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Gun Has No Trigger Lyrics
If you had looked, you might have just seen them
Strucked in the background
You'd see the oceans swell
And the mountains shook
You'd see a million colors
If you really looked
Now quick the night draws near
Her curtain spreads quicker
The safety's off,
But the gun has no trigger
If you had looked, you'd be no one's coward
Distance, justice, power
You'd glimpse the password
You wouldn't need the book
You'd own both slave and master
If you just had looked
But now the banks all close
And nothing gets bigger
The crowd will yell
But the gun has no trigger
If you had looked, you might reconsider
Or just maybe you already have
They watch you sleeping
You watch their garbage cook
You'd weep a bowl of tears
If you had looked
But now the gate comes down
The pangs are growing dimmer
You hold a gun to your head
But the gun has no trigger
Strucked in the background
You'd see the oceans swell
And the mountains shook
You'd see a million colors
If you really looked
Her curtain spreads quicker
The safety's off,
But the gun has no trigger
Distance, justice, power
You'd glimpse the password
You wouldn't need the book
You'd own both slave and master
If you just had looked
And nothing gets bigger
The crowd will yell
But the gun has no trigger
Or just maybe you already have
They watch you sleeping
You watch their garbage cook
You'd weep a bowl of tears
If you had looked
The pangs are growing dimmer
You hold a gun to your head
But the gun has no trigger
Song Info
Submitted by
blahblah123123 On Jun 29, 2012
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It's about helplessness, and feeling there is no way out.
It's about hindsight, and how it's so maddeningly always 20/20.
The frustration of finding that the most dire, destructive, explosive way of finding your way out of a situation, will most likely fail.
It's about life. It's a gun, but you can't control it.
I find it political as well. It may be on a sort of deeper level as well but here's mine:
"If you had looked, you might have just seen them Stretched in the background You'd see the oceans swell And the mountains shook You'd see a million colors If you really looked"
The first verse is maybe the toughest in my interpretation. It's about the political structure that's created the world-wide situation that's happening atm. The inequality and greed is ever more evident but people fail to see what's happening ("if you had looked"). The "million colors" doesn't seems to fit in, though.
"Now quick the night draws near Her curtain spreads quicker The safety's off, But the gun has no trigger"
This goes on to tell that a fall of some sorts is at the door, in my interpretation pointing towards a rupture in the level of society.
"If you had looked, you'd be no one's coward Distance, justice, power You'd glimpse the password You wouldn't need the book You'd own both slave and master If you just had looked"
Here are the actual words "distance, justice, power" to hint at the same direction. "If one had looked" how the world actually is, one could have used it to the same advantage that e.g. the richest 1% has so far done.
But now the banks all close And nothing gets bigger The crowd will yell But the gun has no trigger
As you can probably imagine, this is the chorus that made me think of this in the first place. Everyone's enjoyed the economical growth to some extent in the past few decades. Just that some have known it to be impossible and still taken advantage of it. Soon nothing will get bigger (=hyper recession) and the banks will actually close and then the crowd won't know what to do. But the "gun has no trigger" in the sense that there's nothing to do about it really.
"If you had looked, you might reconsider Or just maybe you already have They watch you sleeping You watch their garbage cook You'd weep a bowl of tears If you had looked"
Here the "they watch you sleeping" refers to the elite watching the crowd sleep through the deception and on the other hand crowd "watching the garbage cook" as everyone knows the debt crisis is impossible to solve but and nothing concrete happens to fix it.
It may be a far sho tand Longstreth may be laughing his ass off reading this but to me it's at least comforting to think that there might be a pop song that nutshells it all so neatly. :) Anyway, the best song on the best album in years.
The million colors part, I think, is the most direct reference to what you'd have seen "if you had looked," and I think it refers to hope, optimism, and ways out of the mess that seems to be unfolding in the rest of the song.
The million colors part, I think, is the most direct reference to what you'd have seen "if you had looked," and I think it refers to hope, optimism, and ways out of the mess that seems to be unfolding in the rest of the song.
I agree. To me this reads like an Occupy song (like Amber's Get Free), about the invisible structures of power that control our lives and are slowly suffocating people, and a kind of daydream that if you stared hard enough you might decode everything and find the key to it all... by the way, I'm pretty sure in the 1st verse he says you might have seen them STRUT in the background (i.e. cos they own the place). All the images of closed banks, dispossessed crowds, piles of garbage cooking in the heat, surveillance while you...
I agree. To me this reads like an Occupy song (like Amber's Get Free), about the invisible structures of power that control our lives and are slowly suffocating people, and a kind of daydream that if you stared hard enough you might decode everything and find the key to it all... by the way, I'm pretty sure in the 1st verse he says you might have seen them STRUT in the background (i.e. cos they own the place). All the images of closed banks, dispossessed crowds, piles of garbage cooking in the heat, surveillance while you sleep, are pretty real and contemporary. Cool song!
After a few listens, it hit me that this might be political, but honestly, I could be totally wrong. Anyone else get that feeling?
I agree. Seems to be about life getting harder, poverty and hunger, etc. In hopelessness the protagonist tries to end it all but finds he is impotent. There's also a bit of blame; he's saying you could have looked, but chose not to see until it was too late... bleak as hell but totally awesome song...
I agree. Seems to be about life getting harder, poverty and hunger, etc. In hopelessness the protagonist tries to end it all but finds he is impotent. There's also a bit of blame; he's saying you could have looked, but chose not to see until it was too late... bleak as hell but totally awesome song...
Infertility and waiting too long to have kids:
"Her curtain spreads quicker // The safety's off, // But the gun has no trigger" "But now the banks all close // And nothing gets bigger"
This also comes right after "Offspring are Blank" and "About to Die" on the album. Fits in pretty well thematically.
This also comes right after "Offspring are Blank" and "About to Die" on the album. Fits in pretty well thematically.