How Keith Richards Dreamed Up the ‘Satisfaction’ Riff in a Florida Motel and Thought It Was a Horn Part

The riff that would define a generation came to Keith Richards in his sleep. In May 1965, the Rolling Stones were staying at the Jack Tar Harrison Hotel in Clearwater, Florida, and Richards woke up with the opening notes and a muttered lyric—“I can’t get no satisfaction”—running through his head. He grabbed his acoustic guitar and a cassette recorder (a cheap Philips, he’s said), played the riff once, and passed back out. On the tape you can hear the acoustic guitar, then a clatter as it drops, followed by 40 minutes of snoring.

Richards originally heard the riff as a horn part—something for a sax or trumpet section, like the Stax records he loved. He played it to the band in the studio as a placeholder, planning to replace it later with a brass arrangement. But producer Andrew Loog Oldham and the band realized the raw, fuzzed-out guitar was the whole hook. Richards plugged his Gibson Firebird into a Maestro Fuzz-Tone pedal (a whim purchase from a drugstore), and that gnarly, distorted sound became the song’s signature. The