Single, Decca Records [U.K.]/London Records [U.S.A.], 1965
"Get Off Of My Cloud" was the first Rolling Stones song I ever knew, a radio smash in '65. Even if I had to wait until teendom to understand the splendor that was all around me when I was five, there was still much I knew as it happened. I certainly knew "Get Off Of My Cloud." I may not have had reason to believe the Rolling Stones were substantively different from contemporary hitmeisters like the Dave Clark Five, Herman's Hermits, the Castaways, or Gary Lewis and the Playboys, but I remember that voice bellowing out of transistor radios: Don't hang around boy, two's a crowd! At five, I thought the twisting of the familiar "Two's company, three's a crowd" maxim was interesting. This record was probably my introduction to the idea of a song having swagger.
I don't think I was much aware of the Stones again until "Happy," a tune that hypnotized me on WOLF-AM in 1972. In retrospect, I must have heard some Rolling Stones material in the interim--how could I have possibly missed "Paint It, Black," "Jumpin' Jack Flash," and "Honky Tonk Women," at the very least?--but "Happy" was nonetheless the first Stones track since "Get Off Of My Cloud" in '65 to make an impression on me. And I liked it. I liked it a lot.
"Get Off Of My Cloud." "Paint It, Black." "The Last Time." "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction." "19th Nervous Breakdown." That stuff? That stuff rocked.
My first Rolling Stones purchase was a 45, either "Satisfaction" or the double-A side "Let's Spend The Night Together"/"Ruby Tuesday." My first Stones LP was a used copy of Through The Past Darkly, followed by a used copy of Got LIVE If You Want It!, and then by a reproduction of the 1964 four-song UK EP The Rolling Stones. I read up on the group, heard more, bought more, and I was a Rolling Stones fan before I left high school. While I was in college, the group even released a new song that I liked: "Shattered," which came to be known as "Carl's song" in my dorm, as everyone on my floor yelled out whenever it played on the radio: "Carl! Your song's on! CARL...!"
(In the same college time frame, my girlfriend "borrowed" my copy of the Rolling Stones' Big Hits [High Tide And Green Grass], as well as my copies of the Who's Meaty Beaty Big And Bouncy and Buddy Holly and the Crickets' 20 Golden Greats, all for her own listening pleasure. I had to marry her to get my damn records back. [Which was a pretty good deal, actually--I got her, of course, AND I got her copies of Cheap Trick At Budokan and the Kinks' Greatest Hits. See? You can always get what you want!])
With my devotion to punk growing steadfast and true in the late '70s and early '80s, "Get Off Of My Cloud" reasserted its hold on my safety-pinned heart. The song's defiant, bad-boy cred remains assured and unassailable, and it was probably the first Stones song I ever heard played live, first by a Syracuse group called the Most and then by a Stooges-obsessed Brockport group called the Party Dogs. I bought more and more Rolling Stones LPs, from 12 x 5 to Their Satanic Majesties Request to Exile On Main Street, and more, all down the line. I idolized Keith Richards. I came to regard the 1965-66 Stones as the coolest-looking group of all time at any time. I lived in dorm rooms and then a cheap apartment, but in my head I lived in an apartment on the 99th floor of my block. This cloud's reserved for me and me alone, man.
"Satisfaction" is definitive and iconic. "Jumpin' Jack Flash" is iconic and definitive. Or maybe it's the other way around. Reason would dictate that maybe one of those should occupy this space in place of "Get Off Of My Cloud." "Paint It, Black" should be in the conversation, early covers of Lennon and McCartney's "I Wanna Be Your Man" and Buddy Holly's "Not Fade Away" should also be discussed, as should the elegant dissipation of Keith Richards on "Happy." Each of these is not merely among the best of the Rolling Stones, but among the greatest ever.
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This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, and on the web at http://sparksyracuse.org/ You can read about our history here.
The many fine This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio compilation albums are still available, each full of that rockin' pop sound you crave. A portion of all sales benefit our perpetually cash-strapped community radio project:
Volume 1: download
Volume 2: CD or download
Volume 3: download
Volume 4: CD or download
Waterloo Sunset--Benefit For This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio: CD or download
I'm on Twitter @CafarelliCarl.
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