Just as Sympathy for the Devil was a revelation to any of its first listeners that the band thought of as the second in command of the British invasion had bloomed into something quite other to how it started, Gimme Shelter took that further. There are reasons for this and one is the transition that was happening between guitarists. Brian was on the floor and got in some maracas for one song and some auto harp on another before being picked up and carried back to Pooh Corner. Mick Taylor, fresh and almost illegally young, entered for only two album tracks and then didn't play in the style that would characterise his contribution to such acclaim in future efforts.
So, with Brian completely out of the picture and the new boy not yet given a defined role, the Jagger/Richards takeover was sealed. This is the first Glimmer Twins commanded production in a way that the previous one was like a refinement of the then current state with all the pop influences discarded. So, while it was fine to kick Beggar's Banquet off with something from the dawn of humanity, the follow up needed to rage as the band had never before. There are some precedents, of course; Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby and Citadel but the chaos of the first was unsustainable and force of the second too beginner to base a sound on. As it's almost entirely Keith on guitar here it's his hot clean tone that dominates and the sinewed textures of the lead lines in Gimme Shelter and further explorations that will colour these songs more than anything else. The big four (Beggars through to Exile) are thought to consolidate the Stones sound to the effect that anything they have tried since is not just judged by those records but discernably slight departures from them. If there had been nothing Beatlesque about Beggar's Banquet, Let it Bleed is the sound of a great muscularity shambling to the stage and dominance.
After the storm a gentle acoustic arpeggio introduces Love in Vain. It is joined by a solid hot slide guitar, brushed drums and bass. Jagger's vocal is plaintive and full throated after its burial alive in the opening track. But there's a problem. On original pressings of this album the song was credited to Jagger-Richards. It's since been recognised as the work of Ur bluesman Robert Johnson. This happened on the previous LP with Prodigal Son. It was happening a lot in Zeppelin-ville, too. Things would catch up but for now... The version, let's say, is a good one, though, slow as a hot afternoon and pining.
Country Honk is an acoustic rendition of Honky Tonk Women which was recorded as a single during these sessions (and features Mick Taylor in full flight as a lucid and lyrical guitar maestro). Here, starting with street sounds, car horns and studio chatter, a shambolic singalong shines with impromptu good humour.
Live With Me begins with a classic Keith bass line and kicks quickly into a lean rock song. I used to skip this one as what I could get from the lyrics seemed too play dough macho. Much later, finally reading them, I keep it on when I listen. "I got nasty habits," sings Mick. I bet you do. Hold forth. "I take tea at three." Yes, it's actually much more of a piss take at themselves and their reputation. Even the lines about the maid and footman later on have a kind of knockabout whimsy. Even the faux in faux decadence is camp and wide eyed. It's also the first track that sax guy Bobby Keys added his own dialogue and to great effect.
A swampy slide intro gives way to a big strummed chord progression for the title track. The slide will re-enter throughout, adding great texture to the message and the humour of the song. Is it Ry Cooder? He's officially on mandolin and there are stories ... I don't care either way but I do know that the voice of it fits what Keith was establishing already in the sound. The lyric is mainly a series of statements about needing the equivalent of shoulders to cry on that stretch into sex and drugs and rock and roll for six verses with Jagger finally calling: "you can come all over me." It's a massive washing tide of knowing flowing over the exhausted bodies of the fast living and the victims altogether and, while it is delivered in clear humour carries a lot of weight.
Flip the disc and after a few chugging electric notes like a key igniting an engine Midnight Rambler begins to strut from the speakers with a confidence made of a solid bass line, steady drums and stinging guitar as Jagger delivers the manifesto of a career criminal. The second verse intensifies this before a sudden stop. The guitars rise and fall in slippery waves until Jagger intones, "well, you heard about the Boston - " THUMP! He's just revealed which bad guy he's talking about. After a few more lines of slapping musical violence the grind behind him rises and swells as he tells us how he could be everywhere, in your hallway, on your stair. Reaching breaking point, the band push back into the rock blues groove of the first two verses as Jagger continues with the criminal's arrogant snarling confession until it's too much for even him and he stops in a kind of stuttered climax.
I first heard this full album in 1982 and had been well versed in all manner of theatrical rock music as well as the more violent aspects of punk, and late '60s rock. Nothing of that was as intense or quite as powerful as this epic. And it wasn't like Dazed and Confused or In a Gadda Da Vida. There were no flashy solos, let alone overlong ones. There were, however, instrumental passages that felt more like scenes of sleazy night life from movies yet to be conceived by the like of Martin Scorsese or Francis Ford Coppola. The seriousness and assumption of character is more akin to mid-'70s Bowie than anything on a Sabbath record. The haze of wilful evil in this track still gets to me. Jagger on all four. Richards on texture and mood and the will to do it all with just three chords.
You Got the Silver is Richards' debut as a lead vocalist. More edible slide in the intro before Keith's much feebler voice comes in with the first hesitant lines of a straightforward love song that circles around a three chord honky tonk workout. But there are dynamics, it doesn't just begin, go and finish. The first lines are couched in a kind of shy admiration and wrapped in the sinewy electric slide before the rise of confidence brings a robust celebration out of him and the band. It's not a lot of song but it works.
Monkey Man begins with one of the most intriguing instrumental introductions the band or anyone of their contemporaries did. A piano glistens with a rising arpeggio over an ominous organ playing minor chords, pulsating bass and funky chord descent on guitar. This kicks into gear, the guitar switching to a more ragged rock attack before Jagger belts in lines about desperation and decadence as the guitar blasts and breaks back into the frenetic figure. A gorgeous instrumental break in a major mode plays the guitar against an octave slide figure and more glittering piano before Jagger comes back in, screaming about being a monkey. It's a kind of Jumping Jack Flash revisited with the sophistication that jet setting and a return to touring bestowed. It takes a few listens to mean much but once it gets to you it's there forever.
And then we come to one of the saddest and most achingly beautiful anthems of this anthem-heavy year. As they never had nor ever would again, The Rolling Stones begin with a choir. Not, a soul church congregation nor a battery of mighty women like on Gimme Shelter but a classical choir. It sounds funny to hear the high boys voices at first as they sing Jagger's lines about an old flame making a connection, with perfect pitch and clipped diction but the second listen on gives it the sadness it began with. A gentle acoustic strum rises as the choir finishes and Jagger comes in with a world weary voice with lines about women to meet, old friends who share time (and what they get from the Chelsea drugstore) and stories about other friends, of protests in the streets of the turbulent late '60s all of which fall into the refrain that while you can't always get what you want, if you try sometime you can get what you need. Trite? Only if read on a page without the music. The music rise in force to massiveness but it's not like the storm of Gimme Shelter, it's both merciful with building and cleansing choirs, raindrop piano figures, filling organ chords and soaring vocals. The old decade is grinding to a close. Everyone's a little scarred and torn, everyone's exhausted, everyone can't go on but the next ten are around the corner and everyone has to. As the storm of Gimme Shelter roared over the distance the great earthly heaven of this greatly forgiving song takes us with it into the peace it leaves behind. What a way to end the '60s not with the Fabs cooing about love and peace but the bad guys who had finally found their bad and a kind of sagacity as well. "you get what you neeeeeeeeeed!"
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