That's When I Reach For My Revolver

This song is obviously about how when you were young things seemed so simple, but now you're grown up and you'd rather shoot yourself than put up with all the bullshit.

Great song.

Its about the disillousionment (sic) of growing up, learning that things aren't as simple as you though they once were and finding faults in the people and ideals you once admired then, and the anger that that causes.

I go to work to a meaningless job. I don't feel like I belong there. I feel like I should be somewhere else, not necessarily a better paying job, but one where I feel like I'm making a difference/impact and that's when I reach for my revolver.

I think the song means you are found to be surrounded by false idols. Once motivated to have a meaning. A purpose. Angry that all those things are pointless now and it's not easy to choke down because it's eating you away. We find that we were taught by guidance even though we were gonna lose it someday. You've had enough! there's no more hope, so just destroy it all. We want to do right. So we hide ourselves from anything more that can destroy us. The more things stay the same. We become slaves to believe in these false idols. working this meaningless job. The Anger that seethes in. You just keep letting it eat you away. It's time to reach for my revolver and put an end to this artificial symmetry of life. No matter who is in the way, it all get blow away.

It reminds me today's standards. The way society is. What's the point. It's already dead. Time to reach for my gun and go out in a blaze of glory. Destroy what has already been dead.

“And Mother taught us patience The virtues of restraint And Father taught us boundaries Beyond which we must go ———————- To find the secrets promised us, yeah”

This verse is an example of conflicting advice, cognitive dissonance. Kinda crazy-making if you ask me, purposely confusing.

Overall what I get from the song is, There’s no Objective Good, there’s no god (“Tonight the sky is empty”), and it’s always been this way (“but that is nothing new”). The individual is what matters anyway, not groupthink, not “common goals” (possible brainwashing) or at least they’re nothing to apply any real, psychological importance to (“but all of that is changed now, they’ve turned things inside out”). Final comment: The line that comes after the one I quoted above regarding the sky’s “dead eyes”, which goes “they tell me we’re nothing but slaves” - There’s no real “forever” to be bothered with, just the “here and now”. “Forever” was invented by despicable people in order to corral disparate humans into becoming sheep.

I don't know the band all that well, I first heard the Moby version of this song before going after the original, but Here's my idea on it.

I think it's about having our perspectives on life constantly changed, constantly "Blown away" with the force of a friggin revolver, demolishing our perspective on life constantly.

The first verse is saying how we start out with bright limitless dreams in our childhood blissfull ignorance, but as we get older, we learn the life is harder, harsher, and more intense than simply "Growing up to be an astronaut"

The second verse kinda goes into how as we grow up, our parents teach us about life, and how it establishes our basis on life.

The third verse seem to be something about how our life ambitions change, how we just want to leave the world with some great accomplishment, and leave a name for ourselves, for people to look back on and remember you for.

The last verse seems to be about how people in the real world aren't always supportive like they work back in the comforting childhood days. Some people will tell you you're not going to amount to anything, and in a defiant kind of way it is follwed up by "That's when I reach for my revolver, that's when it all gets blown away" I think is kind of their way of saying "But, I don't have to take that crap" In kind of a changing of perspectives by his own will this time, rather than the harshness of the world around him for once.

I don't think it's so down as to say "The world is a disapointment, and almost seems like it'd be easier to just kill yourself and get it over with" as much as the revolver and blowing away is figurative to the destruction of our perspectives on life.

it kind of bridges the gap between positive and negative punk music thats why I like it, burma is between dead kennedys and ministry on the musical spectrum...

there's a famous quote attributed to nazi leader hermann goring: "When I hear the word culture, I reach for my Browning".

The original vinyl LP of Burma's Signals, Calls, And Marches contained a nearly 12 inch square lyric sheet elegantly printed on beautifully textured stock. It contained the individual words from all eight songs, neatly listed in alphabetical order. How cool is that?

Also, often misattributed to Himmler or Goring, the line, "Whenever I hear of culture, I release the safety-catch of my Browning," is from a play by Nazi writer Hanns Johst.

Nihilist angst . . . this could be my theme song :/