Edna's Got A Gun
On tour again in 1990 we arrived at a squat in Germany late one night. We were due to play there the next day, but had nowhere to sleep and so had decided to drive there a day early and ask them to put us up. They were ok about it, but warned us that there had been lots of trouble "viz ze fascists" earlier that day and that they were half expecting a few hundred skinheads to march on the squat that night. The day before the skins had caught a couple of punks and tied them to the railway lines. No-one found them in time and one of the kids lost an arm. They'd also killed two policemen, burnt their car and stolen their guns. We were shit scared and wanted to leave, but were tired and really had nowhere else to go. We also thought they were bullshitting about most of it anyway. Also, since we were playing there the next night (and needed the money), we couldn't really be seen to be wimping out on them - the Euro squatting scene is super-judgmental. So we said we'd be more than happy to stay (cough!) and so to make us feel like part of the gang they showed us where the Molotov Cocktails were stashed in case there was an attack during the night! As I'm sure most of you won't have experienced it, let me assure you that it's very comforting drifting off to sleep safe in the knowledge that there are 200 primed petrol bombs in the next room just waiting to be lit and hurled at the advancing enemy should they honour you by showing up to the party!

Luckily they didn't and after one of the longest nights of our lives the morning finally arrived and Paul went off with a girl from the squat called Edna to get some food for breakfast. Before they left she calmly checked the handgun she had in her bag saying some thing along the lines of, "I take zis in case we meet ze fascists and haf to fight." Paul almost crapped himself and I can still see his panic-stricken face as she led him out of the door. They got back ok with the food, but only after she'd given him a tour of all the previous day's trouble spots. They were easy to recognise because the sawdust was still on the streets covering up all the blood. Paul decided at that point that maybe the stories concerning day before hadn't been so far fetched!

At the show that night we made as many friends as possible, played a short set (really, really quickly) and then went and stayed with some of them in their nice safe houses! In case any of this sounds familiar it's probably because we wrote a song about it, "Free-Range Flesh", on the first Big Ray album, "Naked". Since the NME thought it was a love song when they reviewed it I thought I'd print out the words just so you could see. It's actually about the sense of alienation I felt from these people who, on the surface at least since we were all 'alternative lifestyle' punk rock types, I should have felt a connection with, but because they seemed to be revelling in the violence of their situation I just couldn't sympathise 100% with them. Guess it's just another example of why we'll never have another civil war in the UK.

At breakfast the next day we had a bizarre conversation because Paul had bought the wrong type of milk - 'fascist milk' from a 'right-wing' diary - and we were given loads of shit for it. Then the one guy who'd given us the most abuse about how badly the cows were treated by the 'fascist dairy' stuck a load of meat in his mouth and started chewing. At this point John just couldn't help himself and burst out, "What the fuck are you giving us shit for buying this milk for when you eat meat anyway?!", to which our host calmly replied, "Yes, but this meat is from a good company. They treat their animals well before they kill them." Hence the title of the song.