Colt Single Action Army (Peacemaker)

Lyrics

Under the soft museum light.

I was thirty-seven ounces of cold iron and wood,
born in 1873 to do what the talking never could.
They carved my grip like a plow handle, swept and curved back,
so when your arm snapped up, my barrel just found the track.
Before you even chose to fire, I was an extension of your wrist.
There was no music in the dirt. Just the powder and the grit.

But I am terrified of the silver screen.
Of the handsome men keeping my cylinder clean.
They twirl me on a finger like a dancer in a dress,
and call me the iron that settled the West.
You gave me a holy name to cover up the red,
but a peacemaker is just a thing that leaves everybody dead.

You print the legend, but you forget how I break.
I was heavy in the holster, I gave your hip a dull ache.
And you never loaded six. You put five in the wheel,
left the hammer resting on an empty chamber of steel.
Because if I fell on the floorboards I would fire on my own.
I wasn't magic. I was just a blind machine far from home.

Now there are children running in the suburban grass,
holding plastic shapes of me, moving so fast.
If they could hear the ringing deafness in a ten-foot room,
if they could smell the sulfur in the afternoon gloom,
they wouldn't play the hero. They would lock the drawer.
But a myth doesn't have to carry the weight anymore.

Four clicks to pull the hammer back.
C-O-L-T.
Spin me again for the camera.
Make me shine in the light.
Pretend I was a righteous thing.
Just don't drop me.