As rock anniversaries go, 60 years is quite the milestone.
Consider what the world looked like on June 4, 1965, the day (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction was released by the Rolling Stones: humanity yet to set foot on the moon, communism ruling Eastern Europe, war escalating in Vietnam, and it would be two years until the Beatles released Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction turned the big 2-0 as then UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher stared down striking coalminers in 1985, and space shuttles orbited the planet, Uluru was handed back to traditional owners and MTV took over a generation.
The Rolling Stones outside the Tin Pan Alley Club in London, 1963.Credit: Getty Images
On its 40th anniversary, in the wake of September 11, the “Axis of Evil”, Iraq and Afghanistan, we spoke of the song on the internet (that’s what we called it then) and wondered how the Rolling Stones’ lead singer, Mick Jagger, could still do it. Could still do anything, really.
A few years later, we shared clips – originals, live performances, tributes – using these new little phones we kept in our pockets that were 100,000 times more powerful than the computer that landed that spacecraft on the moon a generation earlier.
And the world kept on changing, moving, relentlessly pushing forward: Trump, COVID, more Trump. But 60 years on – we’re still singing the song and humming that riff.
The Rolling Stones still going in California in 2024.Credit: Getty Images
When I’m drivin’ in my car
And the man comes on the radio
He’s tellin’ me more and more
About some useless information
Supposed to drive my imagination
I can’t get no, oh no, no, no
See how this timeless song has spanned the ages. Watch our video mashup of the Rolling Stones performing (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction through the decades, interwoven with the events that shaped our world.