Janie's Got A Gun - Sing Out!

“Janie’s Got A Gun” is one of the first murder ballads I heard, transfixed on, and felt. Definitely the first one I heard where the lady wins. It may even have more to do with my artistic endeavors than I knew. I’ll get to more personal experiences with the song further along in the post but for now, let me do a little dissection of why I think “Janie’s Got a Gun” is a legitimate Murder Ballad Monday post.

The story doesn’t come from an across-the-pond lineage but it does come out of current events. Apparently, Steven Tyler was looking at a magazine article and was finally able to find what he wanted to say with a song that was previously titled, “Danny’s Got a Gun”. It became about incest and abuse, rather than strictly gun violence. The history is fairly searchable on the internet and to me less interesting than the song itself.

The song has many trappings of a traditional murder ballad. Somebody is put to death, revenge, good old harmonies, and classic imagery (trains, guns, runaways). As for the ballad part… it rocks a bit harder than most. It’s no “Dream On” or “What it Takes” on the ballad front, but I’ll still consider it. Throughout the song and the song that precedes it on “Pump” there are sound effects and instruments that, while a bit cliché, conjure up strong images for the content. Real and violent. Doors slamming, steam, alarms, hisses, and clicks that could be the gun or the train, in the house, or in a mind. It is scary, weird, and sexy (The creepy cool notes of sadness and sexy seem closely related. Words for another post. Or perhaps, a therapist). It’s creepy, there’s a murder, and it makes me feel things.

In true Steven Tyler fashion there are mondegreens galore. Did he just say pain or rain? They both work and I say, that’s poetry. My favorite misheard lyric was, “Honey, honey what’s the problem? Tell me it ain’t right.” I always heard, “Honey got it for survival, tell me it ain’t right”. I’m ok with that mishearing. The most disheartening misinterpretation I found is “dumb dumb dumb honey” for the intro. That interpretation is referenced on a few lyric sites. But the “dum” sound is clearly a sound, not a judgment on Janie. I always heard it as “Oh, no no, honey what have you done? Oh no lord it’s the sound of my gun.” I chose Aerosmith’s website (Aeroforceone, YES! Are you kidding me?!) to post here. No dums. No dumbs.

Janie’s Got A Gun  

Chick honey what have you done
Chick it’s the sound of my gun
Chick honey what have you done
Chick it’s the sound, it’s the sound… Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah….

Janie’s got a gun  Janie’s got a gun
Her whole world’s come undone
From lookin’ straight at the sun
What did her daddy do What did he put you through

They say when Janie was arrested  They found him underneath a train
But man, he had it comin’
Now that Janie’s got a gun
She ain’t never gonna be the same

Janie’s got a gun  Janie’s got a gun
Her dog day’s just begun
Now everybody is on the run
Tell me now it’s untrue  What did her daddy do

He jacked the little bitty baby  The man has got to be insane
They say the spell that he was under  The lightnin’ and the thunder
Knew that someone had to stop the rain

Run away, run away from the pain Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Run away, run away from the pain Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah 
Run away, run away, run, run away

Janie’s got a gun  Janie’s got a gun
Her dog day’s just begun
Now everybody is on the run
What did her daddy do  It’s Janie’s last i.o.u.

She had to take him down easy  And put a bullet in his brain
She said ’cause nobody believes me  The man was such a sleeze
He ain’t never gonna be the same

Run away, run away from the pain  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah 
Run away, run away, run, run away  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah  
Run away, run away, run, run away

Janie’s got a gun  Janie’s got a gun  Janie’s got a gun
Everybody is on the run
Janie’s got a gun
Her dog day’s just begun
Now everybody’s on the run (honey, honey what’s your problem)
’cause Janie’s got a gun (tell me it ain’t right) 

Janie’s got a gun (was it daddys cradle robbin’) 

Her dog day’s just begun (that made you scream at night) 

Janie’s got a gun Her dog day’s just begun 

Now everybody’s on the run Janie’s got a gun 

In Aerosmith’s live version Tyler sings the (original) lyric, “He raped a little bitty baby. The man has got to be insane”. You can see that evidenced here

This line was not in the recorded version for whatever reason the record company and radio stations offered. I wonder if it were released today if the same would be true. Considering you can’t throw an airplane peanut without hitting some comedian’s rape joke or the newest cutest word, “rapey” being used to describe a top single. Those topics have been highly fought out in recent discussions like the ones found HERE and HERE. As for “Janie’s Got a Gun” Aerosmith used the actual meaning of the word, and not as a power wordplay against victims. I wish they’d rerelease this song with the original lyric.

Reading a Little Further Into It

Let’s take a little trip together on this next thought. After all, what is art for if not to read into and take us on mind journeys. I think what sound like simple rhyming schemes may speak to a larger context then maybe they were intended to. For example: “Everybody is on the run” and “whole world’s come undone”. The idea of women fighting back is still big and scary for a lot of people. Why else would young women be ostracized for speaking out about their own abuse by entire towns and media channels? Or get shot for trying to get an education? If you think I’m hyperbolizing look into Steubenville and Malala Yousafzai. Whether that is truly what’s in the song, doesn’t matter, it spoke to me. Nananabooboo, I found it and I’m keeping it.

And now the video…

OK, this is one good looking video, and that is just confusing. Confusing sexual imagery in music videos has existed since the forever of music videos. Whether this is a reflection of the same abuse the song seems to be admonishing, adding to the objectification of women thus adding to the abuse, I don’t know. Maybe it is just part of making a pretty video. But I do know that Janie is running through the streets in what looks like a man’s button down shirt and nothing else. I want to choose this image to illustrate a point. Usually the “lady in a man’s shirt” is supposed to be seen as post coital sexiness. Am I remembering that correctly? That was a thing especially in the 80’s, right? Even if not, everyone in the video is hot and dripping sex. Why? Because there was sex in the violence? That is kind of warped, Fincher. Oh yeah, David Fincher directed it. He also directed Se7en, Fight Club, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, etc. Everyone in the video looks sort of the same age. Who am I supposed to like? Are those models her parents? Maybe that was the point. Steven’s gyrating and amazing mouth, everyone’s googly eyes at each other, their melt off the bone fashion, juxtaposed with a horrible story of abuse and violence was all there to make us feel grossly aroused. Rather than a lecture on what you (presumably) already know is wrong, you live for a moment in an uncomfortable experience.

In A Different Voice

I am interested in attempting a cover of this with my acoustic murder ballad duo, Eileen. We write and perform murder ballads from the perspective of the female’s story. This song would fit that requirement without any tweaks. It is Janie’s story, she is the protagonist. And, I think the musical saw could rival the glass harmonica for some pretty chilling train sounds. Softening the rock lyrics in voice and decibels might not serve them perfectly, but I’m excited to try. Who’d have thought Aerosmith would’ve been a catalyst for feminist art… out of reverence. “Janie’s Got a Gun” has been covered by at least one other female artist, Pink… also the name of another Aerosmith song.

Runaway, Runaway

“Janie’s Got a Gun” came along as I was becoming a tween/teenager. Just as I was learning how to start raging, and that people have the capacity to be awful. I had loads of compassion, anger, and confusion. Here was a cool song taking these feelings and themes seriously. It was like noticing my rebellious flag beginning to flutter like so many scarves tied on a microphone stand. The guitar solo is screamingly celebratory. I felt it was carrying me to the ecstasy of escape from my own sheltered angst. I imagined I was in a movie, running away on the strings of Joe Perry from any injustice through city streets or backyard ravines, feared and fearful, until finally, breathing hard, the song comes back to the chorus, looking down at the gun in my hands to face freedom and hard rain reality. But thankfully, instead of prison I had more song to go and could disappear back into a blue fog of bent notes and gunsmoke.

I have always found Janie’s freedom in the lyric, “Her dog day’s just begun”, even if it doesn’t feel like an exact fit. I thought he meant her days would be hard now, arduous and long, still suffering with a lot of people to answer to. I thought she would be fine eventually and not go to jail. After all, she did what she had to do. This story of revenge is a fantasy that I think has a place in this world, for balance sake. Stories can offer hope, complicated protagonists, heroes and anti-heroes that are also women. Tell me it ain’t right.