What does You Can't Always Get What You Want mean?

The Rolling Stones: You Can't Always Get What You Want Meaning

Tagged: Fame [suggest]
Album cover for You Can't Always Get What You Want album cover

Song Released: 1973


Covered By: Glee Cast


You Can't Always Get What You Want Lyrics

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

No, you can't always get what you want
You can't always get what you want
You can't always get what you...

  1. anonymous
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    Mar 15th 2009 !⃝

    It also had alot to do with Marianne Faithfull, at this time she was sinking into a much heavier drug use and this was Mick's plea to her to slow down.

  2. anonymous
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    May 8th 2008 !⃝

    Actually Mr. Jimmy refers to the song's producer (Jimmy something, I forget his last name), who filled in on drums after the drummer couldn't master the beat.

  3. hellohello313
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    May 1st 2008 !⃝

    It's about communism. (well not really but I'd like it to be.) I want the song to be about someone living in a communist country who wants to buy whatever he or she wants, but instead their government just gives them the necessities.

  4. anonymous
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    Jan 11th 2008 !⃝

    I think the song refers to different ways of feeling disattisfied with life and how we cope with that with other things.

    'I knew she would meet her connection
    At her feet was her footloose man'

    It sounds like the women compensated for her unfaithful
    husband (Footloose man) by buying drugs.

    'You can't always get what you want
    And if you try sometime you find
    You get what you need'

    The rest of the song seems to follow other ways
    of being diasapointed with life in general.

    'And I went down to the demonstration
    To get my fair share of abuse
    Singing, "We're gonna vent our frustration
    If we don't we're gonna blow a 50-amp fuse"
    Sing it to me now...'

  5. anonymous
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    Dec 26th 2007 !⃝

    He says "I went to the drugstore ... Standing in line was Mr. Jimmy", I heard this referred to Jimmy Hendrix.

  6. anonymous
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    Aug 31st 2007 !⃝

    I heard that Mick Jagger wrote this after he got booed at a concert somewhere-possibly in another country. and he really like cherry red soda (We decided we would have a soda my favorite flavor is cherry red) and the Chelsea Drugstore was a either a real drugstore with prescription drugs or drugs like pot and stuff I forget (I went down to the Chelsea drugstore to get your prescription filled)

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  7. anonymous
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    Dec 8th 2006 !⃝

    It's about drug addiction. The narration is from the view point of the addiction itself personified and speaking to the victim, Rikki.

    "You tell yourself your not my kind" No one admits to being addicted.

    "But you don't even know you mind"

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  8. anonymous
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    Jun 27th 2006 !⃝

    In some respects, the song is about the end of the 60's, and the fact that people of the time simply couldn't have whatever they wanted.

  9. anonymous
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    May 10th 2006 !⃝

    The lyrics "I knew she was gonna meet her connection" refers to buying drugs, meeting a drug connection.

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