Music

The Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter" was a modest hit in the United Kingdom but it wasn't a hit at all in the United States.

Published on July 29, 2023

TL;DR:

• One singer worked on Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama” and The Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter.”
• She contextualized the latter in the Vietnam War era.
• “Gimme Shelter” arguably captured the late 1960s better than any other song.

The Rolling Stones‘ “Gimme Shelter” features one of the most talented backup singers ever. She didn’t understand the tune at first. Subsequently, she had a conversation with The Rolling Stones.

A backup singer felt The Rolling Stones’ ‘Gimme Shelter’ was a protest song

Merry Clayton is a backup singer most known for working on Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama” and The Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter.” During a 2013 interview with The A.V. Club, she discussed what she thought of the latter song when she first heard it. “It was wartime, and there was racial tension, so I go, ‘Good, this is another protest song,'” she said. For context, protest songs were at their peak of cultural relevance during the late 1960s.

“And then we get to the part where Keith brings the lyric out and it says, ‘Rape, murder / It’s just a shot away,'” she said. “And I tapped on the mic, I remember tapping on the mic, and saying, ‘Excuse me. What is this about the raping and the murder that you want me to sing? Who’s being raped, and who’s being murdered? What are you talking about?'” 

Merry Clayton wasn’t sure if The Rolling Stones understood the song’s meaning

The Rolling Stones helped Clayton understand “Gimme Shelter.” “So they come out and get me, and they bring me behind the board and say, ‘Merry, this is the story,'” she recalled. “So they give me the gist of the story of the song, and I’m saying to myself, ‘Aha. This is another protest song. This is going to be wonderful. I wonder if they know this is a protest song. They probably don’t.'”

Clayton said The Rolling Stones appreciated the “spirit” she brought to the music. She felt that “Gimme Shelter” turned out wonderful. Perhaps no other song captured the chaos, violence and hope of the time period as well as “Gimme Shelter.” 

How ‘Gimme Shelter’ performed in the United States and the United Kingdom

Despite its fame, “Gimme Shelter” was not a single in the United States, so it didn’t hit the Billboard Hot 100. It did, however, appear on the compilation album Hot Rocks 1964–1971. That record reached No. 4 on the Billboard 200 and stayed on the chart for 417 weeks. Hot Rocks 1964–1971 became The Rolling Stones’ most popular album in the U.S., beating out classics like Beggars Banquet, Exile on Main St., and Let It Bleed.

On the other hand, The Official Charts Company reports “Gimme Shelter” became a minor hit in The Rolling Stones’ native United Kingdom. The track reached No. 76 in the U.K. and stayed on the chart for a pair of weeks. Meanwhile, Hot Rocks 1964–1971 was a more modest hit in the U.K. than it was in the U.S. It peaked at No. 3 and remained on the chart for 19 weeks.

“Gimme Shelter” is great even if Clayton didn’t understand it initially.

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