In this song, a man grabs his brother's rifle to practice his aim. The gun accidentally goes off and kills a lone rider, and the shooter panics, runs off and throws the rifle into a stream. The song goes on to explain the verdict and how bad he felt and his plea for forgiveness. In the end, it is time for his own death, while the lone rider and him ride together to "kingdom come." It has much more of a Country/Bluegrass sound than most of Sting's songs.
Johnny Cash recorded this on his 2002 album American IV, The Man Comes Around. Careful listeners will notice Cash sings the lyric "My brother's rifle went into the stream" as "My brother's rifle went into the sheen," and the next line changes "salt lands" to "south lands." Sting assumes this came from a misprint but was nevertheless "so proud to hear my words and music interpreted by 'the master,'" he wrote in Lyrics By Sting.
"I wrote my version of the song in 9/8," Sting noted in Lyrics By Sting. "The guitar riff just occurred to me that way and reminded me of the gait of a galloping horse dragging a corpse. The story of a terrible accident, guilt, and redemption materialized out of the title and out of the haunting image of a riderless horse."
See your Spotify stats (with number of plays and minutes listened) and discover new music.
Music data, artist images, album covers, and song previews are provided by Spotify. Spotify is a trademark of Spotify AB.