Remember When: The Rolling Stones Made a Jingle for a Rice Krispies Cereal Commercial

Shortly after the Rolling Stones formed in 1962 and released their debut single, a cover of Chuck Berry’s “Come On” a year later, the band was commissioned to come up with a jingle for a popular cereal brand that had been on store shelves for nearly 40 years.

Created by  Kellogg’s, Rice Krispies were first marketed as the “Talking Cereal” for the crackling sound the puffed rice cereal made once milk was added and launched in the U.S. and UK in 1928.

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“Wake Up in the Morning”

Titled “Wake Up in the Morning,” the lyrics and melody for the band’s Rice Krispies jingle were written by Brian Jones along with advertising executive J. Walter Thompson, and recorded on February 6, 1964, at Star Sound Studios (Pye Studios) in London, months before the band released their debut album, The Rolling Stones.

Produced by Jonathan Rolland, along with sound engineer Glyn Johns, the 26-second jingle features the words “Snap,” “Crackle,” and “Pop” and first aired on television in the UK in June of ’64.

Wake up in the morning there’s a snap around the place
Wake up in the morning there’s a crackle in your face
Wake up in the morning there’s a pop that really says
Rice Krispies for you and you and you
Pour on the milk and listen to the snap that says It’s nice
Pour on the milk and listen to the crackle of that rice
Get up in the morning to the pop that says, It’s rice
Hear them talking crisp—Rice Krispies

At the time of recording, the Stones were already big in the UK but had not quite hit the same early fandom in the United States. By 1964, the band’s “Time Is On My Side” became a Top 10 single in the U.S. (at No. 6), before “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” in 1965.

[RELATED: On This Day: The Rolling Stones Film ‘Rock and Roll Circus’ With John Lennon, The Who, and More Then Shelve It for Nearly 30 Years]

More Stones Commercials

Throughout the decades, the Stones reappeared in commercials and sponsorships. By the early ’80s, fragrance brand Jovan sponsored the band’s American Tour in 1981, promoting their album Tattoo You, and used their music in radio advertisements. A decade later, “Satisfaction” was used in a Snickers commercial in 1991.

“We turned them down and turned them down,” said Allen Klein, their former manager (and the Beatles’), and president of the music publishing company ABKCO, who owns the rights to the Stones’ pre-1971 catalog. Klein had previously licensed the band’s “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” for a Levi’s commercial in Canada. “But finally, they offered us an amount I felt was difficult to refuse.”

In 1995, “Start Me Up” was used in the Windows 95 launch ad, and a decade later Vanessa Carlton recorded a version of “Time Is On My Side” for Time Warner digital video recorders commercial, and Tequila makers Jose Cuervo also used the band’s “Miss You” in 2015. By 2018, the Rolling Stones’ 1967 song “She’s a Rainbow” could be heard across Acura car commercials.

Photo: The Rolling Stones, 1964 (Dezo Hoffman/Shutterstock)