Guns N' Roses

My final look at this year's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees in Guns N' Roses. I first had to check how their name is properly spelled and punctuated; the copy editor within me notes that an apostrophe should be before and after the n, which should not be capitalized.

Almost everyone under the age of sixty knows who Guns N' Roses are, including me, but I had never paid much attention to them. Of course I was familiar with their biggest hits. I picked up a copy of their greatest hits album and knew almost all of the cuts. I remember driving around the Florida Keys on vacation when their first and most successful album (indeed, the highest selling album in U.S. history) Appetite for Destruction hit it big. Every other song was "Welcome to the Jungle," "Sweet Child O' Mind" (their only number one single) and "Paradise City." These are all good rock songs, but I didn't get any sense of substance from them. They were a step up in sophistication from a  hair metal band, but not on the level of say, the British invasion.

They then suffered from the disease a lot of bands suffer from--they took themselves too seriously. After a second album, they released two records at the same time, called Use Your Illusion I and II. One of the songs on the greatest hits collection from this period is, I think, their best work, "Civil War," which is a poignant anti-war song that cleverly utilizes the famous speech Strother Martin gives from Cool Hand Luke. A sample of the lyrics:

My hands are tied
The billions shift from side to side
And the wars go on with brainwashed pride
For the love of God and our human rights
And all these things are swept aside
By bloody hands time can't deny
And are washed away by your genocide
And history hides the lies of our civil wars

But it also includes their biggest folly, "November Rain," a faux epic that could have been composed for a movie about a rock star like Axl Rose that starts to think he's some sort of genius:

Cause nothin' lasts forever
And we both know hearts can change
And it's hard to hold a candle
In the cold November rain
We've been through this such a long long time
Just tryin' to kill the pain

Yikes! This is the stuff you'd find in a junior high school kid's spiral notebook. I remember when the video, which was unusual in that the song was almost nine minutes long, was ever-present on MTV. Certainly Guns N' Roses was the biggest rock band in America, but I found them to be hollow.

But there's enough on the hits album to make it worthwhile. As stated, the three songs from their first album are small miracles, and "Patience," from their second LP, with its mournful whistling, is a pleasure. They also have a few well-chosen covers: Bob Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door," Wings "Live and Let Die" (although it is performed almost note for note as McCartney's original), the doo-wop classic "Since I Don't Have You" (from their album The Spaghetti Incident?) and a dry rendition of the Rolling Stones "Sympathy for the Devil." I will say this, Rose has better elocution than Mick Jagger.

After 1993, the world awaited the next G N' R album, which became almost mythic in its anticipation. I was surprised to read that the record did come out, four years ago! I missed that entirely, as did most of the record-buying public, as it undersold expectations. It was also the most expensively-produced album of all time.

The time for G N' R has clearly passed. They hung in the balance between generic rock band and something great. Rose, the only consistent member, is now 50, and is probably living the life of a tortured but well-compensated artist. They will be a key part of nostalgia for a certain generation that came of age about ten years after I did, as many high school reunions from kids graduating in the late '80s will have DJs spinning "Sweet Child O' Mine." I have no idea if they will ever produce any more music; their output is only six studio albums.