Tommy Shaw: “Girls with Guns” (1984)
Footloosed from Styx, Tommy Shaw’s debut single goes to number #33 with a bullet.
Kronomyth 1.1: Killjoy was here.
Kilroy Was Here was a good album. Girls With Guns was not. Tommy Shaw’s first solo album found the Styx guitarist sounding like the second coming of Kenny Loggins, who even gets a cowriting credit on this single’s B side, Heads Up. That’s right: Kenny “my best song was choreographed to a gopher with a hand up its ass” Loggins. As for Girls With Guns, it succeeded at catching the attention of NRA inamorata Ted Nugent, which led to Shaw’s invitation to Damn Yankees. If it served any other purpose, that purpose eluded me. And so there you have it: from renegade to retrograde in one simple step. It’s a damn shame, since Shaw seems like a nice guy and he certainly is capable of writing better songs. Maybe, in the post-Styx landscape, he panicked, sold out and sold his talents short. Or maybe he took a tour of Loggins’ Santa Barbara estate and thought, “I could get used to this.” Apparently, not everyone is gun shy. One AMG reviewer praised the song’s “excitable keyboard boisterousness and Shaw’s high-pitched vocal gust.” One very lonely AMG reviewer, I’m guessing. (Update: As some kind of karmic revenge, both “Footloose” and “Girls with Guns” have been running in my head for about a week, suggesting that both may be catchier than I initially credited.)
Original 7-inch single version
A1. Girls with Guns (Tommy Shaw) (3:11)
B1. Heads Up (Tommy Shaw/Eddie Wohlford/Kenny Loggins) (4:42)
Original Japanese 7-inch single version
A1. Girls with Guns
B1. Kiss Me Hello
The Plastic
Released on 7-inch single in September 1984 in the US and Canada (A&M, AM-2676) and New Zealand (A&M, K9529) and in 1984 in Japan (A&M, AMP-204) w. different B side with regional picture sleeve. Reached #33 on the US charts (charted on 9/29/84 for 12 weeks).
