Lyrics to
The Guns of Brixton

This version of The Guns Of Brixton was released by The Clash in 1979.

Visit the The Clash Lyrics profile at Decade Lyrics - it has the The Guns Of Brixton lyrics as well as the rest of the songs by The Clash.

Here's more interesting things in songs and lyrics tied to The Clash or about the 1970s in general.

When they kick at your front door
How you gonna come?
With your hands on your head
Or on the trigger of your gun

When the law break in
How you gonna go?
Shot down on the pavement
Or waiting on death row

You can crush us
You can bruise us
But you’ll have to answer to
Oh, the guns of Brixton

The money feels good
And your life you like it well
But surely your time will come
As in heaven, as in hell

You see, he feels like Ivan
Born under the Brixton sun
His game is called survivin’
At the end of the harder they come

You know it means no mercy
They caught him with a gun
No need for the Black Maria
Goodbye to the Brixton sun

You can crush us
You can bruise us
Yes, even shoot us
But oh-the guns of Brixton

When they kick at your front door
How you gonna come?
With your hands on your head
Or on the trigger of your gun

You can crush us
You can bruise us
Yes, even shoot us
But oh-the guns of Brixton

Shot down on the pavement
Waiting in death row
His game is called survivin’
As in heaven as in hell

You can crush us
You can bruise us
But you’ll have to answer to
Oh, the guns of Brixton

---

The Clash has released many songs over the years besides The Guns Of Brixton. The Clash released songs from 1977 to 1993 spanning across albums like The Clash, Give 'em Enough Rope, London Calling, Sandinista!, Combat Rock, Cut The Crap, and Super Black Market Clash. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by The Clash.

If you're a fan of lyrics from 1970s songs looking for more songs from 1979 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and The Guns Of Brixton by The Clash

When you decide to study the lyrics to The Guns Of Brixton, you're looking at the words, verses and background chorus from the 1979 song by The Clash. Some of the lyrics to The Guns Of Brixton have clear meanings and some contain metaphorical references. Like most songs, only The Clash and their collaborators know the full story behind any of the their songs.

You can understand the lyrics to The Guns Of Brixton if you take apart the structure of the words. The word "lyric" itself derives from the Latin word lyricus, with the actual English word lyrics applied to the definition "words set to music" listed in Stainer and Barrett's 1876 Dictionary of Musical Terms. Continuing the chain, the Latin word lyricus derives from the Greek word λυρικός or lyrikós. This somewhat means "poetry accompanied by the lyre" or "words set to music." You can easily see that by looking at the background of the word lyric, that the "lyrics to The Guns Of Brixton" means the words set to the music of The Guns Of Brixton, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by The Clash. The singular form "lyric" is still used to mean the complete words to a song. However, the singular form lyric is also commonly used to refer to a specific line (or phrase) within a song's lyrics. Hence, by this analysis of word structure, you could say that the lyric to The Guns Of Brixton and the lyrics to The Guns Of Brixton are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of The Clash who came here looking just for the lyrics to The Guns Of Brixton, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

More Songs & Lyrics by The Clash

Visit our The Clash profile for more The Clash songs, lyrics & info!

)