I was not alive in '65. I was born almost 30 years afterward. But everything I've read has said that in the summer of '65, Satisfaction was where it was at; that that song basically took over that year. It's always played in movies featuring Vietnam, and the mid '60s in general. I'm curious--for those who were alive and can remember 1965, was Satisfaction that big that summer, that year? Was it a song that really colored the times?

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

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

Yes it was huge!  It really put them on the map in that it drew a wider range of folks' appreciation! I saw them play it once in Sept of that year. I couldn't hear anything due to the screaming girls. The only song that I did know that they played was Satisfaction which even I could lip read!  Cost of ticket?  approx £0.40 / $0.65!!  And we got Brian Jones too!! Bargain!!! 

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 like this thread.

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.

I turned 13 in July that year and believe it or not I do remember that time pretty well.
At about the same time the Beatles' "HELP" and the Byrds' "Mr. Tambourine Man"
had also pretty much playtime on the radio.
A great time that was.

The grass must have been so much green then.

I was born almost 10 years later, but my Dad was 17 in 65 (and 21 in 69, just like the Jackson Browne song!) and he says it's his favorite song ever, period.

He says he and his friends were on their way from Akron, OH to Michigan? Indiana? To get beer, I guess the drinking age was lower wherever they were going and that is the first time he ever heard it was in the car. He said he'd never heard anything like it before and it blew him away.

Because of that, I don't remember NOT knowing the song.

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

The grass must have been so much green then.

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.  :booze

this is my new favorite thread.

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

It was the greatest of times!
Yes I remember it being played over the AM waves!
It was a game changer, as were the 4 headed Monster tunes.
Dad drove the car of course and we had to rely on him to NOT turn the station or turn it down. But at the river where the radio was ours, during the day, The
Station WGH in OLE Virginia, played it several times during the day!
The older teenage girls loved it, and you had to be quiet when it came on so they could hear it. Listening to the Radio back was a science, you had to pick your time and location. Nothing like todays access to everything, everywhere.
Back then having enough money to own a radio, much less a Phonograph, and to be able to have enough spare change , to Buy an LP. You were a fortunate soul! It was the best of times!

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!