Depeche Mode – Barrel Of A Gun

Depeche Mode, the British band born in Basildon, Essex, in 1980, hold a very special record at home: the trio consisting of Dave Gahan, Martin Gore and Andrew Fletcher is the band with the greatest number of singles entered the UK Top 40 (43 between 1981 and 2009) that never peaked in the top three positions in this ranking.  14 songs entered the Top 10, while the rank No. 4 has been reached three times in different periods of their long career, as if to demonstrate the continued success of public they gathered all over 30 years.
The first occasion was in 1984 with People Are People, written by Martin Gore, who later said he don’t really love this track because it sends a too direct message, not subtle and introspective as the songs he likes.
The second in 1997 with Barrel Of A Gun, perhaps the darkest Depeche Mode song, so that Gore, who wrote it, was very undecided if relaese it as the first single from the album Ultra that, in fact, signed the artistic resurrection despite DM were on the brink of dissolution for the departure of Alan Wilder, Andrew Fletcher’s depression and Dave Gahan’s attempted suicide by overdose.
The third in 2005 with Precious, also written by Gore, who, contrary to his habits, said he wrote it thinking of his children and especially of the suffering they would have faced because of the separation between him and their mother.