Magazine – "Shot by Both Sides" (1978)

I wormed my way into the heart of the crowd

I was shocked to find what was allowed

This may be obvious but I’m going to say it anyway: a song can be great even if the lyrics don’t mean anything.

That’s not to say that the lyrics of a song aren’t important – they are.  But they don’t have to mean anything.

See, e.g., today’s featured song.

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“Shot by Both Sides” was released as a single on this very date in 1978.  I first heard it on Steven Lorber’s legendary “Mystic Eyes” radio program in 1980 – I don’t recall ever hearing it anywhere else.

Pete Shelley and Howard Devoto in 1976

Buzzcocks co-founder Pete Shelley (who died last month) is given credit by most sources as coming up with the distinctive guitar riff that makes “Shot by Both Sides” the stick of dynamite that it is.  (You can click here if you’d like to learn how to play that guitar riff.)

That same riff was used in a 1978 Buzzcocks B-side titled “Lipstick” – which is not a stick of dynamite.

Howard Devoto (whose real name was Howard Trafford) wrote the song’s lyrics.  Devoto, the other co-founder of the Buzzcocks, left that group before it released its first album to form Magazine.   

I’ve been a fan of the Buzzcocks for a long time, but I somehow missed out on Magazine.  I need to remedy that toot sweet.  (Better late than never.)

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Thom Yorke of Radiohead was a big fan of Magazine.  Click here to listen to Radiohead’s take on “Shot by Both Sides.”

Ministry and former Bauhaus lead singer Peter Murphy also recorded covers of “Shot by Both Sides.”  (I remember a cassette I once had – it’s probably still in my basement somewhere – that had Peter Murphy’s “Cuts You Up” followed by Pete Shelley’s “Homosapien.”  That’s an odd coincidence, and it’s even odder that I remember that.)

Click here to listen to Magazine’s original recording of “Shot by Both Sides.”

Click on the link below to buy that recording: