20 years of using illusions... I & II

Published 2011-09-16

I don’t know how to react to the fact that it’s been 20 years since Guns N’ Roses released Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II.

So here are like three random, half-baked thoughts. I’d rather sit and watch YouTube videos.

My high school’s Homecoming dance song in 1991 was Knockin on Heaven’s Door – the G&R remake. Looking back… a very odd choice. Me thinks the males picked that song out?

I was much more of a Illusion II kind of guy. But 20 years later I wonder if I’ve ever really given Use Your Illusion I it’s due.

Lyrically, I think Civil War and Breakdown are really two of the best rock songs I’ve ever heard…

Whenever I listen to Breakdown I’m always left thinking that Axl just read a chapter of Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Nietzsche, but that’s just me.

Here’s a passage I love:

Just like children hidin’ in a closet

Can’t tell what’s goin’ on outside

Sometimes we’re so far off the beaten track

We’ll get taken for a ride

By a parlor trick or some words of wit

A hidden hand up a sleeve

To think the one you love

could hurt you now

Is a little hard to believe

But everybody darlin’ sometimes

Bites the hand that feeds

The pretentious might call CIvil War cliche and maudlin. Me, it communicates something to an audience, and I think that says something.

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