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Lyrics: Ooh, a storm is threat’nin’ War, children, it’s just a shot away Ooh, see the fire is sweepin’
War, children, yeah, it’s just a shot away Rape, murder, it’s just a shot away Umm, those floods is threat’nin’ War, children, it’s just a shot away The Rolling Stones’ Let It Bleed album is available here: The Paul Brady & The Forest Ranger version from the Sons of Anarchy soundtracks can be found here:
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The year was 1969, and U.S. armed forces were chin-deep in what would later turn out to be an unwinnable war. Nearly 300,000 Americans would die in the Vietnam War. At home, the nation was in open rebellion after six years of massive political unrest, assassinations, and racism. Many musical artists of the day penned songs about the Vietnam War, but few captured the country’s mood like the Stones’ Gimme Shelter. Keith Richards wrote most of the song a rainy London day while he sat looking out the window. He described the day as miserable and he wanted the mood of the song to match. While many have debated the song’s meaning, Jagger summed it up in a 1995 Rolling Stone magazine interview: “Well, it’s a very rough, very violent era. The Vietnam War. Violence on the screens, pillage, and burning. And Vietnam was not warfare as we knew it in the conventional sense. The thing about Vietnam was that it wasn’t like World War II, and it wasn’t like Korea, and it wasn’t like the Gulf War. It was a real nasty war, and people didn’t like it. People objected, and people didn’t want to fight it…” Jagger said. Jagger’s description of the song: “As for the song itself, he concluded, “That’s a kind of end-of-the-world song, really. It’s apocalypse; the whole record’s like that.” The very prominent female voice singing along with Jagger is that of gospel singer Merry Clayton. According to Clayton, the Stones were recording late into the night in Los Angeles when they decided to add a female vocal and called Clayton. Clayton, who was pregnant at the time she was called in to sing, showed up in hair curlers and pajamas. At about the three-minute mark, she goes off-script, so to speak, and belts out “Rape, murder, it’s just a shot away!” at an octave higher than originally planned. You can actually hear Jagger in the background say, “Whoa!” Tragically, Clayton is said to have miscarried after returning home from the recording session. Some say that the fervor with which she sang might have contributed to the baby’s loss, and I say the tragic loss only adds a tragic authenticity to the song’s already heavy vibe. Gimme Shelter was never released as a single, but Let It Bleed reached number three on the U.S. charts, and number one on the UK charts. And at the risk of being a musical heretic, you really should check out the cover version of Gimme Shelter that was used in FX’s Sons of Anarchy Season Two (available on iTunes: Sons of Anarchy: Shelter EP). In some ways, I like this version a little better. Perhaps it’s the better audio quality (the Stones’ version was intentionally recorded to have a muffled/distressed vibe, and combined with the less than stellar recording technology of the 1960s, its shortcomings are very apparent, especially when played on quality sound equipment) or perhaps it’s the slight country rock edge that Paul Brady and the Forest Rangers bring to the track. Whatever it is, it works. You can listen below. (Studio and live Stones’ versions are further below.) Video: There’s no official video was made for the track, but this third-party slideshow video is very well done and the audio quality is top-notch: Here is a live version of the song from 1969’s Pop Go the Sixties.
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