There’s no shortage of great songs in the Rolling Stones catalog, but “Gimme Shelter” may be the song that tops them all. Dark and foreboding as only the Stones can do, this track has all the hallmarks of the Rolling Stones at their best: iconic guitar riffs by Keef, Jagger at the top of his game, and the Watts/Wyman rhythm section doing what they do best (plus Nicky Hopkins on piano).  But what pushes this one from merely brilliant into sublime is the vocal performance by Merry Clayton– for my money, one of the greatest moments on record. All together, this one belongs on the Mount Rushmore of Rock. 

“Gimme Shelter” (Mick Jagger & Keith Richards) Copyright 1969 ABKCO Music Inc.

TRANSCRIPT:

We all need someone we can lean on, and if you want it, you can lean on the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. I’m Brad Page, your host, and each episode, I pick one of my favorite songs and we listen to it together– uncovering the elements that make it a great song. Maybe you’re a musician or a music lover, or just a casual fan; we all get to be musical explorers on this show, discovering something new each time we listen.

On the previous episode of this podcast, we talked about The Beatles, so I think it’s only fair that this time we tackle The Rolling Stones and one of their greatest moments on record: “Gimme Shelter.”

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1969 was a rough year for the Rolling Stones. They fired Brian Jones in June, and one month later he was dead. Mick Jagger’s relationship with Marianne Faithful took a turn for the worse when she attempted suicide with an overdose on sleeping pills that left her in a coma for a week. Earlier in the year, Jagger had an affair with Keith Richards’ girlfriend, Anita Pallenberg, and I’m sure that didn’t help Mick and Keith’s relationship.

The band was anxious to get out of their agreement with their manager, Allen Klein, and then in December of ‘69, the Stones were at the center of the disastrous concert in Altamont, California, where four people died, including Meredith Hunter, who was stabbed to death.

There was one upside, though, to 1969 for the Stones. It was the year they released the album, Let it Bleed. A masterpiece that’s a nearly perfect album, chock full of some of the Rolling Stones’ best work. The album opens with the apocalyptic “Gimme Shelter”.

The song was largely composed by Keith Richards in the apartment of Robert Fraser, where Keith was living with his girlfriend, Anita Pallenberg. “Gimme Shelter” is the first song on the album, so both the song and the album open with the sound of Keith Richards’ guitar. Keith plays all of the guitars on this song. This was recorded after they had fired Brian Jones, but before they hired his replacement, Mick Taylor, so Keith handled all the guitar parts on this song.

His guitar comes in softly, like someone tiptoeing in the dark, afraid of what might be waiting for them in the darkness.

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If you listen to Keith Richards’ guitar part, you’ll notice that there’s a subtle, but significant, change in what he plays during the intro. He starts by playing the part like this.

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But after a couple of times around, a few passes through the changes, he adds a few more notes, part gets a little bit more complex.

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By constantly tweaking the part, evolving it every few iterations, it’s a subtle but effective way of keeping it fresh throughout the song. So let’s pick it up where we left off, with the introduction.

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Here’s what we’ve got so far. The rhythm guitar, which I believe he’s playing in open E tuning, with a lot of reverb on it, and also a tremolo effect.

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The drums also come in, but they’re holding back a bit, and there’s a lead guitar part that’s added.

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It’s a very simple part when you hear it on its own, but it’s so effective when you hear it in the mix.

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There’s also some percussion, and a female vocal off in the distance.

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The bass comes in here as well, and he’s only playing one note.

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Some deep and ominous piano chords played by Nicky Hopkins.

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The drums come in with a beat, and we head into the first verse.

On this song, Keith was using guitar amplifiers made by a company called Triumph, and they discovered that if you got these amps to overheat, on the verge of burning out, they produced this fantastic guitar sound. The amps had lights along the top that would start to dim as the amplifiers overheated, so they would watch those lights to gauge when the amps were ready to be recorded.

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In the first verse, Mick sings about a storm that’s brewing. When Keith came up with the song, sitting in that apartment, he was watching out the window at people scurrying to get out of a rainstorm, so that’s where the idea of the storm came from, but the song evolved to become about so much more.

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“Gimme Shelter” features one of Mick Jagger’s all-time greatest vocal performances. Let’s listen to the vocal track for this verse.

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Oh, a storm is threat’ning
My very life today
If I don’t get some shelter
Oh, yeah, I’m gonna fade away

Here’s the first chorus: “War, children, it’s just a shot away.” I think that resonates more now than it did in ‘69.

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Originally, the Stones planned to release two albums in 1969, but with the end of the year approaching, and a U.S. tour starting on November 7th, they barely had time to finish one album. They were out of time. Most of the album, including the tracks for “Gimme Shelter”, had been recorded in England, but now with the U.S. tour looming, they moved to a recording studio in Los Angeles for the final stages of recording.

One of the last things to be recorded were the backing vocals for “Gimme Shelter”. Mick Jagger asked the recording engineer, Bruce Botnick, if he knew any singers, and Bruce recommended Merry Clayton. That’s Merry, m-e-r-r-y, not Mary. On some pressings of the album, they misspelled her name as Mary.

Merry Clayton’s vocals are so crucial to this song. We’re going to focus on them a lot as we listen to this song. Here’s the second verse.

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They’re using that tried-and-true vocal arrangement technique of: first line – lead vocal by itself; second line – backing vocal joins in; third line – lead vocal by itself again; and the fourth line – the backing vocal joins in once more. You’ve heard this a million times in a million songs, but it’s super effective.

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Ooh, see the fire is sweepin’
Ooh, our very street today
Burn a red tool carpet, mad bull lost his way

Let’s listen to what the lead guitar and the piano are doing behind that verse. Nicky Hopkins’ piano is mixed pretty far down, it’s hard to hear in the final mix, but it’s a really driving part.

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All right. Let’s hear that second chorus.

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Oh, oh, oh, child
It’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away
Oh, oh, oh, child
It’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away
Yeah!

Mick Jagger plays some great blues harp harmonica on this track. That gritty, distorted sound was produced by playing the harmonica into a microphone plugged into a Dynacord tape loop machine, and then overdriving that amp. Then they run it through some studio limiters to compress it, and squeeze it, to get that really intense sound.

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Nice little guitar solo from Keith Richards. Remember, he’s playing all the guitars on this track.

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Now, they let Merry Clayton step to the front for what I think is one of the greatest vocal performances ever recorded.

When they called Merry Clayton to come down to the studio that night, it was late, and she was very pregnant. She was getting ready for bed, she had curlers in her hair. They get her on the phone and say, “We need you to come down to the studio and do some vocals,” so she goes down to the studio, with her silk pajamas on and a scarf around her head. She did one take, and it was great. Mick Jagger said, “Do you want to have another go?”, and she said, “Sure, I’ll do a second take.”, and in her head, she says to herself, “I am going to blow them out of this room.”, and so she sang this part.

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Rape, murder!
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!
It’s just a shot away!
It’s just a shot away!
Yeah, yeah, yeah!

Listen to how her vocals get more intense each time around. Let’s listen to just her vocal track. Listen to how each time she sings the chorus, she pushes her voice harder, until it starts to crack. This is raw emotion. Rape, murder, you can feel the weight of those words in this performance.

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Rape, murder!
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!
It’s just a shot away!
It’s just a shot away!
Yeah, yeah, yeah!

I want to go back and play that last chorus when Merry hits the word “murder” with such intensity that her voice cracks for the second time, and you can hear Mick Jagger let out a “whoo”. He, he clearly can’t help himself, she’s so good. And then at the end of the line, as she finishes, you can hear another “whoa!” from someone in the studio. They are clearly blown away. Can you imagine standing next to Merry Clayton as she’s singing this part?

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Rape, murder!
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!
Yeah, yeah, yeah!

Remember, this is Merry Clayton in the middle of the night, pregnant in her pajamas, singing a song that she’s never heard before, with a band she’s never met. This is among the most thrilling 30 seconds of music you will ever hear in your life.

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Rape, murder!
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!
It’s just a shot away!
It’s just a shot away!
Yeah, yeah, yeah!
The third and final verse.

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Flood is threat’ning
My very life today
Gimme, gimme shelter
Or I’m gonna fade away
(Singing with enthusiasm)

This dark song ends on a more hopeful note as Mick and Merry tell us that “love is only a kiss away.”

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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
It’s just a kiss away
It’s just a kiss away
Yeah!

“Gimme Shelter” by the Rolling Stones. Epic!

The legendary music critic, Greil Marcus, said “Gimme Shelter may well be the greatest single rock and roll performance.”

There’s a documentary called 20 Feet from Stardom about the lives and careers of background singers. It includes some of the greatest backing vocalists of all time, including a great segment on Merry Clayton. It’s a fantastic documentary. If you’ve never seen it, go watch it, right now. I’m not kidding– do it.

I’d also like to acknowledge a book by Sean Egan, called Rolling Stones and the Making of Let it Bleed. It’s part of the Vinyl Frontiers book series, and I used that for quite a bit of research on this episode, so thank you, Sean Egan.

To learn more about the show, check out our Facebook page, and to hear more episodes of the podcast, just search for the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. And please, post a review for the show. The more five-star reviews we get, the easier it becomes for more people to find the show, so I really appreciate your reviews and your comments.

I’ll be back in two weeks with another episode. Until then, thanks again for listening to the Rolling Stones and “Gimme Shelter”.

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Go listen to the whole song by downloading it, or buying it, or streaming it from your favorite source of legit music. Always support the music that you love!