For the past six decades, Keith Richards has claimed that he wrote (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction in his sleep.
But for all its mythical origins, Richards never thought of the song's iconic guitar hook as “the big guitar riff” – not even when he added a dose of fuzz to it.
“That all fell into place at RCA [recording studio in L.A.] when Gibson dumped on me one of those first Fuzz-Tone pedals,” he recalled in a 2005 Guitar World interview.
“I actually thought of that guitar line as a horn riff.”
For Richards, the song was never actually finished – his fuzz parts were only intended to be demos for a real horn line.
“When this new Fuzz Tone pedal arrived in the studio from the local dealership or something, I said, ‘Oh, this is good. It’s got a bit of sustain, so I can use it to sketch out the horn line.’”
So you can imagine his surprise when he realized his back-of-the-napkin riff ended up on the final recording.
“We left the track and went back out on the road. And two weeks later, I hear it on the radio. I said, ‘No, that was just a demo!’ They said, ‘No, it’s a hit.’”
Satisfaction helped the Stones clinch their first-ever number one in the States, after it reached the top spot on July 10. It stayed there for four weeks before being displaced by I'm Henry the Eighth, I Am by Herman's Hermits.
Otis Redding ended up covering the track on his album, Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul in 1965. And it was only then that Richards' original vision for the track was fulfilled.
“At least Otis got it right,” the guitarist later chuckled. “Our version was a demo for Otis.”
