Well, I was only 4-years old in 1965, but I distinctly remember hearing Satisfaction on a transistor radio and really liking it. 

Of course, it wasn't until several years later that I was able to truly appreciate the Stones.

My first Stones show was in Clearwater, Florida on May 6, 1965, I was thirteen years old. This is allegedly the night that Keith woke up and recorded the Satisfaction riff into his tape recorder according to his book, Life. We had just seen them on the Ed Sullivan show the previous Sunday and the show took place on Thursday night.

I was 12 and family were in Cleveland visiting my uncle. We drove down from Canada and I bought the 45 of Satisfaction in a small record store and paid 39 cents for it. I still have it with the cool B side Under Assistant Promo Man. Can remember buying it and for the first time in my life I was in an place as the only white person surrounded by blacks. I remember not being concerned just a new experience at that age. Store clerks were cool and wrapped that baby up for me to take back to Canada.

The grass must have been so much green then.

MrPleasant wrote on Mar 20^th, 2015 at 10:02am:


Oh yeah MrPleasant, it was.
50 years ago now and that means that I'm turning 63 this summer.
So. considering that it just must have been so much greener. 

It absolutely was the song of that summer.
I bought the 45 and had to have played it several hundred times the first couple of months. And then I finally turned it over and went crazy over Under Assisstant West Coast Promo Man.
Some may pick a Beatles hit single from that period, but the song of the sixties music revolution has to be Satisfaction.

Rick

"Jump on top of me, give it to me nice and slow." J/R

Living in New Jersey and a 13 year old Stones fan, I remember SATISFACTION coming out of nowhere in May of 1965. At the time we got our music off a simple, one speaker, 8 transistor, radio. Rock in stereo was unheard of.  Their previous release, THE LAST TIME, was catchy, but not Top Ten material. But the opening fuzz guitar riff of SATISFACTION seemed to explode out of the box. There had never been anything like it to my ears. Being used to Jagger’s singing style, I could piece together the verses, but the only thing the average listener could make out was the chorus. Of course, any teen could identify with that thinking. It was a long song, some stations cut out the middle verse, and I believe it took about 3 weeks to reach number one, where it stayed for 5 weeks on station WMCA. Seemed like it was played every 15 minutes and I loved every minute of it.

Some things about the song – First was the question of where was Brian Jones? His acoustic guitar was buried in the mix and it really doesn’t come out until you hear the true stereo versions. Also, it wasn’t until many, many years later that I learned that a “losing streak” was what a British female would refer to her time of the month. Lastly, there was a big rumor among kids that in verse 3, Jagger sings, “I’m trying to make some girl, PREGNANT….” I heard the words “THEY TELL ME,” but my friends kept saying I was wrong. (When in doubt, go for the nasty!)
And though I bought the 45 the first day it was in the stores, mine didn’t come with the picture sleeve. What a rip! Didn’t realize it at the time. (Got one eventually years later, but had to pay some big bucks for it.)
This was the song that separated the Stones from the original “English Invasion” bands and proved them to be a genuine threat to the Beatles supremacy. Still my all time favorite Stones song. I sometimes wonder if the original riff that Keith says he put on his cassette after awakening in the middle of the night still exists. That would be one for a true “Rarities” album!