(no subject)

[miko2]

Today's Song: God Is A Bullet by Concrete Blonde

I can't link you to this song because there's no video up on Youtube and I didn't find a music only link on myspace or their official web site (which is mostly just a single page these days). Anyway, this was Concrete Blonde's first hit, before they were really popular. I've always liked it because I could tell it was a good song, but it's one of those that I always felt needed better production than it got. Their early cds weren't great examples of quality studio work, in my opinion. I always wished that they had re-recorded or re-engineered this song somehow.

When I was checking them out on iTunes last week I was reminded that they did release a live version of this song, on their cd Still In Hollywood. I put it on my iPod and I've been listening to it -- it's better, has more of the raw punk sound that the original should have had, but it's still not exactly what I imagine the song deserves to sound like.

Still, it's a good song. I used it for the title of one of my Tai-Pan short stories, of course. It's a song about American gun violence and our fascination with guns in general, and how many people die needlessly because of it:


There's a green plaid jacket on the back of the chair
It's like a moment frozen forever there
Mom and dad had a lot of big plans for their little man
So proud!
Mama's gone crazy 'cause her baby's shot down
By some teenage car chase war out of bounds
It was the wrong place wrong time wrong end of a gun.
Sad!

Shoot straight from the hip, yeah.
Gone forever in a trigger slip
Well, it could have been
It could have been your brother.
Shoot straight shoot to kill, yeah.
Blame each other, well, blame yourselves, you know
God is a bullet have mercy on us everyone

They're gonna call me sir they'll all stop picking on me
Well I'm a high school grad I'm over 5 foot 3
I'll get a badge and a gun and I'll join the P.D.
They'll see
He didn't have to use the gun they put in his hand
But when the guy came at him, well he panicked and ran
And it's a thirty long years 'fore they're givin' him another chance
And it's sad, sad, it's sad

Shoot straight from the hip, yeah.
Gone forever in a trigger slip
Well, it could have been
It could have been your mother.
Shoot straight shoot to kill, yeah.
Blame each other, well, blame yourselves, you know
God is a bullet have mercy on us everyone

Shoot straight from the hip, yeah.
Gone forever in a trigger slip
Well, it could have been
It could have been your mother.

John Lennon, Doctor King, Harvey Milk
all for goddamn nothing

God is a bullet have mercy on us everyone
God is a bullet have mercy on us everyone