The Rolling Stones have released their first original material in 8 years. The brand new track was recorded last year in LA and London and was finished recently in isolation.

The new song premiered on the official YouTube channel of the band on April 23. The video for the song is a compilation of short clips, taken on the empty streets of London, Los Angeles, Kyoto, and other cities. It was directed by Joe Connor.

The song is a contemplation on difficulties that people around the world are currently struggling with. In an interview for AppleMusic, Mick Jagger clarified that initially the song’s lyrics were written for a place, that was full of life and eventually became bereft of it.

The Rolling Stones’ frontman also added that when he came back to the lyrics he has originally written, they were full of “Plague terms”  he never really used in the final version of the song. With the global pandemic situation progressively affecting people’s lives, the song was rewritten in order to reflect on the problems of its time.

The complete interview can be seen on the official YouTube page of Beats 1.

Four days before they release their new single, The Rolling Stones performed a live version of “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” for Global Citizen’s series of live shows “One World: Together At Home”. In this rendition of the song, Keith Richards was playing an acoustic guitar from his couch, while Charlie Watts kept the beat from an improvised drum set.