Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun

For the cover of this song by Anthrax, see Sound of White Noise.

"Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun"
Song

"Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun" is the 10th track on and third single from the album Paul's Boutique by American hip hop group the Beastie Boys, released on July 25, 1989.

• Produced & written by the Beastie Boys and the Dust Brothers.
• Engineered by Mario Caldato & Allen Abrahamson.

The track contains the most live instrumentation on Paul's Boutique, with guitar and bass played by Adam Horovitz and Adam Yauch respectively.

The song was later covered by the band Anthrax for the 1993 compilation album The Beavis and Butt-Head Experience.

The lyrics "Get hip don't slip knuckle heads/Racism is schism on the serious tip" were repeated in the Sublime song "Don't Push."

The song's lyrics contain references to Anthony Burgess's 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange, such as "Ultraviolence running through my head" and "Like Clockwork Orange going off on the town".

The song is sampled in Leftfield's "Song of Life", from their debut Leftism (album).

It has also been covered by the English crossover rap/rock band Senser for their Biting Rhymes EP.

Songs sampled

• "Time" by Pink Floyd
• "Mississippi Queen" by Mountain
• "Last Bongo in Belgium" by the Incredible Bongo Band
• "Put Your Hand in the Hand" by Ocean

Popular culture references

• DJ Chuck Chillout
• John Rambo
• A Clockwork Orange
• Die Hard
• Bruce Willis
• David Berkowitz
• Funky Cold Medina

In popular culture

• In Girl Skateboards Pretty Sweet this song was played for Alex Olson, Mike Carroll, Rick McCrank & Brian Anderson's video part.

External links

• Lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics