Axl, by his side, hosted a documentary called 'The Days of Our Lives' in August 1991 and commented: "the first album I ever bought was Queen's 'A Night at the Opera'".
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OTHER ACTS' ANALYSES (Axl Rose / Guns N' Roses)
This masterpiece is a work of art in all senses: beautiful lyrics, great vocals, superb solos, wonderful bass, perfect drums, nice piano, exceptional guitars, astonishing orchestration, glorious video, brilliant production... It was apparently written long before the 'Appetite' days but saved for later. First played live on 29th May 1991, the song quickly gained popularity amongst the audience because of its fantastic guitar solos, its length and the fact Axl played piano on it. It soon become available on bootlegs, and by the time the album came out in September, loads of fans were already familiar with it (and we're talking about 1991, long before Napster, eMule, MySpace or YouTube). Music
& Lyrics by: Axl Rose Produced
by: Mike Clink Recorded
between: June - December 1990 Keys:
B, Bm Drums:
Matt Sorum Lead
Vocals: Axl Rose Axl Rose was born William Bruce Rose Jr on 8th February 1962 in Lafayette, Indiana, USA. His musical activities began in primary school, where he sang in a choir (as a bass) and learnt classical piano. Later on in his early twenties, he'd start writing songs with Izzy and trying out different line-ups, where, for instance, Axl was once on bass and Izzy on lead vocals. Though never mastered any instrument, Axl can play (on a basic level) piano, synthesisers, guitar, bass and drums. November Rain apparently came from early 80's, and it went through many changes until it finally took the shape Axl wanted. As a perfectionist, that'd be only one of the occasions when he didn't mind waiting a decade to get a record made and issued. From a musical perspective, Axl's compositions were often "generic", in the matter of having simple chord-functions, square phrasing and fixed tempo, yet his meticulous skills as arranger and his ability to come up with ear-pleasing alternate melodies over the same progressions have allowed him to write or co-write several outstanding numbers.
Guns N' Roses had, at the time, arguably their best line-up ever: Matt Sorum (formerly of The Cult) played drums, Dizzy Reed played piano and keyboards (although not in this particular record), Duff McKagan played bass and occasional guitar (he's also a good drummer and can play some keyboards, although he rarely took such duties as a GnR member), Izzy Stradlin and Slash played guitars, and Axl sang. November Rain had some interesting changes: Axl played piano and keyboards instead of Dizzy, who only provided backing vocals to this song. As a matter of fact all the band (except Slash) sang harmonies, as well as Shannon Hoon (lead singer of Blind Melon, who also guested on co-lead vocals in several songs off the 'Illusion' era), Stuart Bailey (Axl's half-brother from his mum's second marriage) and Reba Shaw. Johann Langlie co-programmed keyboards with Mr Rose. Matt was the newest band-member at the time, and this piece was obviously crucial for the impact he had on the lads, and vice-versa: he'd initially felt the song wasn't quite right for the band, but eventually enjoyed being part of it; the rest of the band, by their side, were impressed by Matt's precision, strength and the fact he only needed some few takes to get his part done.
Instrumental phrases (such as intro and guitar solos) are in blue. Rose is a genius when it comes to putting contrasting sections together: the so-called "chorus" is actually some sort of middle-eight. We've got one main section appearing in all cycles, making the IV > ii > I > I progression appear fourteen times (maybe a subconscious nod to 14 Years?). An interesting detail is the false-ending (with perfect cadence) followed by an up-tempo section (which had never appeared before in the song). The same thing had happened in Freddie Mercury's The March of the Black Queen, from the album 'Queen II', which was (or is?) one of Axl's favourites. Queen, the band, are thanked in the credits of 'Illusion', btw. The acoustic demo is much simpler (ballad form), ending on a slow-down:
The very beginning of the song is just two measures in the subdominant (omitted in the chart above). Note how Axl cleverly expanded phrases, and how the coda is actually an extension of the pre-coda. Pure genius! Live versions followed the same structure, with the only difference that the false-ending stayed longer on the tonic before abruptly modulating to the parallel.
Besides Axl's bass-chord-bass-bass-chord piano, "human" instruments are drums, bass and guitars, the latter including acoustic and electric, all six-stringed. Note Matt's excellent military-beat during the pre-coda (also found in Estranged), Duff's melodic lines, Izzy's clean arpeggios and of course, Slash's fantastic solos, the first of which is sometimes harmonised. The arrangement is very detailed, and it's impressive how the song never sounds overwhelming, yet it's layered and exquisite from beginning to end. Rose had initially wanted Jeff Lyne to co-arrange, produce and programme this, but for some reason he couldn't track him down so he relied on Johann Langlie and himself. The orchestra has mostly strings, although some pads are there as well and of course the famous flute, which may have come from a sampler. Most of the time, strings are doing octaves (check out Freddie Mercury's Was It All Worth It), being an ornament to the rock group rather than a lead. It's nice how acoustic, electric and electronic instruments can stand alone for themselves, yet they complement each other beautifully (as it happens with the guitars in Kansas' Dust in the Wind). Live versions featured Dizzy playing mostly string-pads, except for the South American leg in 1993, when they changed the arrangement completely: up until the false-ending, it was only Axl, Dizzy, Slash (who played acoustic guitar during the vocal bits, and electric during the solos) and Matt on timpani, gong and tambourine. Then it turned to the rock group for the coda, adding Duff (bass + backing vocals), Gilby (rhythm guitar) and having Matt on drums and harmonies. Axl sang lead using his "rough" voice (he's got that highly-developed ability to do loads of different timbres almost at will), which is a major point of interest in the arrangement. Great work on production, it must be said too. Backing vocals are chordal during the verses (in the demo they appear in the bridges as well) and done mostly unison (with occasional thirds). Slash hinted once that they'd wanted to resemble a children's choir. The coda features parallel octaves (Axl on the low part). Live, harmonies were done only by Izzy, Duff & Matt (1991), Tracy & Roberta (1992) or Duff & Matt (1993). |
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