In April 1965, the Rolling Stones embarked on their first headlining tour of the United States. They had already had two US top ten hits (Time Is On My Side and The Last Time) but in terms of the British invasion they were still a notch or two below bands such as Herman’s Hermits and the Dave Clark Five. One song, written during this tour, would soon change that.
The story behind that song is enshrined in rock folklore. Midway through the tour, in a motel in Clearwater, Florida, Keith Richards woke up in the middle of the night with a tune in his head. Fumbling in the dark for his cassette recorder, he hit the record button and played the eight-note guitar riff. He also mumbled a lyric — “I can’t get no satisfaction” – and then fell asleep. In Richards’ own words: “On the tape you can hear me drop the pick. The rest is me snoring”.
Richards didn’t think his riff would turn into anything commercial; nonetheless, Mick Jagger was inspired to flesh out the lyrics and when the band’s tour took them to Chicago just three days after Richards’ nocturnal ramblings, they dropped into Chess Studios (home to their heroes Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley and Muddy Waters) and laid down the song.
This first attempt was actually an acoustic, folksy version of the song, sounding nothing like the swaggering stomp it would turn into. It didn’t take long for that transformation to occur, however: just two days later the band re-recorded the song, this time in RCA Studios on Hollywood Boulevard. Richards had just acquired a Maestro FZ‑1 Fuzz-Tone pedal, Charlie Watts put down a different tempo, and the band gave the song a far more aggressive feel.The song was released as a single in the United States in June 1965. It was a smash hit, giving the Stones their first US number one and setting the band on their trajectory to become the “Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World”. Here’s a suitably electrifying performance delivered by the band and filmed during a quick tour of Ireland a few weeks after the song hit number one.