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Exit Wounds

from Emperor (2022) by Anthony Toner

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lyrics

Exit Wounds

My friend’s dad had this pistol,
and he kept it in a bedroom drawer.
Now this was life during peacetime,
I don’t even know what he had it for.
It wasn’t even in a holster,
or any kind of presentation box,
it was just… lying in this drawer,
between his underpants and socks.

Well he checked the safety catch,
and he squared up like a man -
and then he told me it was loaded,
and he placed it in my hand.
My friend had seen this all before,
and he sat at the foot of the bed.
He knew when his dad was on the rum & coke,
it would sometimes turn his head.

Now I’d seen a thousand guns on TV,
held by cowboys and detectives -
but this was real, and black and heavy,
and much more serious than expected.
But I pointed at the wardrobe,
and I practised looking grim,
and then I waved it at the curtains -
and gladly gave it back to him.

His wife was absolutely furious,
when she found out what he’d done - I mean,
come on – a grown man and two twelve year olds
in a bedroom with a loaded gun?
She knew better than he did
how teenage minds unfold -
how if you hold a loaded gun, it’s something
you never quite un-hold.

But my friend and me grew up loaded,
with our safeties mostly on,
and it’s strange that now the pistol and
the father are both gone;
and the underpants in the drawer,
even the bedroom we stood in.
The bullets, and the trigger and the firing pin.

And in this country full of exit wounds
and heartaches by the ton –
to this day that’s still the only time
I ever held a gun.

credits

from Emperor (2022), released March 21, 2022

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Anthony Toner Belfast, UK

An independent singer songwriter and guitarist, based in Belfast.

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