RaR13 – Satisfaction
DIRECTIONS:
Listen to the recording of the tune by clicking the attached mp3 file. This will open the recording in a new window or tab. Listen and follow along with the listening guide in the book.
Read the liner notes below.
Read the information “What to Listen For”
Respond to the Rate-A-Record/Questions by clicking on the assignment link and then click on on the button “Write Submission” (to the right of Text Submission) to record your response. Do not use the comments field.
Satisfaction by The Rolling Stones
Though now billed as the “world’s greatest rock and roll band,” the Rolling Stones began in 1962 as a British R&B band. Brian Jones, Mick Jagger, and Keith Richards were huge fans of rhythm and blues, black American music filtering into Britain as a result of a small but evangelical group of jazz critics who had fallen in love with the blues. Jones worshipped the blues bottleneck guitar player Elmore James; he rechristened himself Elmo Lewis and devoted himself to learning to play slide guitar. He moved from Cheltenham to London, where a live blues scene was beginning to coalesce around the Ealing Club, a small pub in West London where Blues Incorporated, Britain’s first rhythm and blues band, performed every Saturday. There he met Jagger and Richards, and they decided to form a group. Through ads in the trade papers, they found pianist Ian Stewart, and Mick Jagger’s friend Dick Taylor (who would go on to found Pretty Things) joined on bass. Their first gigs were filling in for Blues Incorporated at the Marquee Club, where the band moved when R&B started to draw larger audiences. Mick Jagger’s comment to the jazz press was that he hoped no one would think the Rolling Stones, named after a Muddy Waters song and strictly devoted to the Chicago blues, was a rock and roll band!
The Stones quickly began to attract a devoted following, including Andrew Loog Oldham, a young go-getter in the pop business who’d done some work for the Beatles. Oldham advised the group to drop Ian Stewart, who didn’t look right, and encouraged them to project a rough, unkempt, and aloof image. Dick Taylor quit and was replaced by bassist Bill Wyman, and the group convinced Charlie Watts, the drummer of Blues Incorporated (which also included future Cream members Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker), to join as well. Oldham sold the band as the “anti-Beatles”-and they became huge. At the time the Stones’ repertoire consisted mostly of blues and R&B covers. Oldham knew that paying others to write songs for the group would be expensive, and the Beatles had proven that pop singers could write their own songs and still enjoy chart success. No one in the group thought any of them could write, but the Stones’ manager shut Jagger and Richards in a room together and wouldn’t let them come out until they’d written at least one song.
“(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” wasn’t their first self-composed single, but it is typical of the songs that Jagger and Richards would turn out in 1965-66. Based on a fuzztone riff that Richards claims he came up with in his sleep (fortunately, he awoke long enough to record it before returning to bed), the song proved to be the Stones’ first number one hit in the United States. The song was recorded at Chess Studios in Chicago, the home of the band’s idols Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley; they remember that, upon entering the studio, they found Waters painting the ceiling (which he denied was true). In 2004 Rolling Stone magazine listed “Satisfaction” at # 2 in its list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, and in 2006 the single was added to the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress as a recording that should be preserved for future generations.
WHAT TO LISTEN FOR:
The iconic guitar riff and electric guitar sound
Importance of vocals – there’s only one Mick Jagger! At one point conversational, at other points, the vocals have a shouting vibe
The influence of the hook in the chorus blended with portions of the guitar riff
An amazing balance of the riff and the hook blended together with just the right proportions
Make sure you read the paragraph under “FORM” on page 182 for this tune. An excellent example of the contrasting verse-chorus form.
Lyrics:
I can get no satisfaction, I can get no satisfaction
‘Cause I try and I try and I try and I try
I can’t get no, I can’t get no
When I’m drivin’ in my car, and the man comes on the radio
He’s tellin’ me more and more about some useless information
Supposed to fire my imagination
I can’t get no, oh, no, no, no, hey, hey, hey
That’s what I say
I can get no satisfaction, I can get no satisfaction
‘Cause I try and I try and I try and I try
I can’t get no, I can’t get no
When I’m watchin’ my tv and a man comes on and tell me
How white my shirts can be
But, he can’t be a man ’cause he doesn’t smoke
The same cigarettes as me
I can’t get no, oh, no, no, no, hey, hey, hey
That’s what I say
I can get no satisfaction, I can’t get girl reaction
‘Cause I try and I try and I try and I try
I can’t get no, I can’t get no
When I’m ridin’ round the world
And I’m doin’ this and I’m signin’ that
And I’m tryin’ to make some girl, who tells me
Baby, better come back maybe next week
Can’t you see I’m on a losing streak
I can’t get no, oh, no, no, no, hey, hey, hey
That’s what I say, I can’t get no, I can’t get no
I can get no satisfaction, no satisfaction
No satisfaction, no satisfaction
RATE-A-RECORD/QUESTIONS TO ANSWER:
What is this piece about? What is it trying to convey?
This tune has one of the most recognizable opening riffs in rock music history. Do some digging on the internet and find out how this riff came about.
Give it a rating: 0 = Bad, 100 = Awesome. Defend your number.
Image preview for”an amazing balance of the riff and the hook blended together with just the right proportions”
APA
304 words