Mick Jagger wrote a classic song for The Rolling Stones because he was “fed up” of the United States.
Jagger‘s knock at America was still a hit across the pond, rather ironically inspired by (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction becoming the band’s first number one success over there. The song was released in the US and then the UK, and it gave The Rolling Stones some much-needed credit in the USA. But it was the desire for another hit, so soon after the first, that annoyed Jagger. As a result, he and the band got to work on an anti-American song to put the country back in its place. That song would be a hit in the United States too, peaking at number one in both the US and UK at the time of its release.
But Jagger had intended the song as a knock at American culture, with the track calling out “narrow-mindedness” in the United States. The song in question, Get Off Of My Cloud, was another early hit for the band, much to Jagger’s surprise.
It was Keith Richards who would recall the mood after the release of (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction. He said: “I remember after Satisfaction, which was a time of great triumph, a worldwide hit, Mick and I were sitting back in some motel room, in San Diego, if I remember rightly.
“We gave this big sigh of relief, and it was exactly at that moment that there was a knock at the door, and the phone started ringing, and people wanted the next hit. It was a hard training ground.” Jagger was not best pleased with this constant desire for more from The Rolling Stones, and hit back with a brilliant piece.
Jagger explained: “The grown-up world was a very ordered society in the early ’60s, and I was coming out of it. America was even more ordered than anywhere else. I found it was a very restrictive society in thought and behaviour and dress.
“Outside of [New York City and Los Angeles], we found it the most repressive society, very prejudiced in every way. There was still segregation. And the attitudes were fantastically old-fashioned. Americans shocked me by their behaviour and their narrow-mindedness.”
He added Get Off Of My Cloud was a “stop-bugging me, post-teenage-alienation song” which had him address how he was “sick and tired” of the country. Jagger would break down the band’s first US hit, (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction, in an interview with Rolling Stone Magazine.
He said: “Well, it’s a signature tune, really, rather than a great, classic painting, ’cause it’s only like one thing – a kind of signature that everyone knows.
“It has a very catchy title. It has a very catchy guitar riff. It has a great guitar sound, which was original at that time. And it captures a spirit of the times, which is very important in those kind of songs. Which was alienation. Or it’s a bit more than that, maybe, but a kind of sexual alienation. Alienation‘s not quite the right word, but it’s one word that would do.”
So he should have stayed in England and a nice freaking day!!!!!
The United States is still a repressive society, still very prejudiced in every way, still fantastically old-fashioned, and still narrow-minded. And it’s getting worse. We’re moving backward. Stones as relevant as ever.
The Rolling Stones are the Epitome of “The Greatest Rock and Roll band” ever. Mick and Keith were clever musicians who wrote epic songs. I used to get in the middle of out round coffee table and move like Jagger. He’s straight up unpredictable and that’s what makes him great. I have a page for him and 90k can’t be wrong. But I knew this all along. The Beatles were good. I liked Wings. They were not the same.