Post Malone “Circles” hit #1

Circles Post Malone

Writer(s): Austin Post, Louis Bell, Adam Feeney, Kaan Gunesberk, Billy Walsh (see lyrics here) Released: August 30, 2019 First Charted: September 14, 2019 Peak: 13 US, 111 BA, 11 DG, 17 RR, 12 AC, 14 A40, 23 MR, 3 UK, 2 CN, 2 AU, 3 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 10.0 US, 1.2 UK, 12.62 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 0.94 radio, 858.40 video, 2400.49 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Singer/songwriter and rapper Post Malone was born Austin Richard Post in Syracuse, New York in 1995. His debut album Stoney from 2016 featured the top 10, diamond-certified song “Congratulations.” His next album, 2017’s Beerbongs & Bentleys, spawned the #1 hits “Rockstar” and “Psycho” as well as the # hit “Better Now.” In 2019, he released Hollywood’s Bleeding. The first two singles, “Wow.” and “Goodbyes” reached #2 and #3 respectively; the third single, “Circles,” gave him his fourth #1 song. It was his first chart-topper where he wasn’t accompanied by another artist. “Circles” set a record for most weeks in the top 10 (39) before being surpassed by the Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights.” It logged 61 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100. It became the most-played radio song of 2020 overall as well as on adult contemporary radio. WK The song was also nominated for Grammys for Record and Song of the Year. Songfacts.com described the song this way: “Though the relationship seems to bring only sorrow, Post and his lover are unable to split. But continuing to stay together on their carousel only increases the tension between them.” SF Billboard magazine described the song as “backed by sunny, acoustic guitars, swirling percussion, and infectious melodies.” WK R Dub, the director of programming at Z90.3, called it “an absolutely addicting, fun, emotional, and…non-fatiguing hook, combined with relatable lyrics.” WK Resources: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Post Malone SF Songfacts WK Wikipedia First posted 10/19/2022; last updated 3/31/2024.

Today in Music (1969): The Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter” released on Let It Bleed

Gimme Shelter The Rolling Stones

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Today in Music (1969): The Rolling Stones released Let It Bleed

Let It Bleed The Rolling Stones

Released: November 28, 1969 Peak: 3 US, 11 UK, 4 CN, 2 AU, 16 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): 3.6 US, 0.73 UK, 7.0 world (includes US and UK), 22.29 EAS Genre: classic rock

Tracks: Click on a song title for more details. Gimme Shelter [4:31] Love in Vain [4:19] Country Honk [3:09] Live with Me [3:33] Let It Bleed [5:26] Midnight Rambler [6:52] You Got the Silver [2:51] Monkey Man [4:12] You Can’t Always Get What You Want [7:28] Total Running Time: 42:21 The Players: Mick Jagger (vocals, harmonica, acoustic guitar) Keith Richards (guitar, backing vocals) Brian Jones (congas, autoharp) Bill Wyman (bass, autoharp, vibraphone) Charlie Watts (drums) Mick Taylor (guitar) Nicky Hopkins (piano, organ) Ian Stewart (piano on “Let It Bleed”)

Rating: 4.684 out of 5.00 (average of 34 ratings) Quotable: “A true classic that captures the Stones in their prime and at the peak of their creative powers.” – Tim Morse, Classic Rock Stories Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

Farewell, Brian Jones The Rolling Stones were in turmoil when they recorded Let It Bleed. Brian Jones, the guitarist who originally lead the group, was booted during the sessions for his serious drug problem. He “drowned in a druggy haze” JD less than a month later. His final work appears on two tracks on the album. “To replace the filigree that he usually added to Jagger/Richards tunes, the Stones turned to a fluid young guitarist named Mick Taylor,” JD the man who’d replaced Eric Clapton in John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers. CRS “The addition of the blues veteran helped put The Rolling Stones at the top of the rock scene while ‘The Lads from Liverpool’ were too busy bickering to focus on their music.” RV In addition, “the songs begin to reflect the personalities that drive them.” IB “’Monkey Man,’ ‘Let It Bleed’ and ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ cast a sharp writer’s eye on the decay seeping into the Stones’ camp, proving that Mick [Jagger] had become more than a pair of lips and hips.” IB Keith Richards played more guitar than ever and offered up a “musical vision…more intimate than ever, incorporating the restrained rhythm playing that would become his calling card.” IB Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts “are, as always, a rock-solid and wonderfully tasteful rhythm section.” JD It’s all rounded out by “a glittering cast of supporting players that included strings arranger Jack Nitzche, guitarist Ry Cooder, keyboardists Al Kooper and Leon Russell, country fiddler Byron Berline, soon-to-be-ubiquitous sax man Bobby Keys, and vocalist Merry Clayton.” JD The Big Four “The period between 1968-1972 was particularly golden for The Rolling Stones, and the group’s 1969 entry – its eighth long-player in the UK and 10th in the US — may well be the most definitive of that era.” CQ “The erstwhile bad boy outsiders of rock” CD “confident climb to its artistic peak” CD “was begun by Beggar’s Banquet, but Let It Bleed is a quantum leap even from that musical milestone.” CD It represents “The Rolling Stones in peak form, laying substantial groundwork as the World’s Greatest Rock Band.” CQ It is “a true classic that captures the Stones in their prime and at the peak of their creative powers.” CRS “Refining the country and blues-print of Beggars Banquet,” IB Let It Bleed “extends the rock & blues feel of Beggar’s Banquet into slightly harder-rocking, more demonically sexual territory.” AM “The entire album, although a motley compound of country, blues and gospel fire, rattles and burns with apocalyptic cohesion.” 500 Those two albums and 1971’s “Sticky Fingers formulated the Stones’ stadium sound and established their louche swagger, camp raunch and sometimes-cod-sometimes-retro sensibilities as the lasting blueprint of international rock’n’roll.” Q Following Beggars Banquet Let It Bleed follows a similar template to its predecessor, Beggars Banquet. “Side one on both albums starts with a dak, sinister piece, followed by a poignant, slide guitar-driven blues song, then a country number. Turn over to side two for a tale of violence…then followed by another subdued blues meets country item. To end the journey was a song that started with a choral section, then became a plaintive acoustic folk ballad, morphed into gospel-meets-funk, and then simply soared, pushed along by guest keyboard players, Richards’ guitar licks, backing singers in unison and the reappearance of the choir.” JV-52 The End of the Sixties The Rolling Stones’ free concert on December 6, 1969, at Altamont Speedway, forty miles east of San Francisco, California, is often cited as a representation of the death of the Sixties. A far cry from the peace and love hippie vibe of the Woodstock festival just months earlier, Altamont was marked by the death of a fan who was stabbed by a member of the Hell’s Angels, who had been hired as security. Let It Bleed came out a week earlier and has been “inextricably linked with Altamont” JD and “the death knell for a generation’s Utopian fantasies.” JD “The ‘60s had ended and the ‘70s had begun. The Rolling Stones had delivered the eulogy, and rock would never be the same again.” JD Even before that, though, the Stones had been marketed “as the evil alternative to the cheerful, mop-topped Beatles.” JS Some of that makes sense when looking at Let It Bleed, an album that saw the Stones use as “the ultimate exploration of its darker shadows – an album of astounding power.” JD In bridging their past with their future, Let It Bleed showcases “every role the Stones have ever played…swaggering studs, evil demons, harem keepers and fast life riders—what the Stones meant in the Sixties” RS – while also signaling the beginning of the ‘70s.” RS As such, Let It Bleed “finds the band, for perhaps the first time, accurately reflecting the spirit of its age. [They] now found themselves firmly in the center of the social and political post-‘68 whirlwind, and faced up to the challenge magnificently.” CD The Songs Fittingly, Let It Bleed “contains some of the band’s most eerie hits” AZ and “tremendous songwriting that would never be equalled by the band.” CRS “If it only had the bookends of ‘Gimme Shelter’ and ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want,’ Let It Bleed…would still be essential. But the nine-track set also boasts ‘Midnight Rambler,’ ‘Live with Me,’ ‘You Got the Silver,’ ‘Monkey Man’ and the title track – all A-list entries in the Stones’ canon.” CQ Here are insights into individual songs from the album.

Gimme Shelter The Rolling Stones

Writer(s): Mick Jagger, Keith Richards (see lyrics here) Recorded: February to March 1969 at Olympic Sound Studios in London; October – November 1969 at Sunset Sound Studios and/or Elektra Studios in Los Angeles Released: 11/28/1998 (single, live version), Let It Bleed (1969), Hot Rocks (1971), Forty Licks (2002), Grrr! (2012) Peak: 1 CL, 29 AR, 42 CN, 1 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): 0.6 UK Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 128.55 video, 756.37 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: When the Rolling Stones released Let It Bleed, Rolling Stone magazine critic Greil Marcus praised “Gimme Shelter,” saying the group had “never done anything better.” WK-G The song was a favorite of director Martin Scorsese, who used it in his films GoodFellas, Casino, and The Departed. The song “builds on the dark beauty of the finest melody Mick and Keith have ever written.” RS It features “insinuating guitar introduction” CD and “shimmering guitar lines and apocalyptic lyrics” AM throughout, and “slowly [adds] instruments and sounds until an explosively full presence of bass and drums rides…into the howls of Mick and…Merry Clayton.” RS Her backing vocals have been called “the most prominent contribution to a Rolling Stones track by a female vocalist.” WK-G “She can stand up to Mick and match him, and in fact, she steals the song.” RS While the Stones never released this as a single, Clayton recorded her own version in 1970 and released it. It reached #73. Producer Jimmy Miller thought it needed a female voice and producer Jack Nitzsche called her WK-G late at night while the Stones were recording in Los Angeles. She said in the documentary 20 Feet from Stardom that she showed up in silk pajamas with curlers in her hair. SF She “delivered a chilling vocal” SF in just a few takes while heavily pregnant and returned home to bed. She later suffered a miscarriage, which some have attributed to her exertion in recording the song. WK-G It is a “brooding, apocalyptic salvo – as if, despite the peace and love elsewhere, the Rolling Stones had tapped into an altogether dark vein.” XFM Marcus said it was “a song about fear; it probably serves better than anything else as a passageway straight into the next decade.” JV-34 The song “is the sound of a frantically braking freight train about to crush the ‘60s under its wheels” IB as it “leads us decisively out of Flower Power and into a world where rape and murder are ‘just a shot away.’” CD Indeed, its “aura of menace eerily foreshadowed Altamont,” JD the Stones’ concert where a fan was killed by Hell’s Angels serving as security. That event, and specifically “Gimme Shelter,” has come “to symbolize…the death of the utopian spirit” 500 of “the peace-and-love ‘60s.” PF The song is “a dark and beautiful anti-war masterpiece.” RV Jagger said it was “a kind of end-of-the-world song, a very moody piece about the world closing in on you.” JV-35 He told Rolling Stone magazine, “Well, it’s a very rough, very violent era. The Vietnam War. Violence on the screens, pillage and burning. And Vietnam was not war as we knew it in the conventional sense…It was a real nasty war…People objected, and people didn't want to fight it…That’s a kind of end-of-the-world song, really.” WK-G There is some thought that Richards actually wrote the song completely on his own. Early versions, known as “Give Me Some Shelter,” feature Richards on vocals. JV-25 As for the song’s theme, he asserted the song wasn’t initially about social unrest or Vietnam, but seeing people scurrying for shelter from a rainstorm. WK-G It has been suggested, however, that the song is about more than just finding shelter from the rain. Richards’ girlfriend, Anita Pallenberg, was filming Performance with Jagger and suspected they were having an affair. WK-G There was even a fear that it would derail the Jagger-Richards’ writing partnership and the Rolling Stones themselves. JV-35

Love in Vain The Rolling Stones

Writer(s): Robert Johnson Recorded: February to March 1969 at Olympic Sound Studios in London Released: Let It Bleed (1969) Peak: 13 CL Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 15.71 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: “Jagger and Richards were both part of the musical generation strongly drawn to the back catalogue of 1930s Delta bluesman Robert Johnson.” JV-38 “A year or so before they started recording Let It Bleed…they discovered another collection” JV-39 that featured the “spooky” AZ and “exquisite ‘Love in Vain.’” RS At the time, Richards was spending a lot of time with American country rock musician Gram Parsons and thought that, with some modifications to make it more country, “A Love in Vain” would be perfect for the Stones. JV-39 That song and “You Got the Silver” “were as close to the roots of acoustic down-home blues as the Stones ever got.” AM “Love in Vain” “would become even more impactful on the following year’s Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out live set.” CQ The song is “a mandolin-accompanied highlight,” CD thanks to a guest turn from Ry Cooder. It was one of the first times the instrument was so prominently featured on a rock song. JV-27 Before then, the instrument was “almost exclusively the preserve of folk, country, and bluegrass musicians.” JV-39

Country Honk The Rolling Stones

Writer(s): Mick Jagger, Keith Richards Recorded: May to July 1969 at Olympic Sound Studios in London; October 1969 at Sunset Sound Studios and Elektra Studios in Los Angeles Released: Let It Bleed (1969) Peak: 21 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 11.77 streaming About the Song: The Stones offer up “the spare country settings of Country Honk,” IB “the two-stepping alter ego of ‘Honky-Tonk Women’” AZ “played in the style of Hank Williams and Jimmie Rodgers.” JV-28 “Country Honk” actually was recorded first. When Mick Taylor joined the band a few weeks later, he contributed to the more familiar electric version of “Honky Tonk Women.” JV-40 Richards was influenced by his buddy Gram Parsons, sometimes called the Father of Country Rock, to craft a song with “a country lilt.” JD Parsons even supposedly arranged “Country Honk” for the Stones as a thank you for them letting his band, the Flying Burrito Brothers, record the Stones’ “Wild Horses” before the Stones even released their version. JV-41 The Stones did revisit “Country Honk” later, deciding the original version lacked something. They brought in Byron Berline, “one of the most in-demand bluegrass fiddle players on the scene, to come and add some violin.” JV-41

Live with Me The Rolling Stones

Writer(s): Mick Jagger, Keith Richards Recorded: May 1969 at Olympic Sound Studios in London; October to November 1969 at Sunset Sound Studios and Elektra Studios in Los Angeles Released: Let It Bleed (1969) Peak: 14 CL Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 9.61 streaming About the Song: In the album’s middle trifecta, “the Stones prance through all their familiar roles, with their Rolling Stones masks on, full of lurking evil, garish sexuality, and the hilarious and exciting posturing of rock and roll Don Juans” RS such as on “the sex-mad desperation of Live with Me.” 500 The song featured guest spots from Leon Russell on piano and Bobby Keys on sax. The song “marked the beginning of what would become a new pattern for the Stones’ music, with saxophone becoming almost as prominent on their records as lead guitar.” JV-42 Jagger also delivers some thought-provoking lyrics that make the listener wonder if “he was ou to shcok, with those horns on his head clearly visible, or else parodying himself as an absolute monster, an Aleister Crowley-like demon living a life of depravity in a grand mansion.” JV-42

Let It Bleed The Rolling Stones

Writer(s): Mick Jagger, Keith Richards Recorded: March (?) and June – July 1969 at Olympic Sound Studios in London Released: Let It Bleed (1969), More Hot Rocks (Big Hits & Fazed Cookies) (1972) Peak: 5 CL, 4 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 30.79 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: “Let It Bleed” reportedly started out as a song called “If You Need Someone.” JV-26 “Jagger’s vocal, his best mock Nashville drawl, sang innocuously enough at the start about how we all need someone we can lean on.” JV-44 It “comes across as a relaxed country, almost comfortingly folksy song.” JV-43 However, “the whiff of debauchery was not far behind” JV-43 with the song’s eventual “druggy party ambience” AM bought on by references to “needing someone to feed on, cream on, bleed on, cum on – and then a stabbing in the filthy dirty basement, not to mention a junkie nurse.” JV-44 There are several explanations as to how the song title, which never appears in the song exactly, came about. One story is that Richards played the acoustic guitar so much for the cut that his fingers started bleeding. When he approached producer Jimmy Miller to tell him they needed to finish the track because he couldn’t play much longer, Miller’s attitude was reportedly to “let it bleed, man.” JV-45 However, the phrase is also a reference among intravenous “drug users for finding a vein when the syringe plunger is pulled back and, should blood appear, letting it bleed.” JV-45 Finally, the most “innocent scenario” is that the Stones were aware of the Beatles’ impending Let It Be album release and gave their own album a confusingly similar title on purpose. JV-45

Midnight Rambler The Rolling Stones

Writer(s): Mick Jagger, Keith Richards Recorded: February, March, and May 1969 at Olympic Sound Studios in London; October to November 1969 at Sunset Sound Studios and Elektra Studios in Los Angeles Released: 9/4/1970 (single, live), Let It Bleed (1969), Hot Rocks (1971), Grrr! (2012) Peak: 5 CL, 13 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 22.95 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: “Jagger is at his most compelling on” JD the “menacing Midnight Rambler.” AZ “Lyrically, it’s probably the most chilling number they ever wrote.” JV-45 Inspired by the Boston Strangler, the song is “a horrifying depiction of a serial killer…Jagger displays a disquieting enthusiasm for the role; listen to the way he relishes the ending line, ‘I’ll stick my knife right down your throat, baby--and it hurts!’” JD The band dubbed the song a “blues opera.” JV-45 Jagger said that he and Richards wrote the song while on holiday in Italy, no sure why they wrote such a dark tune in “such idyllic surroundings.” JV-46 The “murderous blues” 500 song features “some steam-powered harmonica.” IB

You Got the Silver The Rolling Stones

Writer(s): Mick Jagger, Keith Richards Recorded: February 1969 and possibly as early as May or June 1968 at Olympic Sound Studios in London Released: 1/70 (B-side of “Let It Bleed”), Let It Bleed (1969), Grrr! (2012) Peak: 25 CL Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 12.58 streaming About the Song: Sessions for the Let It Bleed album started as early as 1968 in the late autumn with some accounts suggesting that “You Got the Silver,” then under the title “You Got Some Silver Now,” may have even been started as early as May or June of that year. JV-21 It is “a haunting ride through the diamond mines,” RS that displayed both the country and blues elements. The arrangement is similar to some of Rod “Stewart’s mainly acoustic love songs,” JV-48 which featured accompanying slide guitar from future Stones’ member Ron Wood. JV-48 The song evokes “a semi-Nashville twang with the theme of good old-fashioned romance.” JV-47 Keith wrote it for his girlfriend Anita. “Where Jagger came straight to the point and said there was a place for him and his loved…one between the sheets, Richards went for the more gentlemanly minstrel approach.” JV-47 Jagger recorded vocals for the song, but it was reportedly erased accidentally so the Stones went with Richards’ slightly huskier voice for the one on record. JV-48 He’d previously sung lead only on “Connection” from the 1967 Between the Buttons album. JV-49 “His laid-back singing gave the whole song a different colour which it would have lacked had it been another Jagger vocal.” JV-48 “It’s thrilling to hear Keith’s exuberance.” IB “His relaxed yet lovelorn crooning…really raised his profile as one of the gentlest, most straightforward songs on an album on which almost every other song was keen to grab the listener by the jugular.” JV-49

Monkey Man The Rolling Stones

Writer(s): Mick Jagger, Keith Richards Recorded: April, June, and July 1969 at Olympic Sound Studios in London; October – November 1969 at Sunset Sound Studios and/or Elektra Studios in Los Angeles Released: Let It Bleed (1969) Peak: 7 CL, 16 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 34.05 streaming About the Song: “Hanging over the sessions was an acrid cloud of smoke from the heroin that Richards was always cooking up in the studio’s back room. Mick Jagger was disgusted by what the drug was doing to his bandmate, his ‘lady,’ Marianne Faithfull (for whom he’d written ‘Sister Morphine’ the year before), and many others in the Stones' inner circle.” JD Jagger’s frustrations show up in “the drug-reality anthem Monkey Man,” AZ “a vivid reminder that the drug experience can produce bad trips as well as transcendent ones.” JD As a whole, though, the Stones “grandly submit to the image they’ve carried for almost the whole decade and then crack up digging it: ‘All my friends are junkies! (That’s not really true...).’” RS The song also serves up “Keith Richards’ lethal, biting guitar.” 500 The song likely sprung up spontaneously as a result of jamming in the studio. Nicky Hopkins kicks things off with a piano riff followed by Richards on guitar and Jagger with lyrics that offer “a playful poke at their bad-boys public image.” JV-49 Ronnie Wood later called Richards’ riff his favorite of all time of the guitarist’s. JV-50

You Can’t Always Get What You Want The Rolling Stones

Writer(s): Mick Jagger, Keith Richards (see lyrics here) Recorded: 11/16/1968, 11/28/1968, February 1969, 4/9/1969, 5/28/1969 at Olympic Sound Studios in London Released: 7/4/1969 (B-side of “Honky Tonk Women”), Let It Bleed (1969), Hot Rocks (1971), The Singles Collection: The London Years (1989), Forty Licks (2002), Grrr! (2012) Peak: 42 BB, 34 CB, 35 GR, 36 HR, 1 CL, 68 CN, 15 AU, 1 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 1.0 US Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 11.0 video, 236.35 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: “The stunning” AM You Can’t Always Get What You Want is “the band’s most ravishing work” RV and one of “rock music’s masterpieces.” JV-53 It was the first song recorded for the Rolling Stones’ Let It Bleed album. It was recorded November 16-17, 1968, at Olympic Sound Studios in London and initially released as the B-side of “Honky Tonk Women” in July 1969but reissued as a single on its own in 1973. Had it been released as an A-side initially, it “stood a chance of being a substantial hit.” AMG Even though the charts don’t reflect it, it has become one of the band’s most popular songs, featured on multiple compilations and in nearly every one of their concerts. WK-Y John Lennon claimed the Stones often copied the Beatles’ innovations, AMG prompting the obvious comparison between this song and “Hey Jude.” It “was the Stones’ ‘Hey Jude’ of sorts, with its epic structure, horns, philosophical lyrics, and swelling choral vocals.” AM Both songs last around seven minutes – an unheard of length for a single – “swell from simple beginnings to orchestra crescendos,” AMG use choral backing vocals, and have long fadeouts which repeat a key musical motif of the composition. AMG This, however, “is not a mere ‘Hey Jude’ imitation…being quite worthy, even classic, in its own right.” AMG It “is one of the most outrageous productions ever staged by a rock and roll band.” RS It starts as a ballad and moves to a mid-tempo rock number, integrating folk, gospel and classical elements with “an elegiac vibe courtesy of the majestic opening by the London Bach Choir.” JD It “begins in a mood of complete tragedy and fatigue and ends with optimism and complete exuberance.” RS “Every note…works to perfection,” RS including the “despairing sounds” of Al “Kooper’s resplendent French horn solo” JD and “Keith’s slow strum,” RS “and then the first verse and first chorus by Mick, singing almost unaccompanied. From there it dissolves and builds again with surges of organ, lovely piano ripples, long lead electric runs by Richards, drumming that carries the song over every crescendo.” RS A word on Al Kooper, who is also featured on piano. He famously contributed organ to Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” and played with him in 1965 the historic Newport Folk Festival where Dylan was almost booed off stage for going electric. JV-22 Kooper also contributed to the Zombies’ iconic album Odessey and Oracle and was a member of Blood, Sweat, & Tears. JV-23 According to legend, the song was inspired by an incident in which Mick Jagger went into a local drugstore for a Cherry Coke. Drug store soda fountains were the place to usually get the drink at the time, which was made with real cherries. The store didn’t have them and the man behind Jagger said, “Well, you can’t always get what you want.” SF Jagger uses the song to tell “sprawling stories” RV of “the wreckage of a once-glamorous social scene.” JD He sings of “a party in a Chelsea mansion [where] the singer meeting a strung-out, vicious girl he apparently knew from some years before…It moves from there into street-fighting and frustration, and then to the strangest scene of all, a young man trying to strike up some sort of friendship with an old man.” RS It was “a song about…learning to take what you can get, because the rules have changed with the death of the Sixties.” RS The song addresses love, politics, and drugs, with three verses capturing “the essence of the initial optimism and eventual disillusion, followed by the resigned pragmatism of the chorus.” WK-Y It “looks for satisfaction in resignation.” RS “Despite the somewhat downcast subject matter” AMG “there’s also an uplifting and reassuring quality to the melody and performance,” AMG not to mention the “philosophical rumination” AMG of the key lyrical hook that we can’t always get what we want, but we’ll get what we need. AMG

Resources/References: AM AllMusic.com review of Let It Bleed by Richie Unterberger AMG AllMusic.com page for “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” AZ Amazon.com review by Steve Knopper CD Cd Universe CQ Consequence.net (9/12/2022). “The 100 Greatest Albums of All Time” JD Jim DeRogatis (2006). “The Great Albums” IB Ink Blot Magazine by Jesse Fahnestock. MG Philippe Margotin & Jean-Michel Guesdon (2022). The Rolling Stones: All the Songs. Hachette Book Group: New York, NY. Q Q magazine review by Mark Cooper. October 2000. CRS Tim Morse (1998). Classic Rock Stories: The Stories Behind the Greatest Rock Songs of All Time. New York, NY: St. Martin's Griffin. Page 184. RV The Review (Oct./Nov. 2001). “The 100 Greatest Albums of All Time” by Clarke Speicher RS Rolling Stone review by Greil Marcus. Originally in print issue #49 in 1969. 500 Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums of All Time SF Songfacts page for “Gimme Shelter” SF Songfacts page for “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” JV John Van der Kiste (2024). Rock Classics: Rolling Stones Let It Bleed. Sonic Bond Publishing Ltd.: England. WK-G Wikipedia page for “Gimme Shelter” WK Wikipedia page for Let It Bleed WK-Y Wikipedia WR The Wire (June 1992). “The 100 Most Important Records Ever Made” XFM Mike Walsh (editor) (2010). The XFM Top 1000 Songs of All Time. Elliott & Thompson Limited: London, England. Pages 367-8. Related DMDB Pages: First posted 3/23/2008; last updated 12/16/2025.