| "Shot by Both Sides" | ||||||||||
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| Single by Magazine | ||||||||||
| from the album Real Life | ||||||||||
| B-side | "My Mind Ain't So Open" | |||||||||
| Released | 20 January 1978 | |||||||||
| Genre | Post-punk | |||||||||
| Length | 4:04 | |||||||||
| Label | Virgin | |||||||||
| Writer(s) | Howard Devoto, Pete Shelley | |||||||||
| Producer | Mick Glossop & Magazine | |||||||||
| Magazine singles chronology | ||||||||||
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"Shot by Both Sides" is a song written by Howard Devoto and Pete Shelley, and performed by the English post punk band Magazine, which appeared on their debut album Real Life in 1978 and was released as a single in the same year, reaching #41 on the UK charts.
The name of the song comes from a political argument between Howard Devoto and his girlfriend, in which his girlfriend said to him, "Oh, you'll end up shot by both sides."[1]
The single version of "Shot by Both Sides" (like the b-side "My Mind Ain't So Open") is more guitar-bass-drums oriented. By this time, Magazine consisted of only four members due to the original keyboardist Bob Dickinson leaving the band the previous year due to musical differences and an assumption/decision on the part of the other band members that his music doctorate studies would prevent him touring.
Shot by Both Sides is also the title of the English translation of Meisei Goto's paranoid Japanese novel, Hasamiuchi (original 1973, translation 2008). Translator Tom Gill chose the title because he was a Magazine fan, and also because the more obvious title, Crossfire, had already been used as the title of another Japanese novel translated into English—a detective novel by Miyuki Miyabe.
The song's guitar riff is also used in the Buzzcocks song "Lipstick".
"Shot by Both Sides" has been played live by various artists, including Radiohead, Mansun and Jarvis Cocker.
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