Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins for her second studio album, Oops!… I Did It Again, in 2000. she also performed “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” on the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards.

My personal reason for choosing this song

This is by far my grandmother favorite song, and it became my little cousin favorite song as well. When he was just a toddler my grandma introduced him to this song and he would demand to put the song on repeat, he had a toy guitar and he would jump around singing and dancing.

Hope you enjoyed, here is another cool version for you :