Stephen Sondheim: The Gun Song

One of the more spectacular effects unique to Sondheim's artistry is the nearly unbearable juxtaposition of deadly brutality and breathtaking beauty, as when in ACT II of "Sweeny Todd" the reprisal of Johanna is interspersed with some of the most lovely cheerful music, all accompanying grisly scenes of mass murder -- there is little to compare with the horrific sublimity of Sweeny's "oh, look, Johanna, a star!'" as the blade slices into a neck in a spray of blood and then the dripping steel gleams in a salute, "a shooting star!" It is an effect that recurs in Sondheim's "Assassins," in this song whose beauty and horror seems especially painful in the aftermath of a weekend of "prayer and reflection" refusing to take up the political problems of neglected mental distress and private arsenals in a nation of fellow sufferers.

It takes a lot of men to make a gun
Hundreds
Many men to make a gun

Men in the mines
To dig the iron
Men in the mills
To forge the steel

Men at machines
To turn the barrel
Mold the trigger
Shape the wheel

It takes a lot of men to make a gun
One gun

And all you have to do
Is move your little finger
Move your little finger and
You can change the world

Why should you be blue
When you've your little finger?
Prove how just a little finger
Can change the world
I hate this gun

What a wonder is a gun
What a versatile invention
First of all, when you've a gun
Everybody pays attention

When you think what must be done
Think of all that it can do
Remove a scoundrel
Unite a party

Preserve the Union
Promote the sales of my book
Insure my future
My niche in history

And then the world will see
That I am not a man to overlook
Ha, h

And all you have to do
Is squeeze your little finger
Ease your little finger back

You can change the world
Whatever else is true
You trust your little finger
Just a single little finger
Can change the world

I got this really great gun
Shit, where is it?
No, it's really great
Wait

Shit, where is it?
Anyway
It's just a .38
But it's a gun
You can make a statement

Wrong
With a gun
Even if you fail

It tells 'em who you are
Where you stand
This one was on sale
It, no, not the shoe
Well, actually the shoe was, too

No, that's not it
Shit, I had it here, got it
Yeah, there it is and all you have to do
Is crook your little finger
Hook your little finger 'round

Shit, I shot it
You can change the world

Simply follow through
And look, your little finger
Can slow them down
To a crawl
Show them all

Big and small
It took a little finger
No time
To change the world

A gun kills many men before it's done
Hundreds
Long before you shoot the gun

Men in the mines
And in the steel mills
Men at machines
Who died for what?

Something to buy
A watch, a shoe, a gun
A thing to make the bosses richer
But a gun claims many men before it's done

Just one more