God Gave Me A Gun

Album: Americano! (2004)
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Songfacts®:

  • Clyne: "I was very conflicted. The time that this record was written was in the shadow of a war and then during a war. I know how I feel about war and how a lot of people feel about war, and it was hard to say if it was either just or unjust. As an artist, I had to report. These are tough times to make a call. If anybody wants to say I'm vacillating, they're welcome to, but these are times when black and white often collide and coalesce and right and wrong are not easy to pick apart. I think you can hear a lot of confusion in the record."
  • At the insistence of his manager, the band recorded and released the song in March 2003 as the United States prepared for war. "I had the song, but I wasn't planning on putting it out," Clyne says. "Our manager, Peter Lubin, said, "If you have any backbone as an artist, you'll put it out now and take a stand with the way you feel. God bless him for making me do that and we did. We recorded it and put it out the day after as a free download on the Web site. We pressed singles for radio, but the climate in America was so volatile and so polarized about the war that no radio station would touch it. It got shunned all the way around." (From Thomas Bond, Get Out, January 16, 2004. Get more in our Roger Clyne interview. His website is azpeacemakers.com.)

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