You can't always get what you want.

Well, I saw her today at the reception
A glass of wine in her hand
I knew she would go meet her connection
At her feet was her footloose man

No, you can't always get what you want
No, you can't always get what you want
No, you can't always get what you want
But if you try sometime, you just might find
You get what you need

And I went down to the demonstration
To get my fair shares of abuse
Singing, "We're gonna vent our frustration
And if we don't, we don't blow a 50-amp fuse", yeah

And no, you can't always get what you want
No, you can't always get what you want
Well, no, you can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes you just might find
You get what you need, baby

And I went down to the Chelsea drugstore
To get your prescriptions filled
I was standin' in line with Mr. Jimmy
And man, did he look pretty ill

We decided to have a soda
"Whatcha favorite flavor?", "Cherry red"
And I sung my song to my friend Jimmy
And he said one word back to me, that was "Dead"
I said

Oh, you can't always get what you want
Oh, you can't always get what you want
Oh, you can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes, you just might find
You get what you need

Oh, you can't always get what you want
You can't always get what you want
You can't always get what you want
You can't always get what you want

And I saw her today at the reception
In her glass was a bleeding man
And she was practised that the art of deception
I could tell by her blood-stained hands

Oh, you can't always get what you want
Oh, you can't always get what you want

Oh, you can't always get what you want
Oh, you can't always get what you want
Oh, you can't always get what you want
Oh, you can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes you just might find
You get what you need


It's not the profoundest or most important song ever written or performed but I liked it at the time, even though I was never a druggie. Like a lot of songs, sometimes it's the mood of the song, or the 'how it's sung' of the song that does something. And then the moment you try to describe that, it slips through  your fingers like water.

So, at the risk of breaking the glass, here's a few thoughts.

As others have spotted, the song seemed to be saying that something wasn't right about the end of the 60s to or about the people who had tried to do the different and new things. We hadn't got what we wanted...but...'if you try sometimes, you just might find  you get what you need.' So one side of the song was about saying it hadn't worked, and the other side said but you could and perhaps should go on trying.

But what of this mood thing, I'm talking about?

First the memory:

I always liked the Stones. They 'discovered' the Blues, both Mississippi Delta blues and Chicago blues at the same time as other small groups of white suburban kids in the US and in Britain did. In my grammar school in Harrow, there was a group of dissidents who found Folkways records and other labels who were putting out Alan Lomax's field recordings alongside vinyls taken from 'race' records produced in the 1920s and 30s, alongside the electric blues of Chicago. This was the stuff that Brian Jones and Jagger passed between them as they gravitated towards Alexis Korner's blues club next to Ealing Broadway station. The story has been told many times but sometimes misses out the fact that Jones and Jagger were part of a mini-movement of enthusiasts, one part of which were the suburban grammar school dissidents - most of whom turned up for the CND marches from 1958 onwards.

So, in my mind, this song has the tug of the personal. It seemed to be talking to and about something to do with a London that I knew. And of course the song-scholars have done their identifying of 'Jimmy' and exactly which Chelsea 'drugstore' the song is talking about.

Like millions of others I spend a bit of time combing YouTube for the songs and performances I like.

Here's the original track: (someone's put it up with pix of his favourite record covers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIX0ZDqDljA

Here's David Frost introducing the Stones 'performing' it in a studio...
On close examination, I think you'll see that they're miming it minus the London Bach Choir's intro.
(1969)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EM_p1Az05Jo&feature=related

Here they are in 1981 in the US

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9dySmseOPo

Here's they are in 2003 live in Twickenham:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EM_p1Az05Jo&feature=related


It seems to me that the meaning of the song changes across these different performances. When it was produced, it had this ambivalent regretful-hopeful quality which (to me) seemed embodied by the idea that you can't always get what you want but if you try you might just find that you will...

Then the song evolves into something that becomes more and more assertive. It seems as if Jagger's 'strutting' mode of performing has taken over and that more nuanced ambivalence has gone. I'd be hesitant about inscribing on to this story something of enormous political significance. I suspect that they thought that their old way of performing it was too quiet for their stadium rock shows or perhaps that the vibe they picked up when they wrote it is just something that a few old lefty rockers knew about or were interested in and they had to pump it out now...

Or, perhaps, there is something a bit more acquisitive in the air around it when you make the song more assertive. You've got to go and get it if you want it, and, because the song is in the first person, it's about 'me' , and how 'I' have to go and get it if 'I' want it - which of course has been the official, political sub-text of the last 30 years through Thatcher, Reagan, Major, Bush, Blair etc etc.

Just a thought.