Rifle Lyrics
[Intro]
Turn your head boy
The deer has fled
Boots and rifles
Are stained with red
Close your eyes boy
There’s nowt but death
Palms and fingerprints
Are stained all red
Red, red, red
Red, red, red, red
[Verse 1]
In that cave we found
Cloth and steel that bound
Your callous hands
Rising from the tomb
Of your mother’s womb
Are you happy now?
Now the world is bare
People sing your prayers
But you talk too loud
Can you stay a while?
Whisper, tell me why
Oh god, how you’ve grown
[Chorus]
(Ah) Crush to dust
(Ah) All you love
(Ah) Does it feel good
(Ah) Spilling blood?
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[Verse 2]
In your little fist
Thе dagger’s wet
Piercе and ruin me
But to what end?
End, end, let this be the end
The end, the end, the end, end
[Chorus]
(Ah) Crush to dust
(Ah) All you love
(Ah) Does it feel good
(Ah) Spilling blood?
[Bridge]
Les fleurs meurent sous ton regard
Les mers se brisent dans tes bras
Le pouvoir de tes mains m’éclatent
Je grimpe au ciel avec hâte
Le pouvoir de ton grand orage
Je m’enfuis entre les nuages
Mais le ciel n’a rien à me dire
Les étoiles détournent leur visage
L’aube rampe à travers la nuit
C’est toi mon fils, tu es la fin
[Chorus]
(Ah) Crush to dust
(Ah) All you love
(Ah) Does it feel good
(Ah) Spilling blood?
[Outro]
Ah, ah, ah, ah-ah
Ah, ah, ah, ah-ah
_______________ End ______________
Rifle Song Meaning (The Last Dinner Party)
A Cry of Rage and Witness
From the first lines — “Turn your head boy / The deer has fled / Boots and rifles / Are stained with red” — “Rifle” opens in a visceral landscape of violence and displacement. The imagery is immediate: weaponry, blood, hunted creatures, and unseen trauma. Far from abstract metaphor, the song aims to land as a direct emotional confrontation — a poem of destruction, power, and complicity.
There is a shift, however, in the second verse: the violence becomes intimate. A dagger in a fist, piercing, a plea for an end. The chorus — “Crush to dust / All you love / Does it feel good / Spilling blood?” — rejects sanitized war narratives. It demands the listener reckon with what is lost in violence, what is glorified, and what is silenced. The repeated “Ah” in the chorus feels less like ornament than insistence — a cry, a challenge, a refusal to let the brutality sound beautiful.
The bridge switches to French:
“Les fleurs meurent sous ton regard / Les mers se brisent dans tes bras … C’est toi mon fils, tu es la fin.”
These lines deepen the scale: flowers dying under your gaze, seas breaking in your arms, the speaker addressing someone as “my son” — possibly implicating legacy, inheritance of destruction, and the generational weight of violence.
So what is “Rifle” about in the real world?
Real-World Impetus: Warmongering, Agency and Anger
In a Rolling Stone UK conversation, Lizzie Mayland reveals that she began writing the song confronting “warmongering men” — those who send others to war while remaining distant themselves. She further states that the band’s anger deepened in response to contemporary conflicts, especially in Palestine, and that “Rifle” became a way to channel helplessness into a scream.
In short, Rifle isn’t about war in abstraction — it is directly political, accusatory, and urgent. It frames conflict not as a distant news item but as a moral wound, demanding accountability from the hands that pull triggers and pull strings.
Critics have noted that among the tracks on From the Pyre, “Rifle” stands out for refusing distance. Whereas many songs may create a spectacle around violence, this track brings you into the gut: “While most of the previous songs create a detached spectacle of violence, ‘Rifle’ makes a point to highlight the lack of compassion that comes.”
The album review in Silent Radio calls it a “richly expansive masterpiece,” a track that unsettles by refusing predictability, veering between sweeping ballad and crushing rock eruption.
Symbolism, Roles and the Listener’s Role
What the lyrics do well is collapse scale and role. The speaker is not entirely separate from the violence — they are implicated, intimate, giving voice to what is silenced. Addressing “boy” and “son” suggests both confrontation and inheritance. The dagger, the rifle, the boots — these are metaphorical and literal tools of harm, but also symbols of power and control.
Even the French interlude underlines that the act of witnessing — the eyes that see flowers die, seas break — is a role of its own. There is guilt in seeing, in being compelled to stare, to record, to survive.
For the audience, “Rifle” is not a passive experience. It demands weight, empathy, and a refusal to look away. It asks: when violence is orchestrated by distant power, what is our place in between those who issue commands and those who pay the price?
Why “Rifle” Matters in The Last Dinner Party’s Landscape
On "From the Pyre", the band have described the record as a “place of violence and destruction but also regeneration, passion and light.” “Rifle” sits near the darker pole of that spectrum, a key moment of resistance and venting. Through it, The Last Dinner Party show that they are unafraid to exact beauty from horror — to give form to grief, anger, dismay, and witness.
In the arc of the album, “Rifle” feels like a reckoning. It speaks for those who cannot, it refuses to let violence be aestheticized, and it reminds us of urgency: the cost of silence is complicity.
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FAQ Section
Who sung the song "Rifle" by The Last Dinner Party?
The song "Rifle" was sung by The Last Dinner Party.
Who wrote the song "Rifle" by The Last Dinner Party?
Aurora Nishevci, Abigail Morris, Georgia Davies, Casper Miles, Emily Roberts & Lizzie Mayland.
Who produced the song "Rifle" by The Last Dinner Party?
Markus Dravs.
Music Video
Song Details
Artist: The Last Dinner Party
Album: From the Pyre
Genre: Rock
Language: English
Released: October 17, 2025
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