Jethro Tull

Bonus track from Broadsword.

Lyrics - Blew my smoke on a sunny day,

when the first black powder came my way.

Hot lead ball from a muzzle cold

to win fair lady and take your gold.

I know it hardly seems the time (I am your gun)

to talk of blue steel so sublime. (I am your gun)

I can understand your point of view. (I am your gun)

To tell the truth I'd scare me too.

Match, wheel and flintlock, they all caught your eye.

Pearl-handled ladies' models, scaled down to size.

I am the peacemaker, so the theory goes.

But I don't choose the company I keep and it shows.

I am your gun.

Love me, I'm your gun.

Maxim and Browning, they helped me along.

Stoner, Kalashnikov thrilled to my song.

Now one of me exists, for each one of you,

So how can you blame me for the things that I do?

Now I take second place to the motor car(I am your gun)

in the score of killing kept thus far. (I am your gun)

And just remember, if you don't mind (I am your gun)

it's not the gun that kills but the man behind.

I am your gun.

Comments

11 years ago

relgstorm

watch?v=H4sTz-BdcoU at 3:00 into this video he talks about ian anderson and mentions a hidden room full of guns...

11 years ago

ProfessorMystic

Great pics of Anderson and Tull -- some of the best I've seen on YouTube. He had such an intense image in the old days. Where did you get these from?

12 years ago

Thomas Sutherland

@Aqualung71 Hiram Maxim was an American inventor. He came up with the first viable machine, he sold his designs to the British and Germans. Those guns brought abouttrench warfare in WW1. John Browning was the most prolific American gun designer. Among his accomplishements are the .45 ACP 1911 pistol. The Springfield M1903 rifle and the BAR or Browning Automatice Rifle. Eugene Stoner came up with the Armalite AR 15 (or the M16) and the M63 Stoner light machinegun.

12 years ago

Thomas Sutherland

@ProfessorMystic I would take Ian out for a day of shooting any time he wants to go.

12 years ago

ProfessorMystic

One of the greatest unknown Tull songs. Very psychological, with accurate facts presented in his usual artful style... playing the role of the gun itself. Not totally anti-gun, nor pro-gun.. simply exploring the way people feel about guns. Nobody knows this but Anderson was a pistol shooter (as a hobby) until they made all guns illegal in the UK.

15 years ago

gothling1955

Another first-rate video, Aqua. It's really great to hear this one again after so many years. I had it in the 20th anniversary box set (in vinyl form, 5 albums in all, limited edition: **cringe**). Maybe I can pick up some of these cool bonus tracks from Amazon downloads. But yeah, Ian and his guns, geez. Although these days, he's given up hunting & only uses them for target shooting. Bang-bang!

15 years ago

roddy76to86

Well that was even well before the Dunblane atrocity (don't ask), when gun laws here where made the strictest in the world. I was reading somewhere that at the next Olympics in London, for some of the shooting events they were talking about a temporary act of Parliament to allow the events to go ahead, or even holding them in France !

15 years ago

Aqualung71

Yes I read up on that on the site I get the lyrics from. I knew that he was referring to gun manufacturers. But I don't really know the history behind it. But I do know this was about the gun ban in England apparently.

15 years ago

roddy76to86

Where does he get those lyrics from ? You do realise that Maxim, Browning, etc were all responsible for major advances in gun manufacture? The Kalashnikov is the worst one now, there are some 20-30 million in the world, and they are so easy to use training time is minimal. And talk about tough and hardy ! At one point the soldiers in 'Nam used to throw away their M16s and use captured Kalashnikovs instead.