Unfairly forgotten song #10: Girls With Guns by Tommy Shaw

I'm not gonna lie:  what made me think of this was a recent comment by one Sarah Palin (as quoted by National Review via Conservatives4Palin) in which she stated, "I’m all in favor of girls with guns who know their purpose."

How could this child of the 80s not think of Tommy Shaw?

Tommy Shaw, as most of my readers probably don't know, was the lead guitarist for Styx through the late 70s and early 80s but left the group due to dissatisfaction with the direction in which other members wanted to take the band.  (Meh, go look it up on Wikipedia.)

Mr. Shaw's first solo album, which came to mind after I heard Governor Palin's statement above, was called "Girls With Guns", and its title track was Mr. Shaw's only Top 40 solo appearance, spending a grand total of three weeks on the Top 40 charts and peaking at #33 on November 17, 1984, before falling completely off the charts the following week.

It should be noted that, as I and others (such as "cassiemay10" over at SongMeanings.net) understand it, Mr. Shaw was writing not necessarily about girls carrying actual guns, but about strong, independent women.  (Women like Sarah Palin, perhaps.)

An interesting trait about the video for this track is that it is all one take; there are no cuts, which is quite different from the frenetic editing seen in most videos that I've ever watched.  See for yourself:


(All copyrights acknowledged.  Presented under Fair Use clause, and this was posted before SOPA, may it die in flames, ever passed.)

While I have never heard this song on the radio in the past 20 years apart from Ron "Boogiemonster" Gerber's "Crap From the Past" on KFAI Minneapolis, you can purchase the MP3 right here (full disclosure:  I'll get about a penny if you purchase through this link):



*Note:  most information in "forgotten songs" entries comes from the always-reliable Wikipedia; as such, its veracity may be questionable.