This song came out of frustration. We have a police force, but do they police? Sometimes I think that they are more traffic cops than policemen. These days our nurses no longer nurse, that is done by someone less qualified and our police are giving way to community policemen, so our police force can spend their time sitting behind desks.Gone are the days when a policeman walked the beat and knew every villain and every saint, they are out of touch and what is worse, even when they do get the bad guy, he is released so that the government can safe space in the prisons.

I was at dinner with some friends and we were discussing how communities were changing and my wife said that communities knew who the bad guys were and they dispensed their own justice without a need for the law to get involved. Children are protected that much that they cannot be punished when they do wrong, so they continually push the boundaries of social behaviour further and further knowing no one can stop them. We are all powerless and where will it end? .

Gun and knife crime is on the rise. If the government won’t stop this, who will, the vigilantes?

Verse 1
On every street, in every town,
there’s a feeling going around.
We’re not safe,
we’re in the shadow of the gun.
More and more its in the news,
we sit and watch the box confused.
They’ve opened the madhouse,
or so it seems, it’s hard to believe

Chorus
We are living in the shadow of the gun
and there’s nowhere left safe for us to run
I’m tired of living in the shadow of the gun.
The world needs a hero, we need someone.

Verse 2
The blood it spills, as riots storm,
the police they try to calm,
though bricks and the bullets.
we walk in the shadow of the gun.
The killer stands before the court
and his sentence is worth nought.
Who pays the judges,
who let them walk out on the street.

Chorus
We are living in the shadow of the gun
and there’s nowhere left safe for us to run
I’m tired of living in the shadow of the gun.
The world needs a hero, we need someone.

Mid
We read the papers, we watch it slide,
the escalation of the crime.
We still do nothing, but cry and moan,
we hope for a hero to come

Chorus
We are living in the shadow of the gun
and there’s nowhere left safe for us to run
I’m tired of living in the shadow of the gun.
The world needs a hero, we need someone.

(c) 1986 Words & Music by John Robert Hunter