When an album starts with ‘Gimme Shelter’ and closes with ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want,’ you know you’ve got something special on your hands.
Let It Bleed, released in 1969 less than a year after the triumph of Beggars Banquet, is a popular choice for The Rolling Stones’ best album. In addition to those two stone-cold classics, the album features the epic ‘Midnight Rambler,’ a staple of the band’s live shows, and a slew of under-appreciated gems.
Those include the bawdy title track, a country version of ‘Honky Tonk Women,’ the hard-rocking ‘Live With Me’ and ‘Monkey Man,’ the bluesy ‘Love in Vain,’ and ‘You Got the Silver,’ a gently loping beauty that features Keith Richard on his first lead vocal.
Let It Bleed is as tumultuous and exhilarating as the year in which it emerged — the year of Manson and the Zodiac killer, Woodstock and a man on the moon. These performances are sexy and dangerous and thrillingly alive.
Whether the album’s title was a play on The Beatles’ upcoming final release Let It Be or a mere coincidence, it’s interesting that The Rolling Stones were peaking right as The Beatles were calling it quits. After playing follow-the-leader for nearly a decade, The Stones would carry the mantle of England’s greatest working band for another 50 years.
Whether they ever topped this masterpiece is an open question, but I think an argument can be made for at least their next two releases.
Well, we all need someone we can lean on
And if you want it, well, you can lean on me
Yeah, we all need someone we can lean on
And if you want it, well, you can lean on me
[Bridge 1]
She said, “My breasts, they will always be open
Baby, you can rest your weary head right on me
And there will always be a space in my parking lot
When you need a little coke and sympathy”
[Verse 2]
Yeah, we all need someone we can dream on
And if you want it, baby, well, you can dream on me
Yeah, we all need someone we can cream on
Yeah, and if you want to, well, you can cream on me
[Bridge 2]
I was dreaming of a steel guitar engagement
When you drunk my health in scented jasmine tea
But you knifed me in my dirty, filthy basement
With that jaded, faded, junky nurse
Oh, what pleasant company, ha
[Verse 3]
We all need someone we can feed on
Yeah, and if you want it, well, you can feed on me, hey
Take my arm, take my leg
Oh baby, don’t you take my head
[Verse 4]
Woo
Yeah, we all need someone we can bleed on
Yeah, and if you want it, baby, well, you can bleed on me
Yeah, we all need someone we can bleed on
Yeah, yeah, and if you want it, baby
Why don’t you bleed on me? (All over, woo!)
[Instrumental Break]
[Outro]
Yeah
Ah, get it on rider, woo
Get it on rider, get it on rider
You can bleed all over me, yeah
Get it on rider, woo
Get it on rider, yeah you can be my rider
You can come all over me, oh
Get it on rider, babe
Get it on rider
Get it on rider, you can come all over me
Yeah, yeah, yeah, ooh
Yeah, c’mon, c’mon
Ah, get it on rider
Baby come all over me, yeah, yeah me
Get it on rider nah, nah, nah
Get it on rider, oh
Meet Me In Montauk 
Is it possible in this case that Paul was aware of and responding to Let it Bleed when he came up with “Let it Be?”
‘Let it Be’ was recorded almost a year before it was released, so it predated this song. But the members of both bands were friendly, so it’s possible somebody tipped his hand about work in progress.