Reimagined Album: The Rolling Stones, Gimme Shelter

The Rolling Stones' late 60s/early 70s triad of Let It Bleed/Sticky Fingers/Exile On Main Street is generally acknowledged as one of the greatest runs in rock & roll history. (Of course, 1968's Beggars Banquet is no slouch; and I personally think both '67's Satanic Majesties Request and '73's Goats Head Soup are way underrated.)

Still, for all the acclaim, I've never had a lot of love for Let It Bleed as a complete album. Sure, it's bookended by two of their greatest recordings ever, "Gimme Shelter" and "You Can't Always Get What You Want." (Though they're almost too good; they feel almost out of place among the less exotic and revolutionary fare that populates the rest of the album.) And "Monkey Man," a deep cut given new life in Goodfellas, is right up there. The title track is decent enough as well, I suppose, though I prefer the country rock found on Sticky Fingers.

But I'm less partial to the slow bluesy stuff like "Love In Vain" and "You Got The Silver"; "Live With Me" is a bit of a clunker, a bland boogie number that feels like a rough draft of Sticky Fingers' far better "Bitch"; and I find "Midnight Rambler" to be kinda grating and way too long. Plus, it's always bewildered me that they opted for the twangy "Country Honk" rather than the far superior "Honky Tonk Women," a drop-dead-perfect single that alone would've made the album twice as great. As a result, I rarely play the record from start to finish. 

So, in an effort to procrastinate grading papers, I finally decided to try my hand at reconstructing Let It Bleed to make it a little more interesting. I started by adding several session outtakes which showed up on 1975's Metamorphosis rarities collection. "I Don't Know" is a Stevie Wonder cover that's at least as good as anything on the album, with some terrific Mick Taylor guitar; "Family" is a weird, almost Dylanesque narrative originally recorded for Beggars, oddly sprawling and unusual; "Downtown Suzie" (probably mis-titled, since the lyrics are about Lucy) is a bluesy shuffle, a rare track penned by Bill Wyman, nothing essential but fun enough; and "Jiving Sister Fanny" is the sort of half-assed choogle they could come up with in their sleep, salvaged by some great Taylor/Richards guitar work. I also added "Memo From Turner," though instead of the Stones-credited version on Metamorphosis, I opted for the longer Jagger solo version, featuring Ry Cooder and Randy Newman.

I took a few other liberties as well. I swapped "Honky Tonk Women" in for "Country Honk"; edited "Midnight Rambler" down to a more palatable four minutes; and replaced "You Got The Silver," one of Keith's first vocal efforts, with the Jagger-sung version (never officially released, but found on various bootlegs). After vacillating, I opted to retain "Love In Vain" and "Live With Me," figuring maybe if they were smaller components of a sprawling, more varied White Album-like mess, maybe they'd work better. We'll see. 

Finally, I retitled it Gimme Shelter, because, c'mon.

Anyway, I've posted a Spotify version if you'd like to check it out (though it lacks the shortened "Rambler" and the alternate "Silver").