Gimme Shelter, The Rolling Stones

The other day, I was listening to Gimme Shelter by the Rolling Stones as I was driving to work and I realized that it is really the perfect song to close a movie with. This realization may have had something to do with the fact that I recently watched the documentary of the same name (which is about the Stones' famous concert at Altamont where the Hell's Angels, who were providing security for the show, killed a spectator. Interestingly, the filmmakers actually caught the killing on film) for the first time, which used the song over the credits.

Gimme Shelter, written by Mick Jagger & Keith Richards (who is, bizarrely, sometimes credited as Keith Richard) originally appeared on the seminal 1969 release "Let It Bleed". It also appears on their greatest hits compilations "Hot Rocks; 1964-1971" and "Forty Licks". Patti Smith, the legendary punk rocker, recently turned in one of the better covers of it on her 2007 album "Twelve".

The song is notable for many reasons, not the least of which is that it is one of the few Rolling Stones songs which prominently features a female singer. Merry Clayton sings along with Mick Jagger for much of the song, before taking a solo verse about 3 minutes in: "rape, murder, yeah, it's just a shot away". Clayton, who was pregnant at the time, exerted so much energy in her performance that she had a miscarriage when she returned home from the session.

Gimme Shelter's lyrics read as a protest against the Vietnam War specifically and war generally:

War, children, its just a shot away
Its just a shot away

Ooh, see the fire is sweepin
Our very street today
Burns like a red coal carpet
Mad bull lost its way

It's a very effective evocation of that era, in my opinion. When listening to it, you can almost see scenes of people being beaten in the streets, rice paddies burning, and Bell UH-1 Hueys lifting off. The way the song builds from a simple rhythm guitar part to a raucous finale featuring 2 singers, numerous guitars, drums, maracas and more kind of conveys a feeling of a descent from normalcy to chaos.

The song ends on an upbeat note though, when the refrain changes from "war, children, it's just a shot away" to "love, sister, it's just a kiss away". Both sentiments are representative of a world view where any outcome is disconcertingy possible. We're all living on the razor's edge.