Songfacts®:

• Before America launched a Space Force to rule the galaxy, there was the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), commonly known as "Star Wars." The program was put forth by President Ronald Reagan in 1983 during the Cold War; the idea was to set up weapons in space that could intercept Russian nuclear missiles. These are the "guns in the sky" that INXS lead singer Michael Hutchence sings about on this song, which points out that it's a stupid idea that would sap resources from programs that could actually help people.
• This is the opening track on Kick, the breakthrough album for INXS. To this point, songwriting in the band was done by committee, but for Kick, Michael Hutchence and multi-instrumentalist Andrew Farriss asked to write all the tracks themselves, and the other four members agreed. Farriss and Hutchence each wrote one song on their own for the album: "Mediate" for Farriss and "Guns In The Sky" for Hutchence.
• The track was built using a Roland 707 drum machine that Farriss helped Hutchence program. It's the same machine that formed the rhythm for the Kick track Need You Tonight. Tim Farriss, one of three Farriss brothers in the band, played the guitar solo.
• "Guns In The Sky" wasn't released as a single but it did get a video, which was directed by Richard Lowenstein, a fellow Australian who did many of the INXS videos. In the clip, Michael Hutchence walks through doors, enters a hallway where he passes through his bandmates, then fades from view. This sequence repeats over and over, peppered by quick subliminal images, including the words "SDI" and an image of Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev.
  
  Lowenstein said he did the clip as a favor after the band reluctantly agreed to shoot the videos for "Never Tear Us Apart" and "New Sensation" in Prague.