“You can’t always get what you want.”

What does it mean?

Don’t whine and complain if you don’t get what you wanted.

Where does it come from?

It’s actually a song written in 1968 by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones.

Of the song, Jagger said: “‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ was something I just played on the acoustic guitar—one of those bedroom songs. It proved to be quite difficult to record because Charlie (the band’s drummer) couldn’t play the groove and so Jimmy Miller (the band’s producer) had to play the drums. I’d also had this idea of having a choir, probably a gospel choir, on the track, but there wasn’t one around at that point. Jack Nitzsche, or somebody, said that we could get the London Bach Choir and we said, ‘That will be a laugh.'”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EM_p1Az05Jo