"Billy's Got a Gun"

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(diddli-duh) BOOOM. It starts so damned HEAVY, great drone duh-duh bassline underpinning the menacing intro - heavy but restrained, do bands do this anymore? Has anyone EVER done it as well as it's done here? )Who's Billy running from?) ... The chorus just BLOSSOMS out of nowhere, monsoons of delicious pathos punching me straight in the gut. And how is the chorus so complex? I mean, the chorus itself explores more subtleties of dynamics and tension than most albums do over their entireties. Woosh...(leeeveeellllll-out)... WOOOOOSHHHH [jizz-worthy tendril of guitar filigree] ... Elliot's voice, for once finally matching the intensity of the song (and perfectly at that). Brief solo and WHOA - is it done? No, it settles into an entirely new groove, wonderful Leppard modulations, more pre-choruses (always, right?) ... will there be another chorus? (Please?) -- And that's the end. A nerdily intoned "bang-bang", and the weird pseudo-runout groove *metallyklankklank*. Billy got me, and he got me good.

― Clarke B., Thursday, 6 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

You have to admire their confidence, putting the best song at the very end of the record.

― Clarke B., Thursday, 6 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Danger is such a strange emotion.

Having played this record to death back in 1983, this song is ingrained in the memory with all the rest. The best song? Hmm. Underrated, definitely, but trying to topple the sheer might of "Photograph" from pop-metal Olympus is a heavy task.

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 7 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I love that line about danger being such a strange emotion! It's charming; it seems like something a non-native English speaker would come up with. It really ties the chorus together, maaaaannn.

― Clarke B., Friday, 7 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

But can you FEEL IT IN THE AIR? Etc.

That ending fake runout befuddled me as a kid...

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 7 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Too experimental for young Ned?!

Yeah, I wish it actually *was* the runount groove!

― Clarke B., Friday, 7 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I think it's the sound of your dying thoughts clanging around in your head after Billy shoots you, or maybe the odd panic right when the gun goes off, but before you realize you've actually been shot.

― Clarke B., Friday, 7 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Modulating into C#m for the guitar solo is the kind of thing that made them 10,000,000 times better than Bon Jovi could dream of being

― dave q, Friday, 7 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Too experimental for young Ned?!

I didn't hate it or anything, it was just the first thing I had heard like it! Def Leppard invents IDM?

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 7 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Dave, I totally agree; even when Bon Jovi's choruses/melodies are marginally satisfying, they're really obvious. People generally don't give Def Leppard nearly enough credit for their songwriting abilities.

― Clarke B., Friday, 7 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

10,000,000 times better than Bon Jovi

This is still an understatement.

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 7 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

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