Pop Song 605 of 1000 'Gimme Shelter' Rolling Stones 1969

Pop Song 605 of 1000 'Gimme Shelter' Rolling Stones 1969

Official Live video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKGU-tpN2H8
https://www.youtube.com/@CyrusandAurelius

In 2021 "Gimme Shelter" was ranked at number 13 on Rolling Stone's list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time
in his autobiography Life, Richards revealed that the tension of the song was inspired by his jealousy at seeing the relationship between Pallenberg and Jagger, and his suspicions of an affair between them.[10]
As released, the song begins with Richards performing a guitar intro, soon joined by Jagger's lead vocal. 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.[11]

It was a very moody piece about the world closing in on you a bit ... When it was recorded, early '69 or something, it was a time of war and tension, so that's reflected in this tune. It's still wheeled out when big storms happen, been used a lot to evoke natural disaster.[12]
The song's inspiration was not initially Vietnam or social unrest, but Richards seeing people scurrying for shelter from a sudden rain storm. According to him:
I had been sitting by the window of my friend Robert Fraser's apartment on Mount Street in London with an acoustic guitar when suddenly the sky went completely black and an incredible monsoon came down. It was just people running about looking for shelter – that was the germ of the idea. We went further into it until it became, you know, rape and murder are 'just a shot away'