Terror Couple Kill Colonel

His eyes were heavy He carried a card One couple question The other discharged Terror couple kill colonel in his West German home Three shots from three feet Dragged himself to the phone

Terror couple kill colonel Terror couple kill colonel (...etc...)

-Bauhaus, from In The Flat Field (1980)

And here, apparently, is the story behind this cryptic song. The revolutionary German Red Army Faction, led by the "terror couple" of Ulrike Meinhof and Andreas Baader, bombed a United States Army headquarters in Frankfurt on May 11, 1972.

Lieutenant Colonel Paul Bloomquist was in the officer's mess when the explosion hit. A shard of glass flew from the shattered window and embedded itself in Bloomquist's throat. He lay mortally wounded on the floor, unable to staunch the blood gushing from his jugular vein. It's doubtful that he was the target of the attack; he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, the only fatality among many lesser injuries inflicted by three pipe bombs.

Bauhaus took plenty of liberties with the lyrics, but this has got to be the origin.

its funny, i had a past lover who used to call my dick the colonel. through several months of mating, she had a boyfriend who knew nothing of me. supposedly he was a kuk sool won instructor and he looks like jean-claude van damme. anyway i always imagined them killing me to this song.

bauhaus did not "expand" very much on the story, they give it nearly verbatim. i have a friend who was an army brat in the 1970's and lived in the same neighborhood as this u.s. army intelligence colonel who was killed. the GSG9 came to my friend's house. wish i could remember more or find more details. to someone familiar with the military the supposed dying regrets of the colonel do not seem so compellingly ironic. VERY FEW people in the military have any connection at all with killing. i was in MI and my colonel was an paper-shuffling administrator like any other, a babysitter for a huge herd of air-head kids and a few wannabe bad-asses. definitely one of my favorite bauhaus songs.

the live version tears the studio version to shreds. "press eject and give me the tape" is great, so check it out!

"And as he lay there Playing games with his pain He felt his choice of jobs Was such a mistake He could have been a doctor in a soft easy chair Instead he chose three stars A territorial affair"

Ironic - A colonel who orders to kill, is being killed, and says to himself "Oh dear, what was I thinking when I took that Job..". comprehends just then that killing - just what he did most of his life - is probably not such a good thing after all.

And my favourit Bauhaus song.

they wrote this song from a headline in the newspaper that read "terror couple kill colonel", and just expanded on the story

you got it alda

Found poetry

"they wrote this song from a headline in the newspaper that read "terror couple kill colonel", and just expanded on the story"

Yes, my thoughts exactly.

i wrote a whole fictional piece about this song - http://www.scribd.com/doc/49122149/Terror-Couple-Kill-Colonel - check it out