Go Get Your Gun

Go Get Your Gun
Go get your gun, get your gun, and let’s find out what it does
Shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot
We haven’t won, and if we win, and if the morning light sets in
We’ve cheated fate again

And to those who die, please try to understand
That for those who die, we try the best we can
With our one foot in the grave
While the other one’s kickin’ its way right down to hell

Go get your gun, get your gun, imposing penance one by one
You’ve got a virtue in a vice, it forces fate, you’re taking lives
With all the history to guide, you’ve got a passion in those eyes
So aim it straight and true

And to those who die, please try to understand
That for those who die, we try the best we can
With our one foot in the grave
While the other one’s kickin’ its way right down to hell

Now, when this is over
Then, we’ll raise a glass
Straight up to the sun
With our one foot in the grave
While the other one’s kickin’ its way right down to hell

Go get your gun, get your gun, and let’s find out what it does
Shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot
We haven’t won and if we win, and if the morning light sets in
We’ve cheated fate again

And to those who die, please try to understand
That for those who die, we try the best we can
And to those who die, please try to understand
That for those who die, we try the best we can
With our one foot in the grave
While the other one’s kickin’ its way right down to hell

🌲🌲🌲

What happens?
The General’s regiment, including Hunter, fights in the Battle of the Somme. The Son dies in the battle.

What’s in a name?

• “Go Get Your Gun” is meant as a cheesy drinking song that’s been around in this world. It’s a novelty of the time, as if it has existed in this world for a long time.

Whose viewpoint?
Hunter.

🌲🌲🌲

Go get your gun, get your gun, and let’s find out what it does / Shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot / We haven’t won, and if we win, and if the morning light sets in / We’ve cheated fate again
Okay oh wow this song. This is one of those ones where I’m not sure how much I need to comment on it, because it basically is what it says on the tin and my takes on it aren’t anything special.

I suppose the most interesting thing is how I’m reading it as a framing device. Basically, I think what this song represents narratively is the Battle of the Somme. We know that the Son dies during, or shortly after this song with the aftermath of his death coming up in the next song, and know he died in the Somme (’hints of a higher hand / lost on the Somme’), so 1 + 1 = ?.

With the Somme being a long battle, Hunter and the rest of the General’s regiment are going to be involved in multiple engagements during it, so basically I see it as… not quite a montage, but you get lots of scenes of them being mid-engagement, engagement ends, they stare over the battlefield, move through the trenches, joke around together, have time to kick back and sing songs and drink, engagement ensues again, etc etc etc ad infinitum. The morale of the regiment sounds to be overall good, and Hunter too seems to be letting himself get sucked into that energy. Of course, we know from This Beautiful Life that he’s already decided to go along with whatever the General’s regiment is doing and pretend to be jovial with them (’so let us force a smile and pretend we’re alive’), so I think his willingness to shut off his brain and go back into soldier mode here is mostly an extension of that. Like, he’s still not in a state to be thinking much about what he personally wants to do right now, so he’s just joining in whatever with his fellow soldiers.

Long and short lyrically it’s just the kind of thing soldiers would sing to themselves to hype themselves up and get morale flowing for the next battle. ‘You’re part of a legacy, you’re the good prevailing over evil, many will die but they’ll die as heroes,’ blah blah blah.

I mean I like it but by virtue of it being annoyingly effective as the kind of thing a barful of drunks could sing it’s not exactly the chewiest of high concepts for me here, you know?

Anyway, so that’s my deep insightful enthusiastic read of Go Get Your Gun.

>2:47 – 3:16 Doomy Ambiance
The fighting ends and the soldiers, including Hunter, count up and collect the dead from the battlefield. Hunter finds that the General’s Son is among the dead.

This Beautiful Life | Act III | Son