100 Greatest Songs of the 60’s #5 The Rolling Stones – Gimme Shelter

Released: 1969

In a world full of disinformation there are only three points of immutable truth. One, that the earth is round. The second is that Leeds United were cheated out of the 1975 European Cup and the third is that Hot Rocks 1964-1971 is the greatest artist centered compilation of the twentieth century.

Faced with these realities the task of choosing a solitary track from it to epitomize the Rolling Stones’ appeal becomes near impossible, but one must be made.

By the end of the decade pop’s subversion was complete, a lysergic wrangling at the hands of Morrison, Barrett, Lennon et al. Mick and his friends had somehow otherwise become enveloped in a darkness that went beyond the death of Brian Jones, a hazy menace which threatened to engulf them but which in turn took their music to new heights of fascination.

Gimme Shelter was the sound of both a band and an era hurtling out of control to an unknowable, fear inducing end. Haunted by war and society’s apparent unwinding, Jagger barks prophecies into the approaching void with no concern for fate, whilst Merry Clayton inverted the uplifting power of soul and pointed everyone downstairs, the words a cracked whip. A bitter nightcap for the shredded age of hope, it was a reminder that if the truth was out there, then the devil was too.