How Keith Richards Wrote 'Satisfaction' in His Sleep

One of rock’s most recognizable riffs emerged in 1965 while The Rolling Stones were on their third American tour. The band stopped at the Fort Harrison Hotel in Clearwater, Florida, and guitarist Keith Richards briefly woke from sleep with the idea for what would become “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” a song that helped transform the group from another British band into rock legends.

Richards recalled being in a dream-like state: “I woke up, I don’t even remember … I put it down on a little early cassette player, fell asleep. In the morning, I remember nothing of this except that I see that the tape is gone from the beginning to the end. I run it back and, basically, for thirty seconds or fifty seconds, there is ‘Satisfaction.’” The riff on the cassette was followed by roughly forty minutes of snoring.

Richards admitted he “never thought it was anything commercial enough to be a single,” yet the song became the Stones’ first U.S. number one and topped charts around the world.

United States, Clearwater, Florida

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