Songfacts®:

• This track was originally written by Red Hayes and Jack Rhodes. Hayes explained the origin of the song in an interview: "The song came from my mother. Everything in the song are things I heard her say over the years. I put a lot of thought into the song before I came up with the title. One day my father-in-law asked me who I thought the richest man in the world was, and I mentioned some names. He said, 'You're wrong, it is the man with a satisfied mind.'" He added: "It has been done a lot in churches. I came out of the Opry one night and a church service was going on nearby. The first thing I hear was the congregation singing 'Satisfied Mind.' I got down on my knees."
• Wagoner's version was a #1 Country hit in 1955, but many other artists have covered the song, including Jeff Buckley on his 1998 album Sketches (for My Sweetheart the Drunk). Johnny Cash recorded a version that was released in 2004 on the Kill Bill: Volume 2 soundtrack, and which later appeared on his posthumous 2010 album American VI: Ain't No Grave. Cash told Mojo magazine's Sylvie Simmons why he decided to cover this song: "It was recorded by a friend of mine named Porter Wagoner. I always liked the song. When I started touring in the '50s, that was one of the songs I'd sing. I had to sing somebody's songs since I didn't have enough of mine to do the show. And I liked that song song very much. I sang that song for Rick (Rubin - Cash's producer) and he loved it, and I kept working on it until I got a performance I felt was the best I could do."
• In 1955, Colin Escott wrote about the origins of this song in the archival booklet for the Bear Family compilation Dim Lights, Thick Smoke and Hillbilly Music. He claimed a radically different and strange origin for the song. "In one [story of the song's genesis], Red Hayes had an encounter with a UFO. A quasi-magnetic force pulled his arm against the extraterrestrial object, inflicting a burn, and, after the burn healed, Red realized that the aliens had given him a song by way of compensation."
• Bob Dylan recorded this song twice, first in 1967 on a version that wasn't released until 2014 on The Bootleg Series Vol. 11: The Basement Tapes Complete, and again for his 1980 semi-gospel album Saved.