Gimme Shelter... From Vietnam!

Gimme Shelter
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

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

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

Rape, murder!
It's just a shot away
It's just a shot away

Rape, murder!
It's just a shot away
It's just a shot away

Rape, murder!
It's just a shot away
It's just a shot away

The floods is threat'ning
My very life today
Gimme, gimme shelter
Or I'm gonna fade away

War, children, it's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
I tell you love, sister, it's just a kiss away
It's just a kiss away
It's just a kiss away
It's just a kiss away
It's just a kiss away
Kiss away, kiss away

So goes the celebrated song "Gimme Shelter" - the opening track of the Stones' 1969 album "Let It Bleed". Written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, the song is mid-tempo, and features a rhythm guitar intro from Richards. It also involves one of the Stones' rare collaborations with a female artist, Merry Clayton, which, according to the Stones, was their producer Jimmy Miller's idea. Also on the track are pianist Nicky Hopkins, percussionist (and producer) Jimmy Miller, bass guitarist Bill Wyman, and drummer Charlie Watts (band member Brian Jones was not featured on "Gimme Shelter"). On main vocals were Merry Clayton and Mick Jagger.

The song seems depressing to say the least. Using images of fire, floods, war and rape, "Gimme Shelter" tells the story of an individual seeking shelter from an approaching storm. It paints an apocalyptic portrait, depicting scenes of devastation, war, violence and evil.

And, in this way, "Gimme Shelter" is the perfect goodbye to the 60s. The Stones, through the song, are actually offering a social commentary on the tumultuous decade that was the 1960s. From the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. to the Vietnam War, the 60s are presented, through the song "Gimme Shelter" as a sort of 'beginning of the end' - the end of the world that is. As Mick Jagger said in an interview in 1995 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... That's a kind of end-of-the-world song, really. It's apocalypse; the whole record's like that."

The song definitely inspires a surge of emotions within listeners. The lyrics are dripping with the unfortunate societal realities, and blatantly point out how far society has diverged from peace and harmony. The world, according the the song, is on the brink of apocalypse, and, looking at the destruction that splattered across the decade, it's hard to say that the Rolling Stones didn't have a point. But the tone of the song is not necessarily angry. Reading the lyrics, without prior knowledge of the actual recorded version of the song, one might anticipate a song seething with bitterness. And the song certainly expresses a definite sense of frustration and discontentment. Yet, again, the tone isn't quite angry. It's more reflective.. somber.

And this only futher solidifies "Gimme Shelter"'s place as an important piece of protest music. It does not inspire or encourage further violence or resentment. Instead, its message is that all of this evil, all of the suffering and devastation can be quite easily cancelled out... yes, by love. After bringing listeners into this almost hopeless, dark and depressing place, it lifts them back up again, promising that shelter can indeed be found and, furthermore, 'it's just a kiss away'. The juxtaposition found in the last segment of the song is so simple yet so genius: "War, children, it's just a shot away". The Stones are speaking from a position of authority, addressing those who condone war and violence as 'children' as if they need to learn from the more experienced, the more mature and pacific individuals, with which the Stones personally identify. The Stones diminish those instigating the chaos of the 60s, again reducing them to being 'child-like'. And yet, in juxtaposition... "Love, sister, it's just a kiss away". Those who, like the Stones, call for love, for peace and for harmony are equals - sisters, even. They stand together, bonded by an almost familial tie, in a definite example of solidarity. And, truly, they stand for love. What a beautiful, uplifting and, perhaps most of all, hopefull way to conclude not only a song... but an era.

Sources:

http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/gimme-shelter-lyrics-the-rolling-stones/ae45bf3876ee46e44825689a001ecedf