“Gimme Shelter” (1969) is my favorite Rolling Stones song. It’s one of the best rock songs ever. It’s the first track on one of their best albums, Let It Bleed. Merry Clayton sang on the record with them. Playing for Change covered it.
“Gimme Shelter” was recorded during a time of extreme stress and unrest. In 1968, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated. The war in Viet Nam was unpopular. There were other songs in 1969 that were grim – “Bad Moon Rising: by Creedence Clearwater Revival and “Look Out Cleveland” by the Band both warned of weather disturbances.
Sad! 