In this bonus installment of BackStory, Kamara of New York’s Earl Greyhound tell us the story behind their song “Shotgun.”

Shotgun is about arriving at those passages in life where you have to let go of everything you’ve known up until that point and walk into the unknown. Sometimes you have to even be willing to let go of your life, be wiling to die in order to find the higher truth of what’s happening– the illumination. The character in Shotgun walks into the desert alone, not expecting to return alive, and mysteries are revealed to him that could not have been revealed any other way.

SHOTGUN LYRICS

v1-

I am nobody, nobody is who I am

I am a traveler on this land

And nothing, nothing in my hands

 

I am nobody, nobody is who I am

I am a wanderer on these sands

And I got down on my knees, and folded my hands

And on the great wings of a great bird

I was carried to a temple where I heard the word…

 

chorus-

Dead man on the run, him and his shotgun

Panic in the street, testing one two three

Simple is the song, sing to carry on

Dead man on the run, him and his shotgun

 

v2-

I am nobody, nobody is who I am

Through the red sky on the crow’s wing I stand

And now to the radiant sun I surrender myself again

Then higher through the fire to Orion with the raven

I look into the eyes