The song's title refers to the pejorative slang for an inexpensive handgun, which a young man purchases at a pawn shop.
Content
The song's story tells of the man planning to kill himself after a failed relationship. The story opens with him bartering with a pawn dealer for the "Saturday night special" and one bullet. Before he is able to leave, he overhears the pawn dealer cruelly and callously deal with a young, distraught woman trying to hock her wedding ring ("Seven dollars, nothin' more!" he tells her, as the woman breaks down in tears). The previous customer turns around and stares angrily at the pawn dealer, placing his hand in his jacket pocket where he had placed the gun. The pawn dealer, knowing that a mistake in dealing at this point could cost him his life, relents and gives the woman a much larger sum – $2,000 – for the ring. In the end, the young man and newly divorced woman decide to run away to Texas to start a new life.
