Keith Richards Wrote One of The Rolling Stones’ Biggest Hits in His Sleep

Many artists would want to savor the moment they realize a song will be a hit. However, when one is as gifted as The Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards, writing hits comes so naturally that he doesn’t even realize it. Richards said he wrote one of the band’s biggest hits “in his sleep,” and didn’t even remember doing it. 

Mick Jagger and Keith Richards wrote ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’ together

“(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” is one of The Rolling Stones’ most successful songs. It’s a multi-generational hit to which even the younger crowds can sing. However, according to Jagger, Richards wasn’t initially a fan of the song. In the BBC documentary My Life as a Rolling Stone, Jagger recalled when he and Richards wrote the song and realized it would be a hit. 

“There’s this motel in Clearwater, Florida, and I remember sitting with Keith and writing the song ‘Satisfaction’,” Jagger said. “[Our manager] Andrew Oldham said, ‘This is like a number one single, this is great!’ Keith was like, ‘I don’t really like it. It can’t come out as a single.’ And it went to number one like instantly. It was like a big moment; it became your signature tune, your cri de coeur, your sexuality, your controversy. You need to have that song that everyone remembers. It makes a huge change, and it also brings you into a much more confident era of writing, production and stuff.”

Keith Richards said he ‘had no idea’ he’d written The Rolling Stones song

Keith Richards remembers that night very differently; he says he doesn’t remember writing The Rolling Stones’ song. In his autobiography, Life, Richards claimed he wrote “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” “in his sleep” and that the only reason the song was saved was that it had been recorded on a cassette player. 

“I wrote ‘Satisfaction’ in my sleep. I had no idea I’d written it, it’s only thank God for the little Philips cassette player,” Richards wrote. “The miracle being that I looked at the cassette player that morning, and I knew I’d put a brand-new tape in the previous night, and I saw it was the end. It was just a rough idea. There was just the bare bones of the song, and it didn’t have that noise, of course, because I was on acoustic… But the bare bones is all you need.”

‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’ became the band’s first No. 1 in the U.S. 

Fortunately, the lyrics of “Satisfaction” aren’t too complicated, so it might not have been too tricky for Keith Richards to recollect it and turn it into a Rolling Stones hit. The song was first released on June 5, 1965, as a single in the U.S. and reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, holding that spot for four weeks. 

The song debuted in the U.K. on August 20, 1965, and peaked at No. 1 on the U.K. charts. It’s still one of the band’s most popular tracks and is considered one of the greatest rock songs of all time on dozens of lists.