25-06-2011, 14:39
Happiness Is A Warm Gun
She's not a girl who misses much
Do do do do do do, oh, yeah
She's well acquainted
With the touch of the velvet hand
Like a lizard on a window pane
The man in the crowd with the
Multicolored mirrors on his hobnail boots
Lying with his eyes
While his hands are busy working overtime
A soap impression of his wife
Which he ate and donated to the National Trust
I need a fix ?cause I'm going down
Down to the bits that I left uptown
I need a fix ?cause I'm going down
Mother Superior jump the gun
Mother Superior jump the gun
Mother Superior jump the gun
Mother Superior jump the gun
Mother Superior jump the gun
Mother Superior jump the gun
Happiness is a warm gun
(Bang bang, shoot shoot)
Happiness is a warm gun mama
(Bang bang, shoot shoot)
When I hold you in my arms
(Oh yeah)
And I feel my finger on your trigger
(Ooo, oh yeah)
I know nobody can do me no harm
(Ooo, oh yeah)
Because happiness is a warm gun mama
(Bang bang, shoot shoot)
Happiness is a warm gun, yes it is
(Bang bang, shoot shoot)
Happiness is a warm, yes it is, gun
(Happiness, bang bang, shoot shoot)
Well, don't you know that happiness is a warm gun mama
(Happiness is a warm gun yeah)
· In this track, we are looking at a John Lyric......................As a result we will find plenty of topical references , words play and a few literary references.
· John is often quite immediate with his writing and often talked of being a lyrical journalist of his immediate state, He also interestingly states in his career that he wrote songs for himself and the world he lived in ...............so his songs might have meanings embroidered on them by fans but the true meanings were those of John , his life , his friends , family and lovers.
· The time period of this song puts it in the early John and Yoko days.................It is interesting that John called Yoko “Mother “ and so the first point will be that “ Mother Superior” is most likely to be Yoko .........................Jump the Gun I think is s boast of some kind and may mean “sex” there are plenty of references that could be here like “ Finger on your trigger” .........it is also word play associated with guns................it might also just sound good.
· The main theme here is the title which came from a magazine that John read at the time about America’s liking for guns and the Gun lobby..........................John loved the feeling of the idea of the words and was seen and heard saying them many times around this time
· I am of the opinion that this might been two songs stitched together to form a finished product:
The early part is clearly about Yoko and her artistic world.................I feel that there are some hidden messages here between them ............................Yoko was into performance art..............odd things like her happenings are dated to this time..................They are bizarre.............For example we have Yoko performing art...................Cut piece is an example...............She appears on stage fully dressed and sits on a chair in front of the audience. Scissors are produced and the audience invited to snip off pieces of her clothing......................These word patterns have the same avant guard ideas in them. There is an under pinning of academic challenge in Yoko here .................is she conning the public or is she very clever and involved in mind games hence “She's not a girl who misses much” reference.
Anthology 2 shows an out take of the song which has another feel, here the segmented feel of the song is quite clear and there are sound effects used to cover something of the patchwork nature of the song.
· There is great word play here
“She's well acquainted
With the touch of the velvet hand
Like a lizard on a window pane
The man in the crowd with the
Multicolored mirrors on his hobnail boots”
I have been told by a published song writer that “ His talent worked rather like this: he was like a video camera recording events and people and could play them back and write about them in his head. This section seems to be a similar collage perhaps tinged with a drug like filter of typical British caricatures.
The second part is clearly a song about the gun article and he two look fused together to me
I think and it is agues the velvet hand is the rich people in the art world. John was friends with John Dunbar who took him to the Indica Galleries where he met Yoko.
· There are plenty of drug references here...................The main one being “I need a fix cos I’m going down “. John was quite into drugs here .....................buy 1969 he was writing about Heroine withdrawal in cold Turkey and he says that the mid sixties were a blur due to drug use, so some of the ideas here are twisted reality through drugs.
· The gun article that I mentioned before has been used cleverly in one part of the song. John was intrigued by the idea that some people lived ate and slept with a gun at their side and so he used this idea and his yearning for Yoko to come up with a double take on the meaning:
Happiness is a warm gun
(Bang bang, shoot shoot)
Happiness is a warm gun mama
(Bang bang, shoot shoot)
When I hold you in my arms
(Oh yeah)
And I feel my finger on your trigger
(Ooo, oh yeah)
I know nobody can do me no harm
(Ooo, oh yeah)
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Nice to be able to go back to trust and friendship!!!!!!!!!
It's a mixed up sensation this being alive
Oh! it wears a man down into the ground
It's the strangest elation
I can't describe it
Oh it leaves a man weary
It makes a man frown..............................Chris Simpson ( "Mixed Up Sensations" 1975 Martin's Cafe )
It's a mixed up sensation this being alive
Oh! it wears a man down into the ground
It's the strangest elation
I can't describe it
Oh it leaves a man weary
It makes a man frown..............................Chris Simpson ( "Mixed Up Sensations" 1975 Martin's Cafe )
