Barrel Of A Gun

It was the pressure that Dave was going through at the time. He to fell into a deep depression He entered the hospital briefly in August 1995 after slashing his wrists in a suicide attempt. On 5/28/1996, he was arrested after being saved from death from an apparent overdose of cocaine in a Los Angeles hotel room.

What ever I've done "I've been Staring down the barrel of a gun" is a metaphor for saying it could of been the end of it all for him.

"Is there something you need from me? Are you having your fun?" Referring to the media and the rumors of how he did his suicide, sorta picking on him ..

"Barrel of a Gun" came after some difficult times for the band and its members. Musician Alan Wilder left the band in 1995, and lead singer David Gahan nearly died while in the throes of heroin addiction. Martin Gore had a string of seizures as well as battling alcoholism, and Andrew Fletcher was suffering from depression. In mid-1996, Gore tried to get Gahan and Fletcher interested in recording new Depeche Mode material by writing a few songs and seeing if anybody was interested in continuing after that. It worked, and the band were back together, except now a trio again for the first time since 1982's A Broken Frame.

"Barrel of a Gun" brings back the industrial music sound, and is one of the band's darkest songs. Gore wasn't sure if it was going to be a big hit, so he was reluctant to recommend this song as the first single, but when he eventually did, it turned out the rest of band, Daniel Miller, and producer Tim Simenon agreed. It reached number 4 in the UK chart in 1997, which at the time was their highest chart position jointly with "People Are People", released in 1984. Since then, "Precious" has also reached number 4 in the UK, in 2005.

I believe that the singer is in a relationship and is aware of his selfishness, lust, flawed humanity, etc. and is doesn\'t believe he\'s capable of meeting the needs of his partner. This makes sense because he\'s describing his worst qualities and yet immediately switches to ask why his partner is so fond of and desiring of him.\n\nHe\'s also somewhat aware that his partner is enjoying being with him, which is actually eating at him even more ("are you having your fun? I never agreed to be your holy one"). He is at a loss at this trapped feeling. Is he supposed to continue pretending to be the one for her while he feels utterly incapable just because she is enjoying it? Or does he cut things off and destroy her? It seems helpless and hopeless, leading to the expression, "whatever I\'ve done, I\'ve been staring down the barrel of a gun"..

depressed mode

One thing... Martin Gore writes all of Depeche Mode's lyrics.... so how can that be?

To me, this song is about someone who is under tremendous pressure to change their ways for someone else, and they are falling far short of the other person's lofty goals for them. Basically, the person is saying 'I can't be who you want me to be, no matter how much you try to force or pressure me to.'

What i love about Gore's lyrics are they're open to interpretation and can mean different things to different people. With Dave singing it's easy to come to the conclusion that its about his drug habit and how he knows he's dicing with death but as he didn't write it i've come the conclusion that maybe Martin was writing about groupies wanting him while he feels like a mess and feels guilty for wanting / enjoying the sex that is laid out on a plentiful plate for him but at also that these people all want something from him that he is unable / unwilling to give.

On the first reading of the lyrics, I immediately thought of the antihero in Charles Bukowski's Notes of a Dirty Old Man :P The story of the lyrics could almost be a part of the book :P

I had an epiphany last week, listening this song and its remixes for the millionth times, and always finding something lacking about the too much obvious interpretation that this is about Dave's situation at the time of recording: it's actually about Kurt Cobain's suicide, it makes perfect sense in that way, just think of the title itself! It's still indirectly about Dave, who stated how close he felt to Kurt Cobain's ordeal of dealing with success... BUT when the song says "I never agreed to be your holy one". it's true of Kurt, not Dave, who was perfectly happy at the time of Violator (he said that when he was singing 'World in my Eyes' on stage, it reflected exactly how he felt), until he got overwhelmed (because of drugs, naturally): whereas Kurt didn't enjoy success at all, Dave enjoyed it too much!

its always funny to me to see the way people interpretation songs.

first of all, why does everybody continue writing that "dave meant that and that..." dave wasn't the song writer but martin gore. and he told many times that he had alcohol problem as well, so the songs can be reffered to his addiction as well. barrel of a gun is about relationships have you never had a relationship with someone that was going so bad that you wanna shoot yourself insteed of hearing this person again? i think its about a relationship that made him feel bad with hisself cause he wasn't serious and she probably expected too much of him. he says several times "i'm not the one..." "i never agreed to be your holly one" he is having some kind of relationship with her but he doesn't love him and he feels bad deceiving her.