The news is certainly dispiriting, and I don’t have any insights to share. My thoughts are with the people in the Gaza Strip who are desperately trying to seek shelter. I often turn to music when I’ve run out of ideas. The need to provide shelter to the innocent civilians, both Palestinian and Israeli, is overwhelming, and, curiously, the idea of shelter reminded me of an old Rolling Stones song, “Gimme Shelter” which was released in 1969. The Stones had a gift for hiding very good ideas within their raunchy songs and “Gimme Shelter” is a good example of how the group tried to send messages to those who listened carefully.
Wikipedia provides the context of the song which explains why I thought of it as the war in Gaza continues unabated:
“As released, the song begins with Richards performing a guitar intro, soon joined by Jagger’s lead vocal. Of Let It Bleed‘s bleak world view, Jagger said in a 1995 interview with Rolling Stone magazine:
‘Well, it’s a very rough, very violent era. The Vietnam War. Violence on the screens, pillage and burning. And Vietnam was not war 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 … That’s a kind of end-of-the-world song, really. It’s apocalypse; the whole record’s like that.’
“Similarly, on NPR in 2012:
‘It was a very moody piece about the world closing in on you a bit … When it was recorded, early ’69 or something, it was a time of war and tension, so that’s reflected in this tune. It’s still wheeled out when big storms happen, as they did the other week [during Hurricane Sandy]. It’s been used a lot to evoke natural disaster.'”
The lyrics are profoundly simple (not unusual for Rock and Roll), but the words match perfectly with the music (which is also primitive). The combination is, for me, powerful. But at around 2:39 minutes into the song there is a very dramatic vocal event which conveys intensity, desperation, and commitment and makes the song significantly more dramatic and human.
The backup vocal is performed by a woman named Merry Clayton (her name is misspelled “Mary” on the original album cover). Radio station KSAT in south Texas describes how she came to record with the Rolling Stones:
“One day, Merry Clayton was in her bed, pregnant, with hair curlers in and silk pajamas on, when she received a phone call at her Los Angeles home about midnight in the autumn of 1969, according to Far Out.
“At the time, Clayton was a 20-year-old with extensive singing experience, having sung at her father’s church as a child. She had started her recording career at age 14….
On the other line was producer Jack Nitzchke, who said there were some musicians in town from England who wanted a female vocalist to help with a song.
Those musicians happened to be the Rolling Stones, and the song was “Gimme Shelter,” but Clayton had no clue who the Rolling Stones were and initially resisted.
After all, she was pregnant, tired and almost in bed with her husband.
But after being convinced by her husband to go help out, Clayton put on a coat and went outside to a car waiting to take her to the studio.
Clayton was still in her hair rollers and her pajamas when she arrived to meet the band.”
Unfortunately, Clayton suffered a miscarriage after the recording. But her voice made an otherwise good song into one which stands as one of the most powerful antiwar songs ever recorded.
My heart breaks when I hear Clayton’s voice crack. We all seek shelter at times but the idea of shepherding children and elderly people through a war zone is impossible to comprehend except through experience. The same is true for all refugees who endure horrific travails as they seek some place which offers safety.
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