Gimmie Shelter
Composers: Mick
Jagger & Keith Richards
Recording date: February-March & October-November 1969
Recording locations: Olympic
Sound
Studios, London, England; Sunset Sound & Elektra
Studios, Los Angeles, USA
Producer: Jimmy Miller Chief engineer: Glyn
Johns
Performed onstage: 1969-70, 1972-73, 1975,
1989-90, 1995, 1997-99, 2002-03, 2006, 2012-19,
2021-22, 2024

Line-up:
Drums: Charlie
Watts
Bass:
Bill
Wyman
Electric
guitars: Keith Richards
Lead
vocals: Mick Jagger & Merry Clayton
Background
vocals: Mick Jagger, Keith Richards &
Merry Clayton
Piano:
Nicky Hopkins
Harmonica: Mick Jagger
Guiro:
Jimmy
Miller
Maracas:
Jimmy
Miller
Ooh the
storm is threatening
My very life today
If I
don't get some shelter
Oh yeah, I'm going to 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 sweeping
Our very streets today
Burns
like a red coal carpet
Mad bull lost his way
War, children, yes
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, yeah
Hey, hey
Rape, murder
It's just a shot away, it's just a shot away
Rape, murder, yeah
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, yeah
Mmm, the floods is threatening
My very life today
Gimme,
gimme shelter
Or I'm going to 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
TrackTalk
Gimmie Shelter is a classic (example of a song where the
music and words came together). That, I just slapped down on a
cassette while waiting for Mick to finish Performance.
- Keith Richards,
1983
I wrote Gimmie Shelter on a stormy day, sitting in
Robert Fraser's apartment in Mount Street. Anita was shooting Performance at the time,
not far away... It was just a terrible fucking day and it was
storming out there. I was sitting there in Mount Street and
there was this incredible storm over London, so I got into that
mode, just looking out of Robert's window and looking at all
these people with their umbrellas being blown out of their grasp
and running like hell. And the idea came to me... My thought was
storms on other people's minds, not mine. It just happened to
hit the moment.
- Keith Richards, Life (2010)
We did Gimmie
Shelter in a big room at Olympic Studios, and then did the
overdubs in L.A. with Merry Clayton. In London Keith had been
playing the groove a few times on his own - although I think
Brian was still around at that point; he might even have been in
the studio actually - but there was no vocal. The use of the
female voice was the producer's idea. It would be one of those
moments along the lines of I hear a girl on this track - get
one on the phone.
- Mick Jagger, 2003
The guitar I
used on Gimmie Shelter on Let It Bleed - as if by
design, it fell apart on the last take.
- Keith Richards,
1989
That (song
too, like Midnight Rambler)
was done on a full-bodied, Australian electric-acoustic, f-hole
guitar. It kind of looked like an Australian copy of the Gibson
model that Chuck Berry used... It had all been revarnished and
painted out, but it sounded great. It made a great record... And
on the very last note of Gimmie Shelter, the whole neck
fell off. You can hear it on the original take.
- Keith Richards,
2002
Probably Gimmie Shelter. Especially
the intro. It's got so many parts going on, and I'm never quite
sure how to do it. Sometimes I hop from one part to another, and
I should keep on one.
- Keith Richards,
2012, asked what song is most challenging to play
That's a
kind of end-of-the-world song, really. It's apocalypse; the
whole record's like that.
- Mick Jagger, 1995
And I know
it was during that time of the Vietnam War and so on, so it was
very much the awareness that war is always present, or almost...
very present in life.
- Mick Jagger, 2003
(Playing it
live is the) biggest challenge. Once you get into it, (it’s
fine) but I’m never sure if I’m the right volume. I’m always a
bit anxious about. That beginning is so eerie, sometimes in a
stadium you start to hear echoes.
- Keith Richards,
2019
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