The song lyrics were written by the band Van Halen, as they were asked to write a song for the 1979 movie "Over the Edge" starring Matt Dillon. The movie (and the lyrics, although more obliquely) are about bored, rebellious youth with nothing better to do than get into trouble. If you see the movie, these lyrics will make more sense. It's a great movie if you grew up in the 70s/80s you'll definitely remember some of these characters from your own life. Fun fact, after writing the song, Van Halen decided not to let the movie use it.
Kids with guns
Kids with guns
Taking over
But it won't be long
They're mesmerized
Skeletons
Kids with guns
Kids with guns
Easy does it, easy does it, they got something to say no to
Drinking out (push it real, push it)
Pacifier (push it real, push it)
Vitamin souls (push it real, push it)
The street desire (push it real, push it)
Didn't mean to (push it real, push it)
But it won't be long (push it real, push it)
Kids with guns
Kids with guns
Easy does it, easy does it, they got something to say no to
And they're turning us into monsters
Turning us into fire
Turning us into monsters
It's all desire
It's all desire
It's all desire
Drinking out
Pacifier
Sinking soul
There you are
Doesn't make side to
But it won't be long
'Cause kids with guns
Kids with guns
Easy does it, easy does it, they got something to say no to
And they're turning us into monsters
Turning us into fire
Turning us into monsters
It's all desire
It's all desire
It's all desire
Push it, push it real, push it real
Push it, push it, push it real, push it real
Push it, push it, push it real, push it real
Push it, push it, push it real, push it real
Push it, push it, push it real, push it real
Push it, push it, push it real, push it real
Push it, push it, push it real, push it real
Push it, push it, push it real, push it real
Push it, push it, push it real
Kids with guns
Taking over
But it won't be long
They're mesmerized
Skeletons
Kids with guns
Kids with guns
Easy does it, easy does it, they got something to say no to
Drinking out (push it real, push it)
Pacifier (push it real, push it)
Vitamin souls (push it real, push it)
The street desire (push it real, push it)
Didn't mean to (push it real, push it)
But it won't be long (push it real, push it)
Kids with guns
Kids with guns
Easy does it, easy does it, they got something to say no to
And they're turning us into monsters
Turning us into fire
Turning us into monsters
It's all desire
It's all desire
It's all desire
Drinking out
Pacifier
Sinking soul
There you are
Doesn't make side to
But it won't be long
'Cause kids with guns
Kids with guns
Easy does it, easy does it, they got something to say no to
And they're turning us into monsters
Turning us into fire
Turning us into monsters
It's all desire
It's all desire
It's all desire
Push it, push it real, push it real
Push it, push it, push it real, push it real
Push it, push it, push it real, push it real
Push it, push it, push it real, push it real
Push it, push it, push it real, push it real
Push it, push it, push it real, push it real
Push it, push it, push it real, push it real
Push it, push it, push it real, push it real
Push it, push it, push it real
Lyrics submitted by adamr, edited by Sydneysider
Kids with Guns Lyrics as written by Brian Joseph Burton Damon Albarn
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
Add your thoughts
Log in now to tell us what you think this song means.
Don’t have an account? Create an account with SongMeanings to post comments, submit lyrics, and more. It’s super easy, we promise!
More Featured Meanings
Light Up The Sky
Van Halen
Van Halen
Holiday
Bee Gees
Bee Gees
@[Diderik:33655] "Your a holiday!" Was a popular term used in the 50s/60s to compliment someone on their all around. For example, not only are they beautiful, but they are fun and kind too ... just an all around "holiday".
I think your first comment is closer to being accurate. The singer/song writers state "Millions of eyes can see, yet why am i so blind!? When the someone else is me, its unkind its unkind". I believe hes referring to the girl toying with him and using him. He wants something deeper with her, thats why he allows himself to be as a puppet (even though for her fun and games) as long as it makes her happy. But he knows deep down that she doesnt really want to be serious with him and thats what makes him.
When We Were Young
Blink-182
Blink-182
This is a sequel to 2001's "Reckless Abandon", and features the band looking back on their clumsy youth fondly.
No Surprises
Radiohead
Radiohead
Same ideas expressed in Fitter, Happier are expressed in this song. We're told to strive for some sort of ideal life, which includes getting a good job, being kind to everyone, finding a partner, getting married, having a couple kids, living in a quiet neighborhood in a nice big house, etc. But in Fitter, Happier the narrator(?) realizes that it's incredibly robotic to live this life. People are being used by those in power "like a pig in a cage on antibiotics"--being pacified with things like new phones and cool gadgets and houses while being sucked dry. On No Surprises, the narrator is realizing how this life is killing him slowly. In the video, his helmet is slowly filling up with water, drowning him. But he's so complacent with it. This is a good summary of the song. This boring, "perfect" life foisted upon us by some higher powers (not spiritual, but political, economic, etc. politicians and businessmen, perhaps) is not the way to live. But there is seemingly no way out but death. He'd rather die peacefully right now than live in this cage. While our lives are often shielded, we're in our own protective bubbles, or protective helmets like the one Thom wears, if we look a little harder we can see all the corruption, lies, manipulation, etc. that is going on in the world, often run by huge yet nearly invisible organizations, corporations, and 'leaders'. It's a very hopeless song because it reflects real life.
Plastic Bag
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Plastic Bag” is a song about searching for an escape from personal problems and hoping to find it in the lively atmosphere of a Saturday night party. Ed Sheeran tells the story of his friend and the myriad of troubles he is going through. Unable to find any solutions, this friend seeks a last resort in a party and the vanity that comes with it.
“I overthink and have trouble sleepin’ / All purpose gone and don’t have a reason / And there’s no doctor to stop this bleedin’ / So I left home and jumped in the deep end,” Ed Sheeran sings in verse one. He continues by adding that this person is feeling the weight of having disappointed his father and doesn’t have any friends to rely on in this difficult moment. In the second verse, Ed sings about the role of grief in his friend’s plight and his dwindling faith in prayer. “Saturday night is givin’ me a reason to rely on the strobe lights / The lifeline of a promise in a shot glass, and I’ll take that / If you’re givin’ out love from a plastic bag,” Ed sings on the chorus, as his friend turns to new vices in hopes of feeling better.
Lets see if we can break it down...
Kids with guns
Mesmerized skeletons
Turning us into monsters Turnin us into fire Turning us into monsters But its all desire
The mesmerized skeletons is about these poor kids with guns who are convinced that they're going to war for a noble reason but they're just being sent to kill and die for other people's desires and gains.
Easy does it. Easy does it. Think of something to say no to.
[/2 cents]
@paradox23 nailed it
A lot of people are steering clear of this song and I don't know why...
I'll try, but I have a feeling i may be way off base =^\
Its a song about kids with guns and how their ruining society, "turning us into monsters"...
The end =^(
I don't think the song is about children ruining our society.<br /> children are sponges. they learn what we teach them.<br /> it is our fault as the older generation.<br /> so if anything we are ruining society with guns and shit because we are teaching the younger generation that it is okay to use guns.<br /> <br /> look at it this way, water guns are fun as fuck.<br /> it teaches kids that guns are cool as fuck.<br /> <br /> G.I Joe is a bad ass show.<br /> but it shows children that we must destroy the enemy.<br /> is that what we want kids to learn.<br /> <br /> another aspect to look at it is that we are the children with guns.<br /> recklessly shooting and killing with no regard... as though we never had parents to teach us right from wrong.
@RTBRAND1 lol ur wrong<br />
Society is teaching children nowadays to be cold and heartless monsters; how you may ask? By showing them that having a gun is OK, by showing them that killing another human being is no big deal. Nobody cares about anyone else anymore. Humans loose their ability to feel compassion for others.
exactly...<br /> have you ever watch television nowadays.<br /> not even CNN or anyother news channel.<br /> <br /> just cartoons alone teach kids it's okay to have guns.<br /> <br /> we look at countries in the middle east or africa like they are bad people for making their kids into CRS' but in Western Culture all we do is pollute our kids minds with tv and it has the same effect as actually given your kid a gun.<br /> <br />
Dude, you took the words out of my mouth :D.<br /> <br /> That´s exactly what I think the song is about.
Dude, you took the words out of my mouth :D.<br /> <br /> That´s exactly what I think the song is about.
also does anyone else think it should say "push it real" instead of is she real. at least towards the end
@imissbeckysamplifier thats what i thought it said<br />
This song to me is about guerilla warfare in Africa, where little boys are stolen from their homes, tortured, drugged and then forced to fight in armies.
"They're mesmerised Skeletons"
"And they're turning us into monsters Turning us into fire turning us into monsters"
The kids cannot escape, they are threatened to be killed if they do. Some manage to, thankfully.
My older brother is in the Army National Guard and he had to go through Basic Training(basically Boot Camp), which he recalled to be the worst weeks of his life. He also claimed to me that the fresh-out-of-highschool men there were childish and gun crazy, or "kids with guns". I wasn't in Basic, so I can't say that I've had the pleasure to be around those new recruits but he has told me about them. They join the National Guard half-cocked and ready to kill. A guy in Basic apparently couldn't figure out why we shouldn't bomb the entire Middle East area. Those guys were naive, immature, and ignorant. I'm not sure if Gorillaz intended for this song to describe U.S. soldiers in general, but I can see how it could.
A lot of young people join the military because they see it as a way out of poverty. Generally poverty = ignorance + desperation = trigger-happy soldiers who have no idea what they are getting into. It is the same as joining a gigantic, powerful gang to a lot of them. I believe this song is general enough to adress the problem at its source: kids losing their innocence young and becoming monstrous killers when (and indeed if) they grow older. The actual cause of it is ambiguous in the lyrics, but speaking generally, I think it is completely fueled by poverty and the ignorance that comes hand-in-hand with it.
Lets see if we can break it down...
Kids with guns
Mesmerized skeletons
Turning us into monsters Turnin us into fire Turning us into monsters But its all desire
The mesmerized skeletons is about these poor kids with guns who are convinced that they're going to war for a noble reason but they're just being sent to kill and die for other people's desires and gains.
Easy does it. Easy does it. Think of something to say no to.
[/2 cents]
In addition to the above "Is she real" refers to lady liberty
I totally agree with RippedPaper13. I was listening to the radio the other day and there was an interview with Damon Albarn (2D) that the record was all about Iraq.
p.s. If anyone is interested in listening to some of that interview the website is abc.net.au/triplej/2004/listen/ look for Gorillaz-Part One and Gorillaz-Part Two, but the interview is only what wasn't aired on the show so the part where he says, and i quote "i'ts about Iraq" isn't on there. If you want the rest of the interview you'll have to download this weeks show, but it only stays on for a week, so you may be too late.
I find that the phrase "Kids with Guns" is referring to the youth being handed anything and everything without consequences or the responsibility of experience. "But it won't be long", at the rate the youth is being forced to grow up and interact with an ever-increasing lack of experience in being able to handle what comes. Eventually society will just be handing kids guns and expecting them to act appropriately.
When I first listened to this, I was about 8 or 9. I loved Gorillaz and relapsed into a sort of reverie everytime I listened to a song. When I listened to Kids with Guns, I saw figures who were sort of half grown adults. They weren't proper adults, and they were in a sandbox. To me the song was always about the stupid ( or I saw them as stupid ) trivial battles adults had, like children bickering for space or toys. Which is what they do fight about really, land and weapons. I also loved the use of the word "pacifier", because it meant both "a peace maker" and "a device that a child uses to suck on"