There aren’t many bands still going today who can hope to touch the legacy of The Rolling Stones. Even though the group has had various lineup changes and band members pass away along their storied career, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards have helped lead the band throughout every facet of rock and roll history, from the British Invasion to their phase as seasoned blues veterans. While Charlie Watts was known as the band’s beating heart for years, he thought that one of their first songs defined what they were all about.
When the band were first getting together, there was some question over whether they could afford to hire Watts in the first place. As opposed to the straight-ahead rock and roll the band was used to playing every night, Watts was known for having a deep love of jazz as well, which began to clash with the band’s usual style.
Once the band struck gold in the rehearsal room, they knew they had the potential to become one of the biggest bands in the world. Although most of the material on their first albums involved them taking the basis of rock and roll standards and putting their unique spin on them, it wouldn’t be until Jagger and Richards started to write songs that they started to hone their craft as rock legends.
Inspired by The Beatles writing their own songs, The Stones’ material set out to be the nastier answer to what the Fab Four were doing, bringing a lustful energy to their love songs and a degree of menace to their serious tracks. While the duo spent some time giving away songs they didn’t like to their pop contemporaries, it wasn’t until Richards hit the riff for ‘Satisfaction’ that things began coming together.
Recorded while on the road, Richards’s initial version of the riff was written in his sleep. Waking up with the main figure in his head, Richards made a demo of the song on his tape recorder, only to fall asleep midway through the take with the tape still rolling. Once the band fed Richards’ guitar through a fuzz box, it began to sound far more interesting.
Even though Richards envisioned a horn section playing his signature riff, the song would become the genesis of the rock and roll guitar riff. Matching Richards’ menace was Jagger’s brooding voice, talking about all of the teenage angst that afflicts everyone in their 20s, from the vapid commercialism on TV to adults telling him how to live his life.
Years after the band made their mark on the music industry, Watts would single out ‘Satisfaction’ as one of the crowned jewels of their discography, saying, “It was just the first really big record we ever made. It’s an iconic riff. It just sums up the whole period, really”. Even though Watts considered the song a phenomenal work, it wasn’t always easy trying to make it work in a live setting.
When talking about performing the song, Watts would complain that he would have to make sure he positioned as close to Richards as he could so he had the correct tempo to come in with. Even though Watts may have been the pulse behind many of The Stones’ finest moments, the driving engine from Richards turned the band from blues troubadours into rock and roll gods.