It’s hard to think of any song by The Rolling Stones that’s more beloved than ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’. While tracks like ‘Satisfaction’ and ‘Brown Sugar’ were number one hits, ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ had a less-traditional path to becoming one of the Stones’ core tracks. Originally released as a B-side to ‘Honky Tonk Women’ in the summer of 1969, the song had its major coming out party when it was released as the final track from that year’s Let It Bleed. As an epic ballad turned raucous rave-up, ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ was pure Stones magic.
“‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ was something I just played on the acoustic guitar—one of those bedroom songs,” Mick Jagger said 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.’”
“It’s a good song, even if I say so myself,” Jagger added. “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.”
Despite having all of those ingredients, ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ was never flagged for the A-side of a single during its initial recording. When it was used as the B-side to ‘Honky Tonk Women’, the song was part of a number one single, but ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ itself didn’t chart. At the time, Billboard had specific criteria for B-sides to chart as separate songs from their A-sides.
Whether it was because of the song’s length or simply because ‘Honky Tonk Women’ was prioitised, ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ didn’t receive enough radio play for it to qualify as a charting song of its own. All of the sales from the single went solely to the chart data for ‘Honky Tonk Women’, which was at least partially how the song went to number one in both the UK and US.
After it’s live debut at The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus in 1968, ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ wasn’t performed on The Rolling Stones’ 1969 American tour or either of their European tours in 1970 and 1971. The first time that the song received a proper stage performance was on the band’s 1972 tour of America. In the following years, ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ became a staple of the band’s live shows and had been established as one of the Stones’ signature songs.
Noticing the renewed interest in the song, London Records reissued the ‘Honky Tonk Women’ / ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ single in 1973. This time, ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ received enough radio support to land on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number 42 a full four years after it was first released.
