Get Off of My Cloud



"Get Off of My Cloud" is a song by the English rock band the Rolling Stones. It was written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards for a single to follow the successful "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction". Recorded in Hollywood, California, in early September 1965, the song was released September in the United States and October in the United Kingdom. It topped the charts in the US, UK, Canada, and Germany and reached number two in several other countries.

Composition
The Stones have said that the song is a reaction to their suddenly greatly enhanced popularity and deals with their aversion to people's expectations of them after the success of "Satisfaction". Richards commented: "'Get off of My Cloud' was basically a response to people knocking on our door asking us for the follow-up to 'Satisfaction' ... We thought 'At last. We can sit back and maybe think about events'. Suddenly there's the knock at the door and of course what came out of that was 'Get off of My Cloud'". In 1971 he added: "I never dug it as a record. The chorus was a nice idea, but we rushed it as the follow-up. We were in L.A. [Los Angeles, where "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" was recorded], and it was time for another single. But how do you follow-up "Satisfaction"? Actually, what I wanted was to do it slow, like a Lee Dorsey thing. We rocked it up. I thought it was one of Andrew Loog Oldham's worst productions."

In a 1995 interview with Rolling Stone, Jagger said, "That was Keith's melody and my lyrics... It's a stop-bugging-me, post-teenage-alienation song. The grown-up world was a very ordered society in the early '60s, and I was coming out of it. America was even more ordered than anywhere else. I found it was a very restrictive society in thought and behavior and dress."

The song is in E major and is built on variants of the "Louie Louie" riff, a short repeating pattern of the chords I, IV and V, in this case E–A–B–A. It opens with a drum intro by Charlie Watts and twin guitars by Brian Jones and Richards.

Personnel

 * Mick Jagger – lead vocals
 * Keith Richards – rhythm guitar, backing vocals
 * Brian Jones – twelve-string guitar, lead guitar, electric piano
 * Bill Wyman – bass guitar, backing vocals
 * Charlie Watts – drums

Release history
The 1965 single release was a major success for the Rolling Stones. In the US, the single reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on 6 November 1965, and remained there for two weeks. The song was included on the band's next American album, December's Children (And Everybody's), released in December 1965. The song stayed at number one in the UK Singles Chart for three weeks in November that year.

Appearances on later Stones releases include:


 * Got Live If You Want It! (live album, 1966)
 * Big Hits (High Tide and Green Grass) (compilation album, 1966)
 * Hot Rocks 1964–1971 (compilation album, 1971)
 * 30 Greatest Hits (compilation album, 1977)
 * Love You Live (live album, 1977)
 * Forty Licks (compilation album, 2002)
 * The Biggest Bang (live DVD-set, 2007)
 * GRRR! (compilation album, 2012)

Cover versions
Australian new wave band Jimmy and the Boys released a cover version as a single titled "Get Off My Cloud" in 1981.