Negotiating With a Loaded Gun

Steve Skaith / Mike Jones

Lyrics

He vaults the counter with a dancer’s grace
The time for counting-up has just begun
They read a history within his face
Negotiating with a loaded gun

The spring-board quivers and the colour’s run
Negotiating with a loaded gun
The roe-buck scatter and the deed is done
Negotiating with a loaded gun

A radar trace beneath the Polar ice
Can flare as bright as an exploding sun
Captain’s order, “You don’t think twice”
Negotiating with a loaded gun

The spring-board quivers and the colour’s run
Negotiating with a loaded gun
The roe-buck scatter and the deed is done
Negotiating with a loaded gun

You need to make the time, to make you play
Between the echo and the ricochet
You need to wait until the chamber spins
This dice is loaded and nobody wins

I thought your hexagrams were all re-cast
I thought your entrance only set to stun
No safety-curtain to contain the blast
Negotiating with a loaded gun

Song Description

A bank robbery shortly before closing time, when the money is being counted. The robber negotiates with a loaded gun. He jumps over the counter and the bank employees read his life’s story in his face. What now happens in the space of a few second is expressed like scenes from a movie: The spring board by a swimming pool quivers up and down, the water’s turning red. The Roebucks are frightened like after a gunshot and run away. In a submarine under the Arctic ice the trace of an enemy ship appears on the radar as brightly as an exploding sun. The captain says, ‘Don’t think twice’ and gives the order to fire. You have to make it between the echo of the gun and the ricochet (which is of course impossible). You have to wait until the chamber of the gun spins, in this game the dice are loaded and no one wins. None of us has a chance. I thought your I-Ging-Stones (an old Chinese oracle, in which the future is read out of the combination of six lines of different lengths) were all recast. I thought your entrance was only meant to stun us. There’s no safety curtain that can protect us from the shock wave after the explosion.