Gimme Shelter

Fresh off of my second viewing of The Departed in one week, I'm listening to the songs from the film pretty obsessively. The most prominent songs in the film for me are Dropkick Murphy's cover of Arlo Guthrie's "I'm Shipping up to Boston," the Allman Brothers Band's "One Way Out," a cover of Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb" by The Band and Van Morrison, which upon second viewing of the film I liked much more and last but not least (obviously as it's the title of this post) the Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter." I've seen the legendary film of the same name but not until I saw The Departed did I fall in love with the song. The song is somewhat of a staple of Scorsese's crime films, as it was used in both Goodfellas and Casino as well. The song works particularly well in the new film, especially in the first couple of minutes with Jack Nicholson's character establishing monologue. Certainly, until you've seen The Departed, you won't fully appreciate the song in context. However, it's a damn good song on its own. The sheer intensity of guest vocalist Merry Clayton's backing vocals have to be the best part. At the points when she's singing and it goes so high her voice does this cracking sort of thing, it's quintessential rock and roll. In fact, according to the always-correct-source-of-info, Wikipedia, Clayton suffered a miscarriage because of how intense her performance in this song was. Rock and roll is incredible.