 Tennant started to write the song when he was staying at his cousin 's house in Nottingham while watching a gangster film . Just when he was going to sleep he came up with the lines : " Sometimes you 're better off dead , there 's a gun in your hand and it 's pointing at your head " . The lyrics were inspired by T.S. Eliot 's poem The Waste Land , particularly in the use of different narrative voices and <unk> references . The song 's lyrics are largely concerned with class , inner @-@ city pressure . Tennant later said that some listeners had assumed the song referred to prostitutes , but was actually , " about rough boys getting a bit of <unk> . " 
