As my classmates and I celebrate our 50th High School Reunion this month (Brandywine HS, Class of ’69), I’m gonna present a month of great songs from one of the greatest years in music ever.
Newsweek described ‘Gimme Shelter’ as ‘an erotic exorcism for a doomed decade’. And this article, must reading, which provides a tremendous history of the song’s evolution, describes it as the song that ‘became the emblem of the moment when the 60s dream flared into the 70s nightmare.’ The song, of course, was released on the eve of the Stones’ ill-considered appearance at the Altamont Speedway in northern California (Hell’s Angels as security guards? What could possibly go wrong?)
This song is all Keith, with the incredible vocals of Merry Clayton kicking it into the stratosphere:
