Gimme Shelter Has a Darker Backstory Than Its Lyrics - Song Meanings

Gimme Shelter Has a Darker Backstory Than Its Lyrics

“You get lucky sometimes,” Keith Richards said of the Rolling Stones’ haunting hit Gimme Shelter, which happens to be the greatest song he ever wrote. “It was a shitty day. I had nothing better to do.” There’s a lot to be said about the song, but in a nutshell, Richards wrote it when he was busy moping over Anita Pallenberg’s romance with Mick Jagger.

Merry Clayton / Mick Jagger / The Rolling Stones / The Rolling Stones, Hell Angels.

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Gimme Shelter ended up representing much more than jealousy and heartbreak, though. It symbolized things much darker, like rape, murder, and the death of the spirit of the 1960s. And those powerful backing vocals? Singer Merry Clayton had a tragic reason for why she couldn’t listen to the song for a long time.