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Boomer Anthems: Gimme Shelter

Of Let It Bleed’s bleak world view, Jagger said in a 1995 interview with Rolling Stone magazine:

Well, it’s a very rough, very violent era. The Vietnam War. Violence on the screens, pillage and burning. And Vietnam was not war as we knew it in the conventional sense. The thing about Vietnam was that it wasn’t like World War II, and it wasn’t like Korea, and it wasn’t like the Gulf War. It was a real nasty war, and people didn’t like it. People objected, and people didn’t want to fight it … That’s a kind of end-of-the-world song, really. It’s apocalypse; the whole record’s like that.


Track one of Let It Bleed… as it should be.

Keith Richards stated in his memoir Life (2010):

“I wrote ‘Gimmie Shelter’ on a stormy day, sitting in Robert Fraser’s apartment in Mount Street. Anita (Pallenberg) was shooting Performance at the time, not far away… It was just a terrible f–king day and it was storming out there. I was sitting there in Mount Street and there was this incredible storm over London, so I got into that mode, just looking out of Robert’s window and looking at all these people with their umbrellas being blown out of their grasp and running like hell. And the idea came to me… My thought was storms on other people’s minds, not mine. It just happened to hit the moment.”

Then there’s Merry Clayton, the female vocalist who took the song from good to legendary:

One day, Merry Clayton was in her bed, pregnant, with hair curlers in and silk pajamas on, when she received a phone call at her Los Angeles home about midnight in the autumn of 1969. On the other line was producer Jack Nitzchke, who said there were some musicians in town from England who wanted a female vocalist to help with a song. Those musicians happened to be the Rolling Stones and the song was “Gimme Shelter,” but Clayton had no clue who the Rolling Stones were and initially resisted.

After all, she was pregnant, tired, and almost in bed with her husband.

But after being convinced by her husband to go help out, Clayton put on a coat and went outside to a car waiting to take her to the studio.

Clayton was still in her hair rollers and her pajamas when she arrived to meet the band….. They gave one line to sing. And she did.

Ooh, a storm is threatening
My very life today
If I don’t get some shelter
Ooh yeah I’m gonna fade away
War, children
It’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away
War, children
It’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away
Ooh, see the fire is sweepin’
Our streets today
Burns like a red coal carpet
Mad bull lost its way
War, children
It’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away
War, children
It’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away
Rape, murder, it’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away
Rape, murder, yeah, it’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away
Rape, murder, it’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away
Mmm, a flood is threatening
My very life today
Gimme, gimme shelter
Or I’m gonna fade away
War, children
It’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away
I tell you love, sister
It’s just a kiss away
It’s just a kiss away
It’s just a kiss away
It’s just a kiss away
It’s just a kiss away
Kiss away, kiss away

Comments on this entry are closed.

  • gwbnyc August 22, 2021, 5:27 PM

    Jack Nitzchke co-wrote “Needles and Pins” with Sonny Bono. I didn’t know this, and before today I had never heard of him. And this is the second reference to him I’ve encountered today.

    *poof*

  • Casey Klahn August 22, 2021, 6:29 PM

    The Vietnam War, much on Boomer’s minds, again, this last week, was accompanied by a soundtrack that we all recognize. I don’t know how it makes Vietnam veterans feel, but it does make the era feel every bit the epic chapter in American history.

    I imagine there are a minority of young men, and even fewer young women, today, feeling the epic shitblast that comes from losing your war. Afghanistan. I feel for them deeply.

  • Rob Muir August 22, 2021, 10:00 PM

    There’s a great documentary covering backup singers since the 60s, “20 Feet From Stardom”. Merry Clayton and the story of Gimme Shelter is featured very prominently. There are a ton of other great backup singers whose stories are also covered. Much of modern music would have much less impact without them. I’m persuaded that Gimme Shelter would have been not very memorable without Merry and her pipes in the mix.

  • Daniel K Day August 23, 2021, 12:51 AM

    The best song the Stones ever did. Merry Clayton’s vocals were perfect.
    “Satisfaction”? Overblown. My second favorite is the live version of “Midnight Rambler” on their Hot Rocks compilation.

  • Pissoir Dubuque August 23, 2021, 5:47 AM

    “It was a real nasty war, and people didn’t like it. People objected, and people didn’t want to fight it …” What a fathead. The Boomers, being the most pampered generation ever, didn’t like it because they were being asked to sacrifice, and they were horrified at that whole notion. So they gave it all a pass. Peace, man. (I always thought Jagger was a smart guy. But those are some puerile comments, IMHO.)

  • Dirk August 23, 2021, 6:51 AM

    Sympathy For The Devil,,,,seems fitting these days.

  • Skorpion August 23, 2021, 7:54 AM

    An elegy for Sixties innocence, along with Blind Faith’s “Can’t Find My Way Home.”
    (And I agree with @Daniel K Day: this song, and the live “Midnight Rambler,” are the best tunes the Stones ever recorded.)

  • Gordon Scott August 23, 2021, 9:16 AM

    Every three months or so, when the royalty check arrives, I’ll bet Merry is quite glad she got out of bed.

  • Dirk August 23, 2021, 9:42 AM

    Music always helps me understand, helps me reflect the past the good times, the bad times. Is music life, or is life music. I understand that music is where you find it.

    Walking in the woods, I always hear a symphony a wonderful symphony.

    • Rob De Witt August 24, 2021, 10:50 AM

      Me too.

      Walking down a filthy, shit-encrusted urban thoroughfare, I always hear the Rolling Stones.

  • Harry August 23, 2021, 10:13 AM

    I’d like to second Rob Muir on “20 Feet From Stardom.” It is a great documentary.

  • Dirk August 24, 2021, 10:25 AM

    Sadly Charlie Watts an original Rolling Stone died today.

    RIP you are rock-in Roll Royalty.

    Dirk

  • Christopher L Hunt August 24, 2021, 3:27 PM

    I sing Gimmie Shelter for karaoke. It’s right in my wheelhouse.

  • Griff August 24, 2021, 9:36 PM

    Interestingly, Merry Clayton is the sister of Sam Clayton, original percussionist for Little Feat.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Clayton