Gimmie Shelter
Do you get wetter if you run or walk in the rain?
David Bell worked out the answer back in 1976. His answer was that if the rain is falling vertically, or there is a wind blowing in your face, you should run - and the faster you run, the less wet you will get over the same distance. If the wind is blowing from behind, you should still run, but now there is an optimum speed at which you will get the least wet - the speed of the wind.
In practical terms, it doesn't really make much difference how fast you run. Even if you run at a world-record pace, his formula shows that you will only get 10 percent less wet over a couple hundred metres. And running in the rain has its own dangers.
As released, the 1969 Rolling Stones song Gimmie Shelter begins with Richards performing a guitar intro, soon joined by Jagger's lead vocal. Of Let It Bleed's bleak worldview, Jagger said in a 1995 interview with Rolling Stone magazine:
Well, it's a very rough, very violent era. The Vietnam War. Violence on the screens, pillage and burning. And Vietnam was not war as we knew it in the conventional sense. The thing about Vietnam was that it wasn't like World War II, and it wasn't like Korea, and it wasn't like the Gulf War. It was a real nasty war, and people didn't like it. People objected, and people didn't want to fight it ... That's a kind of end-of-the-world song, really. It's apocalypse; the whole record's like that.
Similarly, on NPR in 2012:
It was a very moody piece about the world closing in on you a bit ... When it was recorded, early '69 or something, it was a time of war and tension, so that's reflected in this tune. It's still wheeled out when big storms happen, as they did the other week [during Hurricane Sandy]. It's been used a lot to evoke natural disaster.
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. It was just people running about looking for shelter – that was the germ of the idea.
There’s a humbling university in being caught in the rain, particularly when headed to something important. In that moment, whether you’re a mogul or a mailman, soaked to the skin, you’re stripped of pretenses and status. Rain doesn’t discriminate; it reduces everyone to a shared state of vulnerability. No matter how carefully curated your image, and how meticulously planned your day, the rain dishevels and equalizes. For a moment, the power dynamics of the world get washed away, leaving behind a simple truth: everybody is a nobody when they’re soaking wet. It’s a stark reminder of our shared humanity, the uncontrollable forces of nature, and the unpredictable twists of fate in the dunk tank of life.
It teaches us empathy and the harsh reality of living without reliable shelter. For many like me today, a sudden downpour is a momentary inconvenience; for the homeless, it’s a persistent challenge, a reminder of their vulnerability and exposure to the elements. In another chapter of my life, I lived soaking and destitute for many months on end and things got worse from there before they got better. My mind still goes back to it when my feet get wet.
Getting caught in the rain is a normal experience that can inculcate in each of us a deeper understanding and compassion for those who face such conditions regularly. It simplifies our lives to the importance of basic needs—shelter, warmth, and security—and, if we are at our best, can inspire a more humane and urgent response to address the plight of the homeless in our communities.