Rolling Stones – "Gimme Shelter" (1969)

Rape, murder!

It's just a shot away!

[NOTE: If I had to pick one rock song as the G.O.A.T. – the Greatest Of All Time –  "Gimme Shelter" would be it.  So you best believe it's in the first group of inductees into the 2 OR 3 LINES "GOLDEN DECADE" ALBUM TRACKS HALL OF FAME.  Here's an updated version of my original 2013 post about the song, which focuses on Merry Clayton's extraordinary backup vocal.]

Great art often comes at a great cost.  But rarely does an artist pay a price as high as backup singer Merry Clayton paid the night she recorded the stunning vocal that made "Gimme Shelter" so extraordinary.

The great rock critic, Greil Marcus, once said that "the Stones have never done anything better" than "Gimme Shelter," which is the opening track – and the best track – on the Rolling Stones' best album, Let It Bleed.  

"Gimme Shelter" begins with a nervous, twitchy guitar solo by Keith Richards (who turned 70 two days ago), but then drummer Charlie Watts – always unsung, but perhaps the most essential of all the Stones – takes over, propelling the song down the tracks as only he can.  Mick Jagger's lead vocal is unusually strong, but the crucial element of "Gimme Shelter" – the one thing that lifts it above just about anything else the Stones ever recorded – is backup singer Merry Clayton.

Here's a photo of a portion of the inner sleeve of my copy of Let It Bleed.  Note the two misspellings:  "Gimmie Shelter" and "Mary Clayton":

You could say that "Gimme Shelter" and the Beatles' "Helter Skelter" are fraternal twins.  Their message is the message of William Butler Yeats' masterpiece, "The Second Coming":

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world

Musical anarchy is loosed upon the world when backup singer Merry Clayton tears "Gimme Shelter" a new you-know-what about 2:45 into the song.

Click here to listen to "Gimme Shelter."

*     *     *     *     *

Merry Clayton got her start with Ray Charles, and later sang backing vocals for Joe Cocker, Tom Jones, and Lynyrd Skynyrd ("Sweet Home Alabama").  She is featured in 20 Feet From Stardom, a documentary I recently saw in an almost completely empty movie theater in Washington, DC.  (It was just me and one other person in the whole theater.) 

The movie focuses on a half-dozen or so female backup singers who made their names singing on soul and rock albums in the sixties and seventies – including not only Clayton, but also Darlene Love (who sang on dozens of Phil Spector records, often without being credited), Lisa Fischer (who has accompanied the Stones on every one of their tours since 1989), and Claudia Lennear (a former Ike and Tina Turner "Ikette" who also backed up Joe Cocker and Leon Russell, and was the inspiration for the Stones' "Brown Sugar").

Here's the trailer for the movie:

*     *     *     *     *

Clayton and the Stones didn't know each other before she was picked to do the backing vocal that made her famous.  Years later, she told an interviewer about the night she was called and asked to sing on "Gimme Shelter":

Well, I’m at home at . . . almost 12 o’clock at night.  And I’m hunkered down in my bed with my husband, very pregnant, and we got a call from a dear friend of mine and producer named Jack Nitzsche.  Jack Nitzsche called and said you know, "Merry, are you busy?"  I said, "No, I’m in bed."  He says, well, you know, "There are some guys in town from England.  And they need someone to come and sing a duet with them, but I can’t get anybody to do it.  Could you come?" He said, "I really think this would be something good for you." 

Merry Clayton then

Clayton's husband talked her into going down to the studio – she claims she had no idea who the Stones were.  When she showed up, Keith Richards explained what they were looking for her to do:

I said, "Well, play the track. It’s late. I’d love to get back home." So they play the track and tell me that I’m going to sing – this is what you’re going to sing: "Oh, children, it’s just a shot away." . . . I said, "Well, that’s cool."  So I did the first part, and we got down to the rape, murder part.  And I said, "Why am I singing 'rape, murder'?" . . . They told me the gist of what the lyrics were, and I said, "Oh, okay, that’s cool." 

Merry Clayton now

So then I had to sit on a stool because I was a little heavy in my belly.  I mean, it was a sight to behold.  And we got through it.  And then we went in the booth to listen, and I saw them hooting and hollering while I was singing, but I didn’t know what they were hooting and hollering about.  And when I got back in the booth and listened, I said, "Ooh, that’s really nice."  They said, well, "You want to do another?"  I said, well, "I’ll do one more," I said, "and then I’m going to have to say thank you and good night."  I did one more, and then I did one more.  So it was three times I did it, and then I was gone.  The next thing I know, that’s history.

Click here to listen to Clayton's isolated vocal track from that recording session.  Listen to her voice crack – and listen to the reaction from the Stones.

*     *     *     *     *

Shortly after leaving the studio that night, Merry Clayton suffered a miscarriage and lost her child.  

“That was a dark, dark period for me,” she told the Los Angeles Times in 1986, “but God gave me the strength to overcome it.  I turned it around.  I took it as life, love and energy and directed it in another direction, so it doesn’t really bother me to sing ‘Gimme Shelter’ now.”

Merry Clayton later recorded "Gimme Shelter" on her 1970 solo album of the same name.  Click here to listen to her version of the song.

Click here to watch a video of Lady Gaga doing "Gimme Shelter" with the Stones at a benefit concert in 2012.  I wouldn't say it's bad, but I wouldn't say it's good either.

Click on the link below to buy the original "Gimme Shelter" from Amazon:

Rolling Stones – "Gimme Shelter" (1969)

A storm is threatening

My very life today

The great rock critic, Greil Marcus, once said that "the Stones have never done anything better" than "Gimme Shelter.”  He couldn’t have been righter.   

"Gimme Shelter” is the opening track on the Rolling Stones' best album, Let It Bleed.  It begins with a nervous, twitchy guitar solo by Keith Richards, but then drummer Charlie Watts – always unsung, but perhaps the most essential of all the  Stones – takes over, propelling the song down the tracks as only he can.  

Mick Jagger's lead vocal is unusually strong, but the crucial element of "Gimme Shelter" – the one thing that lifts it above just about anything else the Stones ever recorded – is backup singer Merry Clayton.

I’ve written about “Gimme Shelter” before.  I’m not sure how you could have expected me to write about a thousand different songs without writing about “Gimme Shelter,” which belongs on the Mt.  Rushmore of rock songs.  

(What other rock songs belong on Mt. Rushmore?  That’s not an easy question to answer.  Maybe “Helter Skelter,” by the Beatles.  Maybe “I Can See For Miles” by the Who, and “Eight Miles High” by the Byrds.  Maybe Steppenwolf’s “Born to Be Wild,” or Led Zeppelin’s “Dazed and Confused.”  And there are some other worthy candidates.)

Click here to read my original “Gimme Shelter” post, which focused on Merry Clayton.

Scorsese and Robert DeNiro
on the set of "Goodfellas"

Martin Scorsese has used a lot of classic pop and rock songs on his movie soundtracks, including a half-dozen or so songs by his favorites, the Rolling Stones.

“Gimme Shelter” is on the soundtracks of no fewer than three of Scorsese’s movies: Goodfellas, Casino, and The Departed.  Here’s a video containing the “Gimme Shelter’ scenes from all three of those movies:

I hope you enjoyed this year's "29 Songs in 29 Days."  NOT THAT ANY OF YOU SAID YOU ENJOYED IT AND THANKED ME FOR DOING IT.

What the hell – just click on an ad or two and we'll call it even.

Here’s “Gimme Shelter”:

Click below to buy the song from Amazon:

Go Home Productions -- "Shannon Stone" (2007)

We started dancing

And love put us into a groove

But now he's with somebody new

I wish I could explain to you how I found today's featured track, but I can't.  It's a mystery to me.

It all started when I was looking for Julian Cope songs on Freegal a couple of weeks ago.  Exactly why I was looking for Julian Cope songs on Freegal is a question I simply can't answer.

Julian Cope

It's possible that I was looking for Jules Shear songs on Freegal and confused the two performers.  But I can't imagine why I would have been looking for Jules Shear songs either, so going down that path just takes us all the way 'round the mulberry bush back to where we began, doesn't it?

(For some reason -- not necessarily a good reason -- I am reminded of the famous Groucho Marx line in the 1930 Marx Brothers movie, Animal Crackers: "One morning, I shot an elephant in my pajamas.  How he got in my pajamas, I don't know.")

To make a long story short (not my usual practice), I ended up on Soundcloud listening to a Go Home Productions mashup that incorporates samples of Julian Cope's 1987 UK hit single, "Trampolene." 

Mashups are like potato chips -- you can't stop after just one.  That mashup eventually led me to this one, which opens with a snippet from a Jim Morrison poem titled "Stoned Immaculate," which was set to music on the last Doors studio album, An American Prayer.  (That album was released in 1978, seven years after Morrison died.)

(Get it?)

But most of "Shannon Stone" -- you get the joke behind the title, don't you? -- is a combination of "Let the Music Play," the 1983 hit by freestyle/dance-pop queen Shannon with the instrumental track of "Gimme Shelter," which is arguably the best Rolling Stones' song ever.

At first blush, these two songs couldn't be more dissimilar.  Pairing Shannon's glitzy, drum-machine-propelled post-disco dance-pop hit with the gritty yet spaced-out guitar of Keith Richards and the drums of Charlie Watts sounds like the ultimate apples-and-oranges combination.

But it works, boys and girls -- you can't believe how well it works.  You could almost believe that some genius dreamed up both songs at the same time, intending all along that they be combined into one integrated whole.

What inspired the producer of this mashup to pair up these two tracks?  I have no friggin' idea.  It's unfathomable to me that anyone would ever think to put Shannon together with the Stones. 

Charlie Watts and Keith Richards

It wasn't hard to make the tempos of the two tracks match up.  The tempo of the resulting mix is about 120 beats per minute, which is almost exactly the original tempo of "Gimme Shelter."  I think the producer may have sped up "Let the Music Play" just a bit -- it's original tempo is closer to 116 beats per second. 

The chord structure of the two songs isn't the same, but they mesh very nicely.

The two dissimilar halves of "Shannon Stone" fit so well together that you would think you're listening to a live performance.



It reminds me a little bit of watching the Doors perform "Touch Me" on The Ed Sullivan Show, which took Jim Morrison and his mates pounding away like crazy with a dozen-plus middle-aged guys in suits playing violins, saxophones, trumpets, and trombones.  

Go Home Productions (or "GHP") is really just Mark Vidler, an English producer, DJ, and all-around audio-video whiz.  After producing hundreds of traditional mashups, he's now making mashups that not only mix the music of different artists but also video of those artists performing.

Mark Vidler

We're going to feature several other GHP mashups in upcoming 2 or 3 lines posts.    So if you didn't like this one, there's probably no point in you checking back in for the next couple of weeks.

I had never heard of Shannon until I listened to this mashup, but she was a big deal.  "Let the Music play" could be a Madonna song -- Madonna's first hit single, "Holiday," was released at about the same time.

Here's "Let the Music Play":

And here's the instrumental track to "Gimme Shelter," which is as good as anything Keef and Charlie and the boys ever did:



Here's "Shannon Stone":

Click here and scroll down to download "Shannon Stone" and the entire This Was Pop (2002-2007) album for free.

Rolling Stones (ft. Merry Clayton) -- "Gimme Shelter" (1969)

Rape, murder!

It's just a shot away!

Great art often comes at a great cost.  But rarely does an artist pay a price as high as backup singer Merry Clayton paid the night she recorded the stunning vocal that made "Gimme Shelter" so extraordinary.

The great rock critic, Greil Marcus, once said that "the Stones have never done anything better" than "Gimme Shelter," which is the opening track – and the best track – on the Rolling Stones' best album, Let It Bleed.  

"Gimme Shelter" begins with a nervous, twitchy guitar solo by Keith Richards (who turned 70 two days ago), but then drummer Charlie Watts – always unsung, but perhaps the most essential of all the Stones – takes over, propelling the song down the tracks as only he can.  Mick Jagger's lead vocal is unusually strong, but the crucial element of "Gimme Shelter" – the one thing that lifts it above just about anything else the Stones ever recorded – is backup singer Merry Clayton.

Here's a photo of a portion of the inner sleeve of my copy of Let It Bleed.  Note the two misspellings:  "Gimmie Shelter" and "Mary Clayton":

You could say that "Gimme Shelter" and the Beatles' "Helter Skelter" are fraternal twins.  Their message is the message of William Butler Yeats' masterpiece, "The Second Coming":

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world

Musical anarchy is loosed upon the world when backup singer Merry Clayton tears "Gimme Shelter" a new you-know-what about 2:45 into the song.

Click here to listen to "Gimme Shelter."

*     *     *     *     *

Merry Clayton got her start with Ray Charles, and later sang backing vocals for Joe Cocker, Tom Jones, and Lynyrd Skynyrd ("Sweet Home Alabama").  She is featured in 20 Feet From Stardom, a documentary I recently saw in an almost completely empty movie theater in Washington, DC.  (It was just me and one other person in the whole theater.) 

The movie focuses on a half-dozen or so female backup singers who made their names singing on soul and rock albums in the sixties and seventies – including not only Clayton, but also Darlene Love (who sang on dozens of Phil Spector records, often without being credited), Lisa Fischer (who has accompanied the Stones on every one of their tours since 1989), and Claudia Lennear (a former Ike and Tina Turner "Ikette" who also backed up Joe Cocker and Leon Russell, and was the inspiration for the Stones' "Brown Sugar").

Here's the trailer for the movie:

*     *     *     *     *

Clayton and the Stones didn't know each other before she was picked to do the backing vocal that made her famous.  Years later, she told an interviewer about the night she was called and asked to sing on "Gimme Shelter":

Well, I’m at home at . . . almost 12 o’clock at night.  And I’m hunkered down in my bed with my husband, very pregnant, and we got a call from a dear friend of mine and producer named Jack Nitzsche.  Jack Nitzsche called and said you know, "Merry, are you busy?"  I said, "No, I’m in bed."  He says, well, you know, "There are some guys in town from England.  And they need someone to come and sing a duet with them, but I can’t get anybody to do it.  Could you come?" He said, "I really think this would be something good for you." 

Merry Clayton then

Clayton's husband talked her into going down to the studio – she claims she had no idea who the Stones were.  When she showed up, Keith Richards explained what they were looking for her to do:

I said, "Well, play the track. It’s late. I’d love to get back home." So they play the track and tell me that I’m going to sing – this is what you’re going to sing: "Oh, children, it’s just a shot away." . . . I said, "Well, that’s cool."  So I did the first part, and we got down to the rape, murder part.  And I said, "Why am I singing 'rape, murder'?" . . . They told me the gist of what the lyrics were, and I said, "Oh, okay, that’s cool." 

Merry Clayton now

So then I had to sit on a stool because I was a little heavy in my belly.  I mean, it was a sight to behold.  And we got through it.  And then we went in the booth to listen, and I saw them hooting and hollering while I was singing, but I didn’t know what they were hooting and hollering about.  And when I got back in the booth and listened, I said, "Ooh, that’s really nice."  They said, well, "You want to do another?"  I said, well, "I’ll do one more," I said, "and then I’m going to have to say thank you and good night."  I did one more, and then I did one more.  So it was three times I did it, and then I was gone.  The next thing I know, that’s history.

Click here to listen to Clayton's isolated vocal track from that recording session.  Listen to her voice crack – and listen to the reaction from the Stones.

*     *     *     *     *

Shortly after leaving the studio that night, Merry Clayton suffered a miscarriage and lost her child.  

“That was a dark, dark period for me,” she told the Los Angeles Times in 1986, “but God gave me the strength to overcome it.  I turned it around.  I took it as life, love and energy and directed it in another direction, so it doesn’t really bother me to sing ‘Gimme Shelter’ now.”

Merry Clayton later recorded "Gimme Shelter" on her 1970 solo album of the same name.  Click here to listen to her version of the song.

Click here to watch a video of Lady Gaga doing "Gimme Shelter" with the Stones at a benefit concert in 2012.  I wouldn't say it's bad, but I wouldn't say it's good either.

Click on the link below to buy the original "Gimme Shelter" from Amazon: