Tommy Gun (song)
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| "Tommy Gun" | ||
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| Single by The Clash | ||
| from the album Give 'Em Enough Rope | ||
| Released | 24 November 1978 | |
| Format | 7" vinyl | |
| Genre | Punk rock | |
| Length | 3:16 | |
| Label | CBS Records | |
| Writer(s) | Joe Strummer/Mick Jones | |
| Producer(s) | Sandy Pearlman | |
| Chart positions | ||
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| The Clash singles chronology | ||
| "'(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais" (1978) |
"Tommy Gun'" (1978) |
"English Civil War" (1978) |
"Tommy Gun" was London punk rock band The Clash's seventh single, and the first single taken from their second album Give 'Em Enough Rope. Joe Strummer said that he got the idea for the song when he was thinking about terrorists, and how they probably enjoy reading about their killings as much as movie stars like seeing their films reviewed. [1] While Topper Headon mimics the sound of gangster movie shootings with quick snare hits and the guitars are full of distortion and feedback, Strummer's sarcastic lyrics (I'm cutting out your picture from page one/I'm gonna get a jacket just like yours/And give my false support to your cause/Whatever you want, youre gonna get it!) condemn rather than condone violence: at the end of the song he sings, If death comes so cheap/Then the same goes for life!
In the liner notes of the recently released Singles Box, Carl Barat (frontman of the Dirty Pretty Things and formerly of The Libertines), says that "Tommy Gun" was important for music at the time because it let people know what was going on in the world-it talked about real issues. He says, "It's [Tommy Gun] a product of the volitile climate of the late seventies - all those references to terrorist organizations like Baader-Meinhof and The Red Brigade. It's like a punk rock adaptation of The Beatles' "Revolution."[2]
