"Bullet" | ||||
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The single's cover art depicts the John F. Kennedy assassination, the subject of "Bullet".
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Single by the Misfits | ||||
from the album Static Age | ||||
A-side | "We Are 138" | |||
B-side | Attitude" "Hollywood Babylon |
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Released | June 1978 | |||
Format | 7" vinyl | |||
Recorded | January–February 1978 | |||
Length | 1:37 (Bullet) 7:02 (Full EP) | |||
Label | Plan 9 (PL 1001) | |||
Songwriter(s) | Glenn Danzig | |||
Misfits singles chronology | ||||
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"Bullet" is the second single released by the horror punk band the Misfits. The four tracks comprising the EP were recorded, along with thirteen others, in early 1978 for the proposed Static Age album. When the band could not find a record label to release the album, they instead released four of the songs as "Bullet" on singer Glenn Danzig's label Plan 9 Records. The songs were re-released in different versions over subsequent years, until Static Age was finally released in its entirety in 1997.
In August 1977 The Misfits released their debut single "Cough/Cool" on Blank Records, a label operated by singer Glenn Danzig. Several months later Mercury Records issued a Pere Ubu record on their own Blank Records imprint, unaware that Danzig held a trademark on the name. They offered him thirty hours of studio time in exchange for the rights to the Blank Records name, which he accepted. In January and February 1978 the Misfits, then consisting of Danzig, guitarist Franché Coma, bassist Jerry Only, and drummer Mr. Jim, recorded seventeen songs at C.I. Recordings in New York City with engineer and producer Dave Achelis. Because of the time constraints they recorded the songs live in the studio with only a few takes each and very few overdubs. They mixed fourteen of them with Achelis for their proposed first album, to be titled Static Age. However, the band were unable to find a record label interested in releasing the album, and instead released four of the tracks as the "Bullet" EP in June 1978 on Danzig's new label Plan 9 Records.
The song "Bullet" references the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy, with sexually explicit lyrics directed at his wife Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis: "Texas is an outrage when your husband is dead/Texas is an outrage when they pick up his head/Texas is the reason that the President's dead/You gotta suck, suck, Jackie, suck". The post-hardcore band Texas Is the Reason took their name from this line.