(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still)
Sun 21 December 2025 16:30, UK
No member of The Rolling Stones signed up for being a rock and roll star, thinking that they needed to be the next Bob Dylan or anything.
They were trying to make the best blues covers they could in the beginning, but the more that people gravitated towards songs like ‘Satisfaction’, it made a lot more sense for them to keep that momentum than to try to pay tribute to Muddy Waters every single time they performed. Not everything was perfect, but Mick Jagger knew that some tracks were pretty much unobjectionable throughout their catalogue.
And if there’s anyone who knows The Stones’ track record better than anyone else, it’s Jagger. Throughout every phase of his career, he was the first to state his opinion on their later material, and he didn’t hold back when calling some of their records absolute garbage. None of the band really cared about their genre-hopping records like Their Satanic Majesties Request, but it’s not like Jagger had everyone’s best interests in mind when working on their disco records like ‘Miss You’.
But it’s hard to judge any record’s longevity while it’s still being made. Anyone can try their best to make something timeless, but there’s no telling whether the fashions of the day will wear out their welcome or whether the production will sound terrible in a years’ time. That normally wasn’t that much of a problem with The Stones, but even on their greatest records, more than a few of their greatest hits had a few asterisks next to them.
Sticky Fingers might be one of the greatest albums they ever made, but there was always the lyrics to ‘Brown Sugar’ to explain to people. And that’s before even getting into the borderline misogynistic tunes that they had at the beginning of their career like ‘Stupid Girl’. But when they hit their stride around the time of Beggars Banquet, not even a few questionable lyrics could stop them.
They had hit the sweet spot of their career, and of all their records, Let It Bleed is by far the most grandiose they ever made. Not every track is exactly an orchestrated masterpiece by any means, but there are blues operas like ‘Monkey Man’, the tender-hearted ballads like ‘Love in Vain’, and they even manage to turn three simple chords into the sound of the apocalypse on ‘Gimme Shelter’. But tucked right at the end is ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’, featuring the greatest chorus they ever made.
And while it’s hard to take Jagger’s opinion seriously every single time, he said that there was no way to argue with what they made on that track, saying, “It’s a good song, even if I say so myself. ‘Cause it’s got a very sing-along chorus. And people can identify with it: No one gets what they always want. It’s got a very good melody. It’s got very good orchestral touches that Jack Nitzsche helped with. So it’s got all the ingredients.” But if you want to be a bit cheeky, there’s still the lingering footsteps of a certain Liverpool group there somewhere.
The Beatles may have been on their last legs at this point, but even if The Stones had moved away from copying their proverbial homework on many of their songs, this does feel like their version of ‘Hey Jude’ in a sense. There’s a lot more bombast behind this tune, but the way that Jagger sings it has the same kind of musical weight that even Paul McCartney would have found hard to compete with.
And, really, any song like this would have been perfect for any rock band regardless of what style or genre, which is a true art for any songwriter to accomplish. The Stones might be the consummate rock and roll outfit, but ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ could be played with a nine-piece band or played as a single piano ballad and still manage to work the same type of magic.
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