10 Iconic Rolling Stones Songs

“(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” (1965)

After the band’s formation it was a few years before the Stones hit their songwriting stride. “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” was not only their first major international hit but also the first that bore the band’s particular blend of arrogance and defiance, announced by Richards’s first great intro. Richards, who slept with his guitar and kept a tape recorder by his bed in case he got inspired, came up with the riff and refrain virtually in his sleep. Jagger supplied the rest of the lyrics, which take shots at consumer culture (“When I’m watching my TV / And a man comes on and tells me / How white my shirts can be”). The verses about sexual frustration contain a coded reference to menstruation. Regardless of whether listeners caught it, Watts’s aggressive proto-punk drum beat and the addition of a fuzz tone made the song sound even dirtier. The song catapulted the Stones into rock superstardom.

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“Paint It, Black” (1966)

“Satisfaction” introduced a string of hits in the same vein musically and lyrically. With “Paint It, Black” the band tried something new. Jagger’s lyrics are not just rude but also dark: “I see a red door and I want it painted black / No colors anymore, I want them to turn black.” The most striking element is Jones’s sitar (we told you he could play anything). Meanwhile, Wyman plays two bass lines on the song: one with his guitar, the other on an organ. He went so far as to lie beneath the organ and pump its pedals with his fists to get the right sound. All for the glory of rock and roll. The result is a sinister and evocative tune that helped push the Stones beyond the “blues cover band” label they were often slapped with.

“Street Fighting Man” (1968)

An energized cacophony of a song, “Street Fighting Man” captures the rage of the burgeoning protest movement against the Vietnam War. This one owes much to Richards, who came up with the idea to layer the song with distortion along with other innovations that would transform the band’s music. He had started to explore open tuning, a technique that produces fuller chords and a textured sound. He also had an idea for a riff that would mimic the wailing up-and-down notes of a French police car siren. For the distortion Richards played an acoustic guitar in open tuning into the microphone of a cheap cassette recorder, with Watts accompanying on a basic drum kit. Then they overdubbed the track with more acoustic guitar and additional instruments, including Jones’s sitar and a shehnai (an Indian oboe) played by Traffic’s Dave Mason. Jagger’s rousing lyrics were inspired by an antiwar demonstration he had attended in London that turned violent when police clashed with marchers.

“Sympathy for the Devil” (1968)

If “Satisfaction” and “Paint It, Black” branded the Stones as the bad boys of British rock, the year 1967 pushed the envelope of their mystique even more. That year saw an infamous drug bust at Richards’s country estate in England. Richards, Jagger, and Jones all went through very public trials and barely escaped imprisonment. Internally, the band was showing cracks. Jones and Richards had a falling-out over actress and model Anita Pallenberg, who was Jones’s girlfriend before Richards moved in on her. While the Stones were being painted as genuine threats to society, the Beatles were breaking ground with their album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. At the end of 1967 the Stones released Their Satanic Majesties Request as an answer to Sgt. Pepper’s. But the Stones’ release was more bark than bite, producing the psychedelic (and Beatlesesque) “She’s a Rainbow” but nothing that tapped into the group’s darker potential.

Then came Beggars Banquet in 1968, which featured “Street Fighting Man” as well as “Sympathy for the Devil,” a masterpiece of ominous vibes, layers of percussion, and haunting lyrics about the Devil’s hand in the worst moments of human history, from Jesus’ sentencing by Pontius Pilate to the recent assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy. Adding to the song’s subversive power, the famous “woo woo” chorus manages to sound both chilling and uplifting.

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“Honky Tonk Women” (1969)

“Honky Tonk Women” was one of the first Stones song to feature Mick Taylor, who was hired after the band fired Jones in June 1969. (Jones’s drug addiction, depression, and abuse of women had effectively made him a liability.) Richards and Jagger wrote “Honky Tonk Women” while vacationing on a ranch in Brazil and thinking about country legend Hank Williams. The intro’s cowbell (played by Jimmy Miller) is probably the best use of that instrument in rock history. It’s followed by Watts, coming in on drums slightly offbeat, and then Richards, who rips the song open with his five-string open G tuning technique. Richards’s approach soon became the band’s blueprint, and it was perfect for this bawdy and blues-soaked number.

“Gimme Shelter” (1969)

Many fans consider “Gimme Shelter” to be the Stones’ best song. With its apocalyptic lyrics and eerie sound, it spoke to the unsettling rumblings that were closing out the 1960s. The Vietnam War was still raging, and the Stones’ disastrous set at Altamont was just around the corner. Richards, however, had relationship troubles on his mind when he wrote the song on a stormy day in London. At the time Jagger was filming Performance with Pallenberg, and one of their segments involved a sex scene. Richards channeled his jealousy into an elemental fury of a song. The most disturbing lyrics—“Rape, murder, it’s just a shot away”—are sung by Merry Clayton, who was called into a recording session in the middle of the night. Pregnant, dressed in pajamas, and wearing hair curlers, Clayton pushed her powerful voice so hard that you can hear it crack on the word “murder.”

“Can’t You Hear Me Knocking” (1971)

Taylor was with the Stones only a few years, but he brought a remarkable virtuosity to the band’s music. In the Stones’ early days, Richards and Jones had practiced a “weaving” style of playing, in which their guitar lines blended seamlessly. Taylor fit right into this style, and his melodic lines were a perfect counterpoint to Richards’s. Taylor’s skills really come across in “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking,” which features an improvised (and accidental) four-minute jam session. Legend has it that Richards and others, including saxophone player Bobby Keys, kept playing after the song’s original end, not realizing that they were still being recorded. The jam features two impressive solos: Keys’s soulful sax and Taylor’s Latin-inflected guitar.

Anything from Exile on Main St. (1972)

So this is cheating, but who can pick just one track from Exile on Main St.? The double LP is often hailed as the Stones’ best album. Yet its making—in the south of France—was chaotic. Drugs, including heroin, had become a mainstay among the band and its social circle, and guests (among them, Gram Parsons of the Flying Burrito Brothers) used Richards and Pallenberg’s rented villa as a hangout. Much of the album was recorded in the villa’s dungeonlike basement. But the Stones’ undying love of blues shines through in 18 songs that revel in the seamy underbelly of America. Standout tracks include the filthy “Rocks Off,” the joyous “Tumbling Dice,” the boozy “Sweet Virginia,” the touching “Torn and Frayed,” the gospel-infused “Let It Loose,” the party jam “All Down the Line,” a cover of Robert Johnson’s “Stop Breaking Down,” and the transcendent “Shine a Light.”

“Beast of Burden” (1978)

After Taylor left the band in 1974, the Stones conscripted Ron Wood, formerly of the Jeff Beck Group and the Faces. Wood proved to be a versatile and indispensable player, capable of harmonizing perfectly with Richards’s guitar and contributing his own superb solo moments. In “Beast of Burden” Wood does both. The song’s lyrics were partly inspired by Richards’s recovery from heroin addiction and Jagger’s unwavering support of him: “All your sickness, I can suck it up / Throw it all at me, I can shrug it off.” Such aching lyrics required a melody to match. Wood’s solo, punctuated by Jagger’s falsetto, delivers just the right amount of tenderness and soul.

“Start Me Up” (1981)

In the 1980s the Stones scored a few top 10 hits on the U.S. charts, but the closest they got to number one that decade (or ever again) was with “Start Me Up,” which peaked at the second position. It became their longest-charting song of all time, spending 24 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100. It’s no wonder why: The song is another certified banger with a classic Richards riff. “Start Me Up” started out as a reggae song. It was reworked into a rocker but retains an undeniable Jamaican rhythm. Wyman’s solid bass line and Watts’s drums give the song an especially resonant groove. Then there’s the music video. By this time MTV was rearing its head, and the Stones delivered with a no-frills promo video that shows Jagger in full strut, flanked by Richards and Wood, with a predictably poker-faced Wyman and an exceptionally tolerant Watts jamming away in the background.

Where’s “Brown Sugar”?

In 2021 some American fans of the band might have been asking the same question. That year the Stones dropped the 1971 chart-topper from their U.S. concert tour setlist. The opening number on Sticky Fingers has long been controversial because of its lyrics. It’s also revered as one of the group’s best songs. Sonically, the song is perfect. It begins with Richards’s most famous lick, features a twangy reply from Taylor, and eventually settles into a solid R&B groove propelled by Watts and Wyman. Added to the mix is Ian Stewart, the Stones’ longtime road manager, playing piano in boogie-woogie style, plus a wailing sax solo by Bobby Keys.

Jagger wrote the lyrics—and that astounding opening riff—while making a movie in Australia. The verses reference slavery, women being whipped, and a “scarred old slaver.” Some critics think the song celebrates the sexual exploitation of African American women. But singer and model Marsha Hunt, Jagger’s girlfriend at the time, said that the song was about her. So did Claudia Lennear, Ike and Tina Turner’s former backup singer. In 1995 Jagger told Rolling Stone magazine that the title also alludes to heroin. “God knows what I’m on about on that song,” he said. “It’s such a mishmash. All the nasty subjects in one go.…I never would write that song now. I would probably censor myself.”

Some people were glad to see the song removed from the Stones’ setlist, while others decried the decision. Richards told the Los Angeles Times, “Didn’t they understand this was a song about the horrors of slavery? But they’re trying to bury it.…But I’m hoping that we’ll be able to resurrect the babe in her glory somewhere along the track.” If anything, the debate proved that the 60-year-old band could still stir up controversy.