American author, music journalist and cultural critic Greil Marcus, writing for Rolling Stone magazine at the time of its release, praised the song, stating that the band has "never done anything better".
[10] "Gimme Shelter" was written by the Rolling Stones' lead singer Mick Jagger and guitarist Keith Richards, the band's primary songwriting team.
In his autobiography Life, Richards revealed that the tension of the song was inspired by his jealousy at seeing the relationship between Pallenberg and Jagger, and his suspicions of an affair between them.
[11] 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.
[13]The song's inspiration was not initially Vietnam or social unrest, however, but Richards seeing people scurrying for shelter from a sudden rain storm.
According to him: I had been sitting by the window of my friend Robert Fraser's apartment on Mount Street in London with an acoustic guitar when suddenly the sky went completely black and an incredible monsoon came down.
Guitarist Brian Jones was absent during these sessions, Richards being credited with rhythm and lead guitars on the album sleeve.
For the recording, Richards used an Australian-made Maton SE777, a large single-cutaway hollowbody guitar, which he had previously used on "Midnight Rambler".
These performances are now famous instead for the finely crafted solos by lead guitarist Mick Taylor who however did not play on the studio recording of the song.
[30] It is also featured on the concert DVD/Blu-ray sets Bridges to Babylon Tour '97–98 (1998), Four Flicks (2003), The Biggest Bang (2007), Sweet Summer Sun: Hyde Park Live (2013), Totally Stripped (2016), and Havana Moon (2016).
[31] The female contributor to the live version of the song was Lisa Fischer from 1989 to 2015,[32][33] Sasha Allen from 2016 to 2022, and for the 2024 North American tour Chanel Haynes.
In their 2012 50th anniversary tour, the Rolling Stones sang this song with Mary J. Blige,[34] Florence Welch,[34] and Lady Gaga.
The 1970 documentary film Gimme Shelter, directed by Albert and David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin,[48] chronicling the last weeks of the Stones' 1969 US tour and culminating in the disastrous Altamont Free Concert, took its name from the song.
[52] The song has appeared in the Air America movie and Martin Scorsese films Goodfellas, Casino, and The Departed.
In 1993, a Food Records project collected various versions of the track by the following bands and collaborations, the proceeds of which went to the Shelter charity's "Putting Our House in Order" homeless initiative.