‘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 in 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.
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 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. Billboard described the song as a "wild, far out beat number which will have no trouble topping their 'Satisfaction' smash." Cash Box described it as a "rollicking, fast-moving blues-soaked thumper with an infectious danceable beat" that should be another success after "Satisfaction." Record World said that "The Rolling Stones dispense some more of their very thick and funky rock."
Labels – London (US), Decca (UK)
Songwriters – Mick Jagger, Keith Richards
Producer – Andrew Loog Oldham
SONG LYRICS
[Verse 1]I live on an apartment
On the ninety-ninth floor of my block
And I sit at home looking out the window
Imagining the world has stopped
Then in flies a guy
Who's all dressed up just like the Union Jack
Says, I've won five pounds
If I have his kind of detergent pack
[Chorus]
I said, "Hey (Hey), you (You), get off of my cloud
Hey (Hey), you (You), get off of my cloud
Hey (Hey), you (You), get off of my cloud
Don't hang around 'cause two's a crowd
On my cloud, baby"
[Verse 2]
The telephone is ringing
I say, "Hi, it's me, who is it there on the line?"
A voice says, "Hi, hello, how are you?"
“Well, I guess I'm doing fine“
“It's three AM, there's too much noise
Don't you people ever want to go to bed?
Just because you feel so good
Do you have to drive me out of my head?”
[Chorus]
I said, "Hey (Hey), you (You), get off of my cloud
Hey (Hey), you (You), get off of my cloud
Hey (Hey), you (You), get off of my cloud
Don't hang around 'cause two's a crowd
On my cloud, baby"
Yeah
[Verse 3]
I was sick and tired, fed up with this
So I decided to take a drive downtown
It was so very quiet and peaceful
There was nobody, not a soul around
I laid myself out
I was so tired and I started to dream
In the morning the parking tickets were just like flags
Stuck on my windscreen
[Chorus]
I said, "Hey (Hey), you (You), get off of my cloud
Hey (Hey), you (You), get off of my cloud
Hey (Hey), you (You), get off of my cloud
Don't hang around 'cause two's a crowd
On my cloud,"
[Outro]
Hey (Hey), you (You), get off of my cloud
Hey (Hey), you (You), get off of my cloud
Hey (Hey), you (You), get off of my cloud
Don't hang around, baby, two's a crowd
On my cloud