Stoakes’ Song of the Week

A little later than I intended, I did plan on doing this every Saturday, but, it’s Rock n Roll… You’re supposed to turn up late, right?

And a band who were notoriously late back in the day were Guns N Roses. Here they are with one of my favourite G’nR songs, Civil War, recorded at Rock AM Ring.

The song originally appeared on the 1990 compilation ‘Nobody’s Child: Romanian Angel Appeal, and later on the 1991 album ‘Use Your Illusion II’. It is a protest song on war, referring to all war as “civil war” and stating that war only “feeds the rich while it buries the poor”. In the song, lead singer Axl Rose asks, “What’s so civil about war, anyway?”

The song was originally released in 1990, when it peaked at number four on the US Album Rock Chart. It was then released worldwide in 1993, reaching number one in Poland, number two in Spain, and also charting in Australia, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway and New Zealand.

Here in the UK it was released as the ‘Civil War EP’ and reached number 11 on the UK singles chart.

Now a staple song at Guns N Roses concerts, between 1993 and 2011, the song was never played live.

The song samples Strother Martin’s speech in the 1967 movie, Cool Hand Luke: “What we’ve got here is…. failure to communicate. Some men you just can’t reach. So you get what we had here last week, which is the way he wants it… well, he gets it. I don’t like it any more than you men.” It also quotes a speech by a Peruvian Shining Path guerrilla officer saying “We practice selective annihilation of mayors and government officials, for example, to create a vacuum, then we fill that vacuum. As popular war advances, peace is closer”

Civil War is a great song and I think it’s one of their best!