#41 The Rolling Stones, 'Let It Bleed' (1969)
Previously #32
The fifth entry for The Rolling Stone and the follow up to ‘Beggars Banquet’ (#185). As noted on that review, group founder, Brian Jones was increasingly absent due to his heavy drug use. In fact, on this record, his only contributions were congas on ‘Midnight Rambler’ and autoharp on ‘You Got The Silver.’ He was fired during these sessions and died a month later and thus the new era of The Rolling Stones had begun. Like its predecessor, this album was a back-to-basics sound, a return to their Bluesy roots.
Opening with, in my opinion, the greatest Rolling Stones song of all-time, and one of my favourite songs overall, is the brooding ‘Gimme Shelter.’ The song was inspired by Keith Richards’s jealousy at the fact that Mick Jagger shooting a film with Richards’s girlfriend, Anita Pallenberg. Richards suspected they were having an affair, which ultimately was true. Another major influence was the ongoing Vietnam War. Merry Clayton gives the vocal performance of a lifetime, overshadowing Mick Jagger in the song. Clayton, who was pregnant at the time, was called late one night to come in for her performance. Sadly, Clayton suffered a miscarriage upon her return home in the early hours of the morning, allegedly due to her overexertion on the song. The song is a favourite of Martin Scorsese, having appeared in three of his films. The band covers Robert Johnson’s ‘Love In Vain’ before going into ‘Country Honk, a Country version of their single, ‘Honky Tonk Woman.’ ‘Live With Me’ is a straight up Rock song, while the title track is a honky Country-Blues song with the great line (no puns here), “And there will always be a space in my parking lot/When you need a little coke and sympathy.” Side 2 begins with another Blues number, ‘Midnight Rambler.’ Keef sings ‘You Got The Silver,’ which is in fact the first song that he sings solo the whole way through. ‘Monkey Man’ bears a classic Keef riff before going into the choral intro by the London Bach Choir on ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want.’ In Jagger’s words, “I'd also had this idea of having a choir, probably a gospel choir, on the track, but there wasn't one around at that point. Jack Nitzsche, or somebody, said that we could get the London Bach Choir and we said, "That will be a laugh."” A laugh indeed, it went on to become one of their most revered songs capping off a solid record.
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