Shacklermyrye wrote:

sp1at wrote:

Just random musings, not read the whole thread.

From O Globo, Axl interview, Jan 2001

"With 18 songs, the group's next album (they haven't released anything since 1993's "The Spaghetti Incident?") is a collection of songs, which in Axl's opinion are as good as "November Rain". Among them "Madagascar", included in the show on Sunday. The CD will include a tribute to John Lennon and another about child abuse"

So I'm guessing Monsters/Soul Monster(?) was written pre 2001

Also, could Elvis and the Monster of Soul be Me and my Elvis, and Soul Monster as one song. I don't know if that works

I'd say The General is the one about child abuse. I always thought it didn't have vocals at that time because when Belltrami worked on it in October of 02 it was an instrumental, but the song being about abuse & being mentioned in January of 01 suggests that it may have had lyrics at that point after all.

Maybe he just had not recorded them yet, or maybe they were already done and he just chose to take the instrumentals to Beltrami. Either way this points to the song existing in the year 2000, which is 2 years earlier than we had proof of before.

Cool. It sounds like 18 songs were done, or existed in some way at this point. I suppose if Brain joined in late 2000, that's a quick turnaround for a song.

I was actually going back to look at Oklahoma. There were sessions in 95/96, then it sounds like Axl did no more vocals until Youth joined in 98/99, then Dave Dominguez came, short stay, then Sean Beavan. There was mention somewhere that pre-CD songs will get carried forward, so I'm just interested in that sense

guts wrote:

Wagszilla wrote:

Axl is the weak link on most of Chinese Democracy. His writing needed work and it's clear he shut himself in while doing all the writing.

Axl in all his moods oscillates between pompous grandiosity and misogynistic self-hatred which worked for the afterglow of 1970s glam rock and 1980s hair metal but when the 1990s rolled around, he didn't really have much to say.

It's why "Better" is such a punch-through song for me. He's writing in the first-person, reflecting, and actually working through his issues in song form. It's like, okay, yeah I can get this. There's something here to be said between author and listener. "There Was A Time but now you're Better". Okay, cool, got it. I've been there. Perhaps is kind of like the proto-Better but it's not there. Still too depressive and just like... You listen to it and you go... just go to therapy, man. Or something. You're a killjoy to be around when you're like this.

And again, why Izzy was so important. Izzy hearing Perhaps would turn it into a bar song about some chick. Oh sorry, Perhaps I didn't see you. He'd give it that cheeky, sing-songy, dry humor sort of thing.

I'm not optimistic that "The General" is anything than more of the same. I think he probably could write a decent angry song in that era so "Soul Monster" would be the one I'd hold out for.

I get the impression we're getting commercially safe B-sides. Either they hold back for one final hurrah, don't release them at all, or just let the fizz come out of the soda. Very strange that "Atlas" is supposedly coming out. Song is nothing more than a deep cut for hardcores, even less commercial than Perhaps which reads like a coda.

Its funny you say Soul Monster is an angry song but with these lyrics it seems to be more of a ballad type song.

And they say the stars don't look the same

I may have changed yet I have my soul to claim

I have never heard Soul Monster. Is there any leak of It i missed? If so ... please