Interesting interview with Jagger about "Gimme Shelter."

"Well, it’d be great to have a woman come and do the rape/murder verse,’ or chorus or whatever you want to call it,” said Jagger. “We randomly phoned up this poor lady in the middle of the night, and she arrived in her curlers and proceeded to do that in one or two takes, which is pretty amazing. She came in and knocked off this rather odd lyric. It’s not the sort of lyric you give anyone–’Rape, murder/It’s just a shot away’–but she really got into it, as you can hear on the record.”

[www.openculture.com]

quite sad actually...

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Eleanor Rigby
quite sad actually...

The lyrics?

I heard these Stones NPR interviews at the time. I liked when Charlie couldn't recall a song title, and you hear Mick pop in the door and whisper it across the room to Charlie. Nice to have a mate help out.

and the "poor lady" then had a miscarriage, right?

Sad story.

What's sad about this story?

This is the first time I read about her loosing her baby that night. And I read quite a lot of stuff on Shelter. Indeed a sad story. Was it in the Let it Bleed book?

C



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013-09-06 15:40 by liddas.

It's not funny to have a miscarriage.

Read the article. Her husband convinced her to do the job and that night, after singing her part three times, she lost her baby.

Correct Papo....as I said earlier sad...people might want to read the story

Please, don't get me wrong, I'm not accusing anybody and I'm not judging nor am I blaming anybody or the situation.
I just read the whole story and that made me sad and I feel deeply sorry for Ms Clayton.

Somewhere I read she sang the first chorus to Mick and Keith's sonic delight. She then negotiated her salary before singing the rest.

Must have heard about Mick's frugality!

Wow, after listening all the years this is the first time I have heard this story. God bless Merry for literally giving it all, not knowing, of course, what would ensue later that night.

It was most definitely a tumultuous time. I was living in LA then, seeing the Stones at the Forum in '69. That song, so ominous, capturd the mood of the time.

Certainly a sad story and there's no way to know that she would have miscarried.

Also, no way to know that her singing was the actual cause of the miscarriage. That's what everyone seems to believe and may be true, but no way to actually know that for certain.

Of course no way to know..but a very sad end to a story which I was enjoying alot.
I always loved hearing Merry's singing on that isolated track - amazing power. ..

Is it actually possible to miscarry from singing? Congrats on the name by the way Elmo I love it. Merry Clayton might well have miscarried after her late night recording session, I have no idea. Seem's a little far fetched to blame it on her singing her limited lines three times though, in my humble opinion. And a story like that really does seem to help make the tune seem even more ominus than ever, don't you think?

Didn't know that story. Thanks for posting

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Keep On Rolling

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rob51
Is it actually possible to miscarry from singing? Congrats on the name by the way Elmo I love it. Merry Clayton might well have miscarried after her late night recording session, I have no idea. Seem's a little far fetched to blame it on her singing her limited lines three times though, in my humble opinion. And a story like that really does seem to help make the tune seem even more ominus than ever, don't you think?

Anything's possible...may just have been the thing that pushed it over the edge, maybe something that was going to happen regardless. We would just never know. I don't think I'd be as cynical to think they've now created this story to 'add' to the song's darkness.

.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2015-03-28 17:10 by camper88.

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camper88
Hearing her vocals isolated literally gives me goosebumps

I agree but this sounds like church music to me. The evil side is completely gone.

Damn, GS is really the best song they ever did, you discover new things about it every month!

I just saw this posted by Andrew Loog Oldham's Facebook page. It's quite an interesting story, most of which I knew already.

Has an interesting interview with Mick about the song and how Merry Clayton's background vocals came about. Also is an isolated track of part of her vocal performance.

If this has been posted already, I apologize.

[www.openculture.com]

What's amazing is you can hear MC banging her palm with her fist as she sings...
Incredible!

Always good to hear that incredible solo clip again, and groove out to Gimme Shelter on a Sunday afternoon.

Don't know for certain but I'd bet that that entire story about losing her baby is bs.

It's sad to miscarry, of course, but when this fact came out in a Merry Clayton interview last year
what was stated was that she lost the baby "shortly after" the Gimmie Shelter session, not the same night.
The writer of the article linked to up there in the first post seems to have misinterpreted what "shortly afterwards" meant.

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dcba
What's amazing is you can hear MC banging her palm with her fist as she sings...
Incredible!

Every time I hear her sing that --every time-- I get goosebumps and the hairs on my arms stand on end.

I had never noticed her banging her palm on her fist but can hear it now.

Who is saying "WhooOOOo!" ? I've always wondered that.

- swiss

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Pietro
Interesting interview with Jagger about "Gimme Shelter."

"Well, it’d be great to have a woman come and do the rape/murder verse,’ or chorus or whatever you want to call it,” said Jagger. “We randomly phoned up this poor lady in the middle of the night, and she arrived in her curlers and proceeded to do that in one or two takes, which is pretty amazing. She came in and knocked off this rather odd lyric. It’s not the sort of lyric you give anyone–’Rape, murder/It’s just a shot away’–but she really got into it, as you can hear on the record.”

[www.openculture.com]

It's a great story but some things were not mentioned. In conversations I had with band members and Merry herself from back in the 70's through the 90's there were other things about the song G.S.. First the band had already planned to have a female singer for the song that was "Bonnie Bramlett". For certain reasons she at the last minute decided not to do the part. Left without a female singer, the engineer at this session was Bruce Botnick (check album credits), Bruce was very involved with Doors and worked on the Doors song "Touch Me". Well Bruce was friends with one of the horn players on that song and new his wife who was Merry Clayton. He suggested her to Mick and the band and he said she just lived near by. Well at around 1AM they called her and woke her up and asked her if she could do some vocals. When she heard who was asking she jumped out of bed and came to the session ("in curlers" story may or may not be true). Merry has a reputation known as "ONE TAKE MERRY" well this was true here she got it down in one take much to the bands amazement, they did another take anyway but was happy with the first. Another side note in talks with Mick Taylor one of the Stones songs that he wished he could have played on was Gimmie Shelter. It would realinteresting to hear what the studio version would have sounded like had Taylor played on it.

I heard that story about it being late at night and she was in curlers but the first version I heard was that she was sick and had a flu and that's why her voice cracked but Mick loved that so much they left it in!

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dcba

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camper88
Hearing her vocals isolated literally gives me goosebumps

I agree but this sounds like church music to me. The evil side is completely gone.

Damn, GS is really the best song they ever did, you discover new things about it every month!

That or Sympathy.

The sheer volume of high quality material in a two year period, 68/69...unreal really.

Wow that solo clip is pretty amazing! I'd like to hear it without the reverb. Her voice cracking makes it even more amazing imho. Thanks for posting that. peace