How the Rolling Stones’ ‘Street Fighting Man’ was recorded on a cassette player with a toy amp — and then banned for inciting violence

The core riff of ‘Street Fighting Man’ came from a cheap Philips cassette recorder Keith Richards used to demo ideas at his home in 1968. He played a Gibson J-200 acoustic tuned to open E and ran it through a tiny portable amp that was barely powerful enough to drive a practice speaker — that thin, overdriven sound is what ended up on the master. The band then overdubbed bass, drums, and vocals in the studio, but kept Keith’s original cassette recording as the backbone because the distorted acoustic had a unique electricity they couldn’t recreate.

Lyrically, Mick Jagger was inspired by the escalating student protests and anti-war demonstrations happening in Paris and London that spring. The line “What can a poor boy do / ‘cept to sing for a Rock ’n’ Roll band?” was read by many as a call to arms — and radio stations in the US, including major ones in Chicago and Los Angeles, outright banned the song for fear it would provoke riots. ABC even forced the Stones to change the lyrics to “Street Fighting Man” when they appeared on The Mike Douglas Show, subbing in “everywhere I hear the sound of marching, marching down the street.” Jagger later said the censorship was flattering — it proved the song had hit a nerve.