What does Janie's Got a Gun mean?

Aerosmith: Janie's Got a Gun Meaning

Album cover for Janie's Got a Gun album cover
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Janie's Got a Gun Lyrics

Dum, dum, dum, honey what have you done?

Dum, dum, dum it's the sound of my gun.

Dum, dum, dum, honey what have you done?

Dum, dum, dum it's the sound



Janie's got a gun

Janie's got a gun

Her whole world's come undone

From...

  1. 1TOP RATED

    #1 top rated interpretation:
    Evanescencefreak
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    Jul 17th 2006 !⃝

    I think this is a song about a girl who got abused (sexually, physically, and verbally) that she got tired of it and decided to end it, by getting a gun and shooting him in the head.

  2. 2TOP RATED

    #2 top rated interpretation:
    anonymous
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    Feb 17th 2007 !⃝

    I think this song is about a girl being raped by her Dad and she gets tired of being helpless so she stands up to him and kills him so she can end the pain, and it seems like she asked for help but no one believed her. The song also kinda states that the abuse had been going on for some time (itty bitty baby, cradle-robbing, etc...) Go Janie!!!!!

  3. 3TOP RATED

    #3 top rated interpretation:
    anonymous
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    May 14th 2006 !⃝

    Steven Tyler said once that he wrote this song about a newspaper article that he read about a girl that was raped

  4. anonymous
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    Nov 9th 2019 !⃝

    My interpretation is about a daughter who has been dealt with molestation or rape And I totally feel that pain. My step father has passed and the day That my mother died and I had to identify her I told her she would never meet him in heaven. He will ultimately go to hell and that’s what he deserves. I can no longer be scared to deny what a horrible person he was. May you not Rest In Peace Lawrence W Foster. You can't delete this post but ppl should note that this song means something and that all not good ppl are really good. F u lwf

  5. anonymous
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    Feb 21st 2019 !⃝

    My youngest sister was sexually abused by my father a police officer. She actually put a cocked 357 magnum to his head after hearing this song while he was asleep, but did not pull the trigger.Im so proud of her she didn't. No one would have ever believed her if she had. I believe is about a father sexually abusing his daughter.

  6. anonymous
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    Apr 8th 2018 !⃝

    This song is about a girl who shoots her father because he is sexually abusing her. Steven Tyler, explained in the Walk This Way autobiography: "That song is about a girl getting raped and pillaged by her father. It's about incest, something that happens to a lot of kids who don't even find out about it until they find themselves trying to work through some major f--king neuroses.

    Tyler came up with the lyric "Janie's got a gun." He didn't turn write the song for months but in an interview with Rolling Stone he said, "I looked over at a Time magazine and saw this article on 48 hours, minute by minute, of handgun deaths in the United States. Then I got off on the child-abuse angle. I'd heard this woman speaking about how many children are attacked by their mothers and fathers. It was f---ing scary. I felt, man, I gotta sing about this. And that was it. That was my toe in the door."

  7. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Jun 23rd 2015 !⃝

    It can actually be inspired multiple girls who have been abused. But, the main girl it is about is the same girl that the band "Jane's Addiction" founded their name on. The 'daddy' isn't a real dad, nor a step dad at all. He's more like a sugar daddy, but still not exactly. He was/is actually her "handler" assigned by the CIA. The daddy is former CIA and put into action films acting and had a successful career beginning in 1988 just before this song was released. You can all get the clues from here on out. One last thing, the girl was a toddler when this man arranged for her molestation... so yeah sick. And yeah, nobody believes her. It's awful, but there is some light beginning to shine. Thank God. The Christian God.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  8. anonymous
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    May 7th 2015 !⃝

    Janie is the mother. From cradle to young adolescence, daddy ever-more-boldly molests his daughter until Janie can no longer neither deny nor ignore the child-rape crime regularly being committed. Ultimately Janie develops the tits to stop it with her gun, pumping one in the head and another in the body right after daddy again does his dirty deed. Janie then relocates the body to a railway location. Janie's daughter -- while suffering from a Stockholm complex -- ultimately rats her mother out, and Janie goes on the run.

    Never a happy ending.

    DanD

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  9. anonymous
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    Jun 19th 2014 !⃝

    A girl getting raped by her father.

  10. Jaynie06
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    Jan 6th 2014 !⃝

    You're all wrong. I know the real story behind the song with facts that can be verified. The initial idea for the song actually came from a letter received by Gene Simmons from a troubled teen in 1987. In it Jane describes her turbulent childhood & how she became the product of a broken home when her father left when she was 9. Jane sadly made it to age 10 before being molested by her Mother's boyfriend.("What did her Daddy do?”) He wasn't there to protect her! Janie wondered, if maybe a gun could've provided her protection & scare him straight & away altogether. She simply asked Gene to approach Steven Tyler about putting together a song that she could vent to.

  11. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Sep 17th 2012 !⃝

    Her father is sexually abusing her. He is an alchoholic. He is a " powerful person " politically, socially. Nobody believes her and the video confirms that it is her mom who finally comes to realize ( after years of just looking the other way, for whatever reasons)sees him for what he really is. ( a monster, lucifer, the devil, or whatever you want to call it)She( mom) finally sees it, yet HE still denies it to all three...wife, daughter and himself. Forcing mom to make it look like her daughter just ended it with a gun ( that she mysteryously found in her hand). MOM took him to the track where he was found run over by a train . ( train being mom really )

  12. anonymous
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    May 27th 2012 !⃝

    i think it means that she is getting abused by her father and she took his gun and killed him because she wanted to end it then went to jail for murder because the cops didn't know about the abusing.

  13. anonymous
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    Sep 29th 2011 !⃝

    The "daddy" the song depicts is an sexually abusive alcoholic father towards his daughter, janie, a 14 year old, and for years, repeatedly abused her for sex. "the spell that he was under" he was drunk. "the lightning and the thunder" it took place at night. And after a few years, she snaps "she aint never gonna be the same again" and kills him with the gun "janies got a gun". "they found 'im underneath a train" were janie ditched the body. "her dog days just begun" sent to jail" now "everybodys on the run" the people are scared of her and leave because she wants revenge when she gets out. "the man mustve been insane" the dad went too far. "run away, run away from the pain"
    she regrets killing her father.

  14. anonymous
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    Apr 17th 2011 !⃝

    A girl kills the man who raped her. Based on a true story.

  15. jesslyn_marley
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    Dec 9th 2008 !⃝

    This song is about a girl who is sexually abused by her father, and no one believes her. This is a very controversial song, because of the time it was released. When this song first aired the topic of rape and abuse was not something that people normally talked about. So to have a song out on the airwave was a real eye-opener.

  16. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Oct 21st 2008 !⃝

    The meaning is obvious,just thought I would let you know its not the first time Aerosmith wrote a song like that.Go back to Toys in the Attic,and listen to Uncle Salty.

  17. YourFan
    click a star to vote
    Jul 19th 2007 !⃝

    We all pretty much agree, that this is a song about a girl who was sexually abused by her father, Steve Tyler and Joe Perry said so themselves. I think it's a serious subject for a band like Aerosmith to go on about considering their other stuff.

    She gets a gun to end her pain, but I really don't know what she does with it, either commit sucide or kill her father.

  18. Jen
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    Mar 19th 2007 !⃝

    I think this song is about a young woman who gets raped by her father, but no one believes her story, so she kills her father. This song actually remindsme of Nate Ybanez, a teenager who killed his mother. His parents were abusive, but no one listened to Nate, so Nate snapped and murdered hismother. So for this female protagonist, killing her rapist is the only way to, in the words of the song, "run away from the pain."

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