Get Off of My Cloud

Composers: Mick Jagger & Keith Richards
Recording date: July and/or September 1965       Recording location: RCA Studios, Los Angeles, USA
Producer: Andrew Oldham        Engineer: Dave Hassinger
Performed onstage: 1965-67, 1975-76, 1999, 2005-07, 2012-14, 2016-19, 2021-22

Probable line-up:

Drums: Charlie Watts
Bass: Bill Wyman
Rhythm electric guitar: Keith Richards
Lead electric guitar: Brian Jones
Lead vocal: Mick Jagger
Background vocals: Mick Jagger & Keith Richards
Piano: Ian Stewart
Handclaps: ---

 

Yeah

I live on an apartment on the 99th 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 a Union Jack
He says I've won 5 pounds if I have his kind of detergent pack

I said Hey you, get off of my cloud
Hey you, get off of my cloud
Hey you, get off of my cloud
Don't hang around 'cause two's a crowd
On my cloud, baby

Yeah


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
He says, It's 3 AM, there's too much noise - don't you people ever want to go to bed?
Just 'cause you feel so good, do you have to drive me out of my head?

I said Hey you, get off of my cloud
Hey you, get off of my cloud
Hey you, get off of my cloud
Don't hang around 'cause two's a crowd
On my cloud, baby
 
Yeah

I was sick and tired, fed up with this and 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

I said Hey you, get off of my cloud
Hey you, get off of my cloud
Hey you, get off of my cloud
Don't hang around 'cause two's a crowd
On my cloud

I said Hey you, get off of my cloud
Hey you, get off of my cloud
Hey you, get off of my cloud
Don't hang around, baby, two's a crowd
On my cloud
 
Hey you...

 

TrackTalk

The first impression you get of our records is an exciting sound. We've never brought any vocal out much more than on Cloud. It's a case of hunt the words! But you can hear them if you concentrate.

- Keith Richards, 1965


That was the follow-up to Satisfaction. 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. and it was time for another single. But how do you follow 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's worst productions.

- Keith Richards, 1971


(The piano on the record) I think... was just a matter of saying, Stu, this sounds a bit thin... Yeah, that was just one of those things you could do in those days - shadow a guitar with a piano. As long as you didn't make it obvious, it would add some different air to a track.

- Keith Richards, 2002


Get Off My Cloud was not very groovy.

- Mick Jagger, 1968


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 '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.

- Mick Jagger, 1995


(The lyrics are not good), they're crap. It's nothing. Thank you for the compliment but I don't think they are great at all.

- Mick Jagger, 1968


It's really difficult now to realize how important it was to have a hit single. If the last one didn't do as well as the one before, that meant you were out, you were sliding out. I mean, it was a state of mind. So each one had to be better and DO better, it didn't just have to be better. I mean, you could make a better record each time but if it didn't DO better as the other one or at least as good, it was a sign that you were declining. You know, it was just real pressure to come up with a red-hot song that says it all in 2 minutes 30 seconds every 8 weeks. I mean, it's got to be ready within 8 weeks and released every 12 or 14 weeks, you know. You've just finished Satisfaction - I'd been wrong about that, it's an enormous hit, and you're going, Wow, lucky me - and you're just taking a breather for a couple of days and Andrew Oldham comes along and says, Where's the next single?

- Keith Richards, 1982


Mick was incredibly prolific then. It was as much as I could do to come up with a riff. Much as I love it now, when I first did it, I thought "Get Off of My Cloud" ain't no "Satisfaction". But it was the best I could do.

- Keith Richards, 2003



Back to TrackTalk Menu.

Back to December's Children.

Back to Main Page.