The Altamont Free Concert, held in northern California on December 6 1969, was envisaged as the West Coast’s answer to Woodstock — a celebration of the counterculture soundtracked by some of the world’s biggest rock groups. Instead it was a death-knell for hippiedom. Within hours it had degenerated into an orgy of drug-fuelled violence in which hundreds were hurt. A black teenager, Meredith Hunter, was killed during The Rolling Stones’ headline set.
The Stones had released their latest single, “Gimme Shelter”,just the day before. A blistering, panic-stricken track, it all too aptly captured the noxious atmosphere at Altamont, and heralded the arrival of a new brutish era — a winter of discontent to follow the Summer of Love. With the war in Vietnam escalating and the threat of nuclear annihilation from the Soviet Union unremitting, hopes for the future had evaporated by the decade’s close. “It’s a kind of end-of-the-world song,” Mick Jagger would reflect. “It’s [the] apocalypse.”
This macabreness defines “Gimme Shelter” from its brooding intro, in which Keith Richards’ mournful, layered guitar melodies are accompanied by an eerie scraping sound — produced by a guiro (a Latin percussion instrument) — that persists throughout the song as a kind of death rattle. Like the incoming storm mentioned in the first line, the track howls and blusters. We’re swept along by Jagger’s pleading vocals, Charlie Watts’s pulsating drums and Richards’ bluesy licks before reaching the eye of the tempest: session singer Merry Clayton’s lung-bursting, tortured yet soulful screams of “Rape, murder, it’s just a shot away.”
Her fully committed performance is particularly stunning given that the 20-year-old was called out of bed to sing lyrics she didn’t really understand for a band she’d never heard of. But her voice was exactly what the song needed, and Jagger can even be heard yelling in approval as Clayton’s voice cracks under the adrenaline and emotion (she would later reveal that she was channelling her anguish about racial discrimination in the US). While Richards’ guitar disintegrated in his hands after the final take — as if enacting the song’s statement about the world’s decay — Clayton suffered a far greater loss, possibly as a result of her exertions, miscarrying not long after the recording.
Despite “Gimme Shelter” being an exhibition of late ’60s angst, it has endured over the decades as one of The Stones’ best and most covered songs. The evergreen rockers have themselves adapted the hit for the 21st century through several live collaborations with contemporary female singers, including Mary J Blige and Florence Welch. Most notably, the band invited Lady Gaga to join them for the song at a 2012 gig in New Jersey. Her vocals were impressive, but almost incidental to the absurd battle between her and Jagger to be the most ostentatious stage presence.
Still, nobody has come close to matching the brilliance of Clayton on the original record. Even she couldn’t recreate that spontaneous nervous energy herself, adopting a more restrained, funk-infused sound for her solo version in 1970.
Yet one cover that does manage to evoke that authentically raw emotiveness came from Patti Smithin 2007. Her rich and gravelly voice is perfectly suited for such a dramatic, gritty track, and her performance is a masterclass in controlled volatility. It’s a quality that’s missing from Grand Funk Railroad’s cover from 1971;although their version boasts a couple of great finger-cramping solos, it mainly emphasises just how Clayton helped elevate the song beyond the genre of headbanging rock.
The repeated plea for safety in the lyrics has made “Gimme Shelter” a fitting choice for charities running campaigns to provide refuge for those in need. In 2008, Paolo Nutini recorded an affecting version to score Ben Affleck’s short film about the humanitarian crisis in Darfur. Fifteen years earlier, the housing charity Shelter commissioned four versions of the track, with proceeds going to support the homeless. One of the covers was fronted by Tom Jones, who gives his all in the climactic verse.
The song has also been a go-to accompaniment for televised footage of storms. And it’s this usage that is actually the most in line with the initial, rather prosaic, inspiration for “Gimme Shelter”. In a 2017 interview, Richards revealed that the track wasn’t originally conceived of as a capsule of late ’60’s anxiety; in fact, he wrote most of it in 20 minutes after seeing people running outside in a thunderstorm in London. Perhaps Jagger should have briefed him about not letting the truth get in the way of a good story.
What are your memories of ‘Gimme Shelter’? What do its lyrics mean to you? Let us know in the comments section below.
‘The Life of a Song Volume 2: The fascinating stories behind 50 more of the world’s best-loved songs’, edited by David Cheal and Jan Dalley, is published by Brewer’s.
Music credits: Universal Music Group International; Ode Records; Columbia/Legacy; Mixed Repertoire
Picture credit: Robert Altman/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images