‘Satisfaction’ Golden Reissue Marks First Rolling Stones U.S. #1

Fifty years after “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” finally scored a chart-topping hit in America for The Rolling Stones, the song returns to celebrate the occasion on July 10 as a limited-edition 12-inch vinyl single from ABKCO Records. Remastered from the original mono master tapes, the reissue features the original 1965 seven-inch 45’s picture sleeve with a photo of the band by famed photographer David Bailey, and both of the different U.S. and U.K. single flipsides – “The Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man” and “The Spider and the Fly,” respectively – on the new disc’s B-side.

The song’s indelible guitar riff was composed by Keith Richards in a St. Petersburg. FL hotel room on the night of May 6-7, 1965 following a raucous concert that lasted for only four songs until a fracas between fans and police stopped the show. He played it on acoustic guitar into a portable tape recorder and then promptly fell asleep. When the band tracked the completed song on May 13 at RCA Studios in Hollywood, Richards cut the guitar track through a Gibson fuzzbox with the intention of replacing it later with a horn section. (Otis Redding’s cover the following year finally did that.)

Released in the U.S. on June 6, the song hit #1 on the Record World singles chart on July 3 and nabbed the top slot in the Billboard and Cashbox charts a week later. “It was the song that really made The Rolling Stones [in America], changed us from just another band into a huge, monster band,” Mick Jagger later noted.

The 180-gram 12-inch disc reissue plays at 45 RPM to allow for wider grooves that yield broader range and better high-frequency response. ABKCO will press 10,000 numbered copies of the release that can be preordered here.