Rubber Bullets
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This article is about a music single. For the article about the ammunition type, see rubber bullet.
"Rubber Bullets" was a popular song by 10cc from their debut album.
Written and produced by Kevin Godley, Lol Creme and Graham Gouldman and produced by 10cc, "Rubber Bullets" was the band's first number one single in the United Kingdom, spending a single week at the top in June 1973. It fared less well in the USA where it peaked at #73. A tongue in cheek homage to Jailhouse Rock, it attracted some controversy at the time because of the British Army's use of rubber bullets to quell rioting in Northern Ireland.
In a BBC Radio Wales interview, guitarist Eric Stewart explained:
“ | That's a double track solo on that. It's, it's very, very high, of course, going through a Marshall stack, then I slowed the tape to half speed – seven and a half [inches per second] – and recorded it, you know, going [plays singles picked notes slowly] and when you speed it back up you've got an octave up, but there's a screaming fuzz on the top of it, that's an octave higher than it was recorded. So it's a very unusual sound done in that way, just an experiment. Because 10cc, we love to experiment, we used to love to waste time. And having the beauty of having our own studio, we didn't have a clock in there so we weren't restricted. | ” |
"Rubber Bullets" was used as the theme song to the pilot episode of American animated TV series Superjail, which aired in May 2007.
Preceded by "Can the Can" by Suzi Quatro |
UK number one single June 23, 1973 |
Succeeded by "Skweeze Me Pleeze Me" by Slade |