Tori Amos - Me and a Gun (Live At Montreux, 1992)
Me and a Gun is a song by American singer-songwriter and musician Tori Amos. It was released as the first single from her debut studio album Little Earthquakes. It was released on October 21, 1991 by Atlantic Records in North America and EastWest Records in the UK.
The song is three minutes and 44 seconds long.
Amos wrote the song about being raped in Los Angeles when she was 21. After she performed at a bar, a patron asked her if he could have a ride home. She obliged, and he raped her at knifepoint (many journalists mistakenly state she was raped at gunpoint, possibly due to the song's title). She escaped. Years later, in London, Amos saw the film Thelma and Louise and was stirred. On the way to a show, she wrote the song in her head. That night, she performed the song a cappella.
Tori Amos explains the experience:
"I'll never talk about it at this level again but let me ask you. Why have I survived that kind of night, when other women didn't? How am I alive to tell you this tale when he was ready to slice me up? In the song I say it was 'Me and a Gun' but it wasn't a gun. It was a knife he had. And the idea was to take me to his friends and cut me up, and he kept telling me that, for hours. And if he hadn't needed more drugs I would have been just one more news report, where you see the parents grieving for their daughter. And I was singing hymns, as I say in the song, because he told me to. I sang to stay alive. Yet I survived that torture, which left me urinating all over myself and left me paralysed for years. That's what that night was all about, mutilation, more than violation through sex. I really do feel as though I was psychologically mutilated that night and that now I'm trying to put the pieces back together again. Through love, not hatred. And through my music. My strength has been to open again, to life, and my victory is the fact that, despite it all, I kept alive my vulnerability".
This song did not take off very well as a single; in fact, the track was not the A-side to its own single. "Silent All These Years", another song from Little Earthquakes, was the first track on this single, with "Gun" appearing third (or as the B-side on the 7" release). "Silent" was a more accessible song, and radio stations began to play that instead. Ultimately the single was re-released with nearly identical packaging but retitled as Silent All These Years.
Amos made a habit of singing this song during live appearances.
In 1994, the DC Rape Crisis Center awarded Amos a Visionary award for the song and the co-creation of RAINN. Ultimately Amos stopped singing the song live in December 2001 and did not sing it live again until September 2007 (with the exception of one performance in Istanbul in August 2005).
Exception from the rule of classical acappella version
On November 6, 2007 during a concert in Chicago on her ADP tour, Amos performed "Me and a Gun" as Pip with her backing band, using a knife and gun as props. This marked the first time she sang the song with instrumentation.
The lyrics:
5am
Friday morning
Thursday night
Far from sleep
I'm still up and driving
Can't go home
Obviously
So I'll just change direction
Cause they'll soon konw where I live
And I wanna live
Got a full tank and some chips
It was me and a gun
And a man on my back
And I sang "holy holy" as he buttoned down his pants
You can laugh
It's kind of funny things you think
At times like these
Like I haven't seen Barbados
So I must get out of this
Yes I wore a slinky red thing
Does that mean I should spread
For you, your friends your father, Mr. Ed
Me and a gun
And a man
On my back
But I haven't seen Barbados
So I must get out of this
Yes I wore a slinky red thing
Does that mean I should spread
For you, your friends your father, Mr. Ed
And I know what this means
Me and Jesus a few years back
Used to hang and he said
"It's your choice babe just remember
I don't think you'll be back in 3 days time
So you choose well"
Tell me what's right
Is it my right to be on my stomach
Of Fred's Seville
Me and a gun
And a man
On my back
But I haven't seen Barbados
So I must get out of this
And do you know Carolina
Where the biscuits are soft and sweet
These things go through you head
When there's a man on your back
And you're pushed flat on your stomach
It's not a classic cadillac
Me and a gun
And a man
On my back
But I haven't seen Barbados
So I must get out of this
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