Gimme Shelter

"Of all my best friends, I like _ _ _ the best" is something I often said as a child. In similar style, of all my favorite songs, I like the Rolling Stones hit, Gimme Shelter, the most. While there are several posts out there (Rolling Stones archives, Wiki etc.) that are tributes to the song summarizing break down of the lyics, motivation of the band, timing of the release, praise for the vocals (especially the backing vocals) etc. this post is only about how I came to find this song. Growing up in Bombay, in a non-digital age, I wasn't exposed to most of the Rock N' Roll hits that had captivated most of the western world. Elvis was just a name, Rolling stones were something that gathered no moss. Beatles was the misspelled plural of the bug called Beetle. In fact, we were at the mercy of the album selectors at the local music stores. For that reason, Bryan Adams was my idea of the greatest rock-star that ever lived. Yuuuuuccccckkkk!!! Anyway, enough complaining for now (more may follow later) and back to how I found the song.

The Movie - Layer Cake

The Scene - Daniel Craig is in his room, fixing himself a drink, as the sultry Sienna Miller makes her way there. He takes a sip, and hears a knock on the door. After he opens the door, there is a brief and customary pause and then they start to make out passionately while undressing each other at the same time. The rest of the scene is quite funny actually and while half the world would be drooling on Sienna's taut derriere and the other half on Daniel's toned abs, all I could think of was ...

"What was that awesome song playing in the back ground all this while?"

I checked several sites, made several failed google searches (you have matched 9876543210 document, gee thanks) but found no details of the song. As luck would have it, a few days later ...

The Movie - The Departed

The Scene - The movie has barely started and Jack Nicholson is doing what he does best, i.e. deleiver strong monologues when the same song starts to play ...

I wait for his speech (and the song) to end, switch the DVD off and run to my computer. Fortunately for me, there are a gazzilion (big number) Scorsese fans out there that are dissecting his movies on sites the world over. One simple google search and I had found my song.

I watched all possible videos of "Gimme Shelter" on YouTube for the next two days, downloaded the song from ITunes and burnt it 16 times on a CD (so that I never have to hit the back button). I think the mania lasted for a whole week!

I still get chills when I randomly hear it on any playlist I may have created in the past. What a song!