# They wouldn't fly now **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 14, 2022, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-wouldnt-fly-now/962825 "2022-04-14T14:24:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2022, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-wouldnt-fly-now/962825/201 "2022-05-03T18:58:16Z")
Its message isn’t so much “We’re anti-gun” as it is “Don’t be like this guy who got drunk and shot a lot of people.” ---
**Author:** ![john\_b\_2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a9a28c/32.png) [@john\_b\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/john_b_2)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2022, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-wouldnt-fly-now/962825/202 "2022-05-03T19:11:50Z")
Yes, it was, in his later years, one of Maurice Chevalier’s “signature” songs, and regarded as charming and rather humorous, not an endorsement of pedos and/or “dirty old men”. I don’t think it was regarded that way at all back in the day. ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2022, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-wouldnt-fly-now/962825/203 "2022-05-03T19:58:55Z")
Actually it’s a little of both. Last verse goes: _Handguns are made for killing They ain’t no good for nothing else And if you like to drink your whiskey You might even shoot yourself_ _So why don’t we dump 'em, people To the bottom of the sea Before some old fool come around here And want to shoot either you or me_ Get rid of the guns before some drunken idiot shoots you, is the message I hear. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2022, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-wouldnt-fly-now/962825/204 "2022-05-03T20:19:23Z")
Conway Twitty recorded a different song titled “Saturday Night Special”, in which a pawn broker sells a pistol to a man who is obviously going to use it to commit suicide (he asks the broker to “throw in one bullet”). Like the Skynyrd song, it’s not strictly anti-gun as much as critical of the heartlessness and greed of the pawn broker. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2022, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-wouldnt-fly-now/962825/205 "2022-05-05T11:58:45Z")
> [@Shoeless](#): > > Get rid of the guns before some drunken idiot shoots you, is the message I hear. Including that _you_ may be the drunken fool. ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2022, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-wouldnt-fly-now/962825/206 "2022-05-05T12:14:18Z")
I’m not aware of any MAGAn who thinks that song is too “woke,” but then again I don’t hang around with that many of them. I think they can definitely identify with the tragedy and frustration of a loved one (or themselves) who let the liquor pull the trigger. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2022, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-wouldnt-fly-now/962825/207 "2022-05-05T14:38:49Z")
> [@Shoeless](#): > > Get rid of the guns before some drunken idiot shoots you, is the message I hear. There’s a distinction between _all_ handguns and Saturday Night specials, i.e., a type of _cheap_ handgun predisposed to one-time, nefarious use. A person could be pro-gun while acknowledging that SNSs do more harm than good. The song does date from a less-polarized era when such nuanced positions were more common. It sounds like the meaning may have changed between writing that lyric and writing the title. Or possibly, different people wrote them. Or even more likely: they were drunk. ---
**Author:** ![Pabitel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbce88/32.png) [@Pabitel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pabitel)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2022, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-wouldnt-fly-now/962825/208 "2022-05-05T16:59:01Z")
[A plate of Ortolans](https://www.lovefood.com/news/58667/cruellest-food-to-eat) ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2022, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-wouldnt-fly-now/962825/209 "2022-05-06T18:11:13Z")
In my hometown was a relic of the Guilded Age nicknamed [The Castle.](https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/717-W-Stephenson-St-Freeport-IL-61032/122367495_zpid/) Reduced to a rooming house for women college students by the 1970s, it was included in [Michael H. Kenyon’s sexual assault spree.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_H._Kenyon) Kenyon did serve time for his offenses, but, finding mirth in the fact that he administered enemas to his victims, Frank Zappa composed [a song in his honor.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sRqlQgOnQaA) Mirth aside, there is an FBI study available online where they interviewed the women who’d been in abusive relationships with the main focus of their study: violent offenders. Besides the sadistic beatings, enforced prostitution and bestiality, etc., a common feature was forced administration of enemas on the victims as anal intercourse eventually became the only form practiced. It’s mighty ugly reading. If it’s not consensual there’s no humor to be found. How the Hell could it have ever been otherwise? Because women were raised so sexually repressed they really didn’t know they wanted it? Shit. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-wouldnt-fly-now/962825.md?page=10)