The Rolling Stones: All Number 1 Songs Ranked Worst To Best

US & UK #1, 1965

You knew this one was coming - there's no way it wasn't a number one hit - and you knew it would reign supreme. Rather than deeming it predictable, let's call it giving the people what they want to see.

Despite their star status in the UK, the Stones were struggling to make it in America, losing out to most of their peers during the British Invasion. They were pressured by their managers to stop covering old blues songs and to start working on original compositions. Well, Keith Richards understood the assignment, and wrote Satisfaction in his sleep. Literally - he fell asleep next to a recorder and woke up to hear that iconic riff when he played the tape back.

The track is a gritty, almost unpolished attempt by quasi-amateur composers at the time, yet it would serve as inspiration for countless rock acts from the moment of its release. In it, Mick Jagger sings about being so sexually frustrated that every quotidian thing bugs the hell out of him, and he unwittingly makes the lack of sexual gratification sound incredibly sexy.

Satisfaction was the first number-one hit the band ever got in America and instantly became their signature song, as well as one of the greatest songs of all time. It showed the world that the bad boys of rock and roll had not only arrived, they had come to stay.

Fun Fact: In the UK, the song was originally only played on pirate radio stations, for it was deemed too suggestive.