Well I know what you are feeling
You′re afraid that it might end
In a city with your leaders
In a shelter with your family and friends
Foreign powers they are breathing
Down onto your neck again
You can even hear hearts beating
To the words of a once legendary man
Are you old enough to defend it
Young enough to try
Heed the voice your mother lent you
Gunslinger
Come the morning they might end it
Come the morning, come the night
All the enemies are family
Can you lead them to the promise of a lie?
Are you old enough to defend it
Young enough to try
To lead us into the chaos
That's been waiting all the time
Can you lead us to your darkness?
Do you want to die?
Heed the voice your mother lend you
Gunslinger
You′re afraid that it might end
In a city with your leaders
In a shelter with your family and friends
Foreign powers they are breathing
Down onto your neck again
You can even hear hearts beating
To the words of a once legendary man
Are you old enough to defend it
Young enough to try
Heed the voice your mother lent you
Gunslinger
Come the morning they might end it
Come the morning, come the night
All the enemies are family
Can you lead them to the promise of a lie?
Are you old enough to defend it
Young enough to try
To lead us into the chaos
That's been waiting all the time
Can you lead us to your darkness?
Do you want to die?
Heed the voice your mother lend you
Gunslinger
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Album: The Seed
Your latest single Gunslinger was written after seeing a pop-up advertisement online, which described the possibility of signing up to fight in a war. Can you elaborate on the emotions and thoughts that you experienced when you saw this and how it influenced the sound of the song?
I was in an AirBnB in Detmold and the war was starting and I spent a lot of time in bed with my computer. There was this beautifully designed website with a big button that said something like “Sign Up Now” and you’d be able to head out to the next Ukrainian embassy, catch a train and be at war in 2 days.
I couldn’t understand why this would appeal to young women and men. I thought about Dylan’s With God On Our Side, one of the strongest Anti-War songs. The first verse goes like this –
My age it means less
The country I come from
Is called the Midwest
I was taught and brought up there
The laws to abide
And that land that I live in
Has God on its side
Also, we had an instrumental that had this twangy guitar intro and I didn’t know how to make sense of it. I was in the studio one day and one of the drum sets was a Slingerland. I was sitting quietly looking around the room when the word Gunslinger hit me and this sort of cinematic notion of the word felt all too real when I thought about the pop up ad.
It’s kind of a big word but Gunslinger is an anti-war song at its core through which I try to reflect on why millennials sign up online to fight in a war. It seems so surreal, so this kind of cinematic surrounding.
M. Byrd - 1883 Magazine