Released 20 January 1978 Length 4:04 | Genre Post-punk Label Virgin | |
B-side "My Mind Ain't So Open" Writer(s) Howard Devoto
Pete Shelley | ||
"Shot by Both Sides" is a song written by Howard Devoto and Pete Shelley, and performed by the English post-punk band Magazine. It was released in January 1978 as the band's first single (reaching No. 41 on the UK charts) and appeared a few months later on their debut album, Real Life.
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The name of the song came from a political argument between Devoto and his girlfriend, in which his girlfriend said to him, "Oh, you'll end up shot by both sides."
The original single version of "Shot by Both Sides" differed from the album version; for example, the chorus of the single version begins with the word "shot" repeated, while the album version has it sung only once (with an echo effect).".
By this time, Magazine consisted of only four members, as original keyboardist Bob Dickinson had left the band the previous year.
Shot by Both Sides is also the title of the English translation of Meisei Goto's paranoid Japanese novel, Hasamiuchi (original 1973, translation 2008). Translator Tom Gill chose the title because he was a Magazine fan, and also because the more obvious title, Crossfire, had already been used as the title of another Japanese novel translated into English—a detective novel by Miyuki Miyabe.
An identical guitar riff was used in the song "Lipstick" by Devoto's former band Buzzcocks, released as a B-side in November 1978, for which Devoto received a co-writing credit.
Reception
The song was ranked at No. 9 among the top "Tracks of the Year" for 1978 by NME.
Cover versions
"Shot by Both Sides" has been played live by several artists, including Radiohead (whose song "Just" contains a similar guitar riff), Mansun, Fin and Jarvis Cocker. Swedish punk band No Fun At All did a cover on their album EP's Going Steady. "Shot by Both Sides" was also covered by English punk band Beyond Dread, UK82 punk rockers English Dogs, French punk rockers les Cadavres and Finnish punk band Kollaa Kestää (in Finnish as "Syksy").