Gimme Shelter (song)

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Gimme Shelter is a Rolling Stones song . It first appeared on the album Let It Bleed from 1969. On the album, the song was first written Gimmie Shelter , but all other Rolling Stones recordings and the cover versions use the more common form Gimme Shelter .

The piece is widely regarded as the Rolling Stones' best work. So who wrote Rolling Stone -author Greil Marcus about the song, "The Stones have never done something better" and in Article 100 of the best Rolling Stones songs listed the magazine Rolling Stone is also on the first place. Even among fans, the piece regularly occupies the top ranks in fan votes.

The song is also considered one of the best songs of all time by many music journalists and critics. Again by Rolling Stone , the song was voted number 38 of the 500 best songs of all time .

Inspiration and recordings

Keith Richards had the idea for the piece in London while Mick Jagger was working on the film Performance . The song begins with a rhythm guitar introduction: Variations on the descending chord progression in C sharp major, B major, A major. The atmosphere is also shaped by the gospel-like background choir. With the use of the drums and the first notes of the singer Mick Jaggers, the piece then becomes a typical rock song.

Jagger said of the recording in an interview with Rolling Stone in 1995:

“It was a very rough, very violent era. The Vietnam War . TV violence, looting and fires everywhere. And Vietnam wasn't a war as we knew it in the conventional sense. "

Of the song itself, he said, “It's kind of an end of the world song, really. It's the apocalypse; the whole record is like that. "

The text is about the search for protection ( shelter , protection, cover , shelter) from an approaching storm. It conjures up a threatening backdrop of apocalyptic crisis in which devastation, rape and murder appear as close as the power of love.

"Oh, a storm is threat'ning, My very life today;
If I don't get some shelter, Oh 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 "

The second voice is sung by guest singer Merry Clayton . The recordings took place in February and March 1969 in London's Olympic Sound Studios . Clayton's part was recorded in Los Angeles. The studio musician Nicky Hopkins , who was often hired by the Rolling Stones, played the piano.

Although the piece is very popular, it was never released as a single.

Trivia

The Rolling Stones provided the piece as music to accompany the video on the situation of the Congolese refugees filmed in November 2008 with the prominent support of Ben Affleck for the United Nations Refugee Agency ( UNHCR ).

Gimme Shelter is also the title for the documentary music film that documents the Rolling Stones' 1969 US tour. At the Altamont Free Concert , a spectator was stabbed to death by a member of the Hells Angels used as a steward after he pulled a gun and tried to shoot the band.

The American director, screenwriter and producer Martin Scorsese uses the play regularly in his films. However , it is not played in Scorsese's documentary concert film Shine a Light about the Rolling Stones.

Cover versions

Several musicians and bands have covered the song, including Josefus (album Dead Man 1970), Grand Funk Railroad (album Survival 1971), Mitch Ryder , the Goo Goo Dolls (album JED , 1989), Jimmy Somerville & Voice of the Beehive ( Putting Our House in Order project, 1993), The Sisters of Mercy (12 ″ single Temple Of Love , MRX027 1983) and Tom Jones & New Model Army (maxi CD), The Hellacopters (album Cream of the Crap Vol. 1 ), Turbonegro (Album Small Feces Volume 1 & 2 ), Stereophonics (Album Pass the Buck ) and Patti Smith ( Twelve , 2007), Puddle of Mudd (Album "Re (Disc) overed" 2011).

A cover version by Irish folksinger Paul Brady , which he recorded with the Forest Rangers, was used for the US TV series Sons of Anarchy . The song, which can be found on the first soundtrack of the series, was played at the end of the final episode of the second season.

Web links

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  1. ↑ http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/let-it-bleed-19691227
  2. ↑ http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/100-greatest-rolling-stones-songs-20131015/gimme-shelter-1969-19691231
  3. ↑ http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/the-500-greatest-songs-of-all-time-20110407/the-rolling-stones-gimme-shelter-20110527
  4. ↑ Cover story: Jagger Remembers: Rolling Stone . rollingstone.com. Retrieved July 30, 2013.
  5. ↑ See the announcement of a German version on the UNHCR website  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.unhcr.de  
  6. ↑ Ben Affleck starts 'Gimme Shelter' - a humanitarian campaign for the victims of the fighting in eastern Congo. UN refugee aid , archived from the original on July 24, 2009 ; accessed on September 20, 2016 .
  7. ↑ Hells Angels - The Last Warriors