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What does ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ by The Rolling Stones mean?
Over the decades, The Rolling Stones have shifted, but Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, the central songwriting partners, have remained a sturdy presence. In the early 1960s, both men first met on platform two of Dartford Railway Station. Aged 18 and 17, respectively, the pair found common ground in a mutual appreciation of American blues music by Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Howlin’ Wolf.
This fascination with the blues endeared the pair to Stones co-founder Brian Jones in the early 1960s, but throughout the decade, the band migrated to pop-rock territory. This migration famously alienated Jones, who eventually departed the band amid drug addiction woes in 1969 before work began on Let It Bleed.
As Jagger and Richards embraced popular trends, they explored concurrent lyrical themes: ‘Gimme Shelter’ addresses the brutal reality of war, while ‘Midnight Rambler’ loosely documents the life of Albert DeSalvo, the Boston Strangler. At the very end of Let It Bleed was the classic sing-along hit ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’, a song of less obvious origin.
On the surface, the song is a simple ode to the universal misfortune stated in the titular refrain, but there is an alleged story behind the lyrics. The verse sections introduce us to people and places, including the Chelsea Drugstore and Mr Jimmy.
Legend has it that the character Mr Jimmy was Jimmy Hutmaker, a famous street drifter from Excelsior, Minnesota. Hutmaker was a mentally challenged man who liked walking several miles daily through the Excelsior business district. He was cared for by local shop owners until he died in 2007.
The Stones visited Excelsior during their first US tour in 1964. According to Hutmaker and many local fans, Jagger entered a drugstore in the city to buy a Cherry Coke from a soda fountain. Allegedly, the store didn’t have any Cherry Coke at the time, and Hutmaker, standing behind Jagger in the queue, said, “Well, you can’t always get what you want”. The legend dictates that Mr Jimmy attended the Stones’ next concert in Minneapolis in a private limousine arranged by Jagger himself.
This brief exposure supposedly inspired the song’s leading refrain and the verse lines, “I was standing in line with Mr Jimmy/ And man, did he look pretty ill”. Earlier in the lyrics, however, Jagger notes that he was at the Chelsea Drugstore, a pub on King’s Road in London. This bestows more credence to the theory that Jagger’s Mr Jimmy was, in fact, Jimmy Miller, the Stones’ producer from Let It Bleed to 1974’s Goats Head Soup. Intriguingly, he’s also the credited drummer on ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’.
‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ is credited to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, The Rolling Stones’ primary songwriting partnership. It was primarily a creation of Jagger’s, which began as a simple acoustic progression. Richards later added electric guitar parts, and the band commissioned the London Bach Choir to sing in the introduction.
“‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ was something I just played on the acoustic guitar—one of those bedroom songs,” Jagger recalled in the 2003 book According to the Rolling Stones. “It proved to be quite difficult to record because Charlie couldn’t play the groove and so Jimmy Miller had to play the drums. I’d also had this idea of having a choir, probably a gospel choir, on the track, but there wasn’t one around at that point. Jack Nitzsche, or somebody, said that we could get the London Bach Choir, and we said, ‘That will be a laugh.'”
How many times have The Rolling Stones played ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ live?
‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ is The Rolling Stones’ ninth most played song, according to Setlist. At present, the band has played the song live on 781 occasions. Meanwhile, the Stones’ most played song is ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’ with 1,196 outings.
Listen to The Rolling Stones’ ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ below.