Civil War
1991 · Geffen GEF 24420 · USA
- Artist
- Guns N' Roses
- Title
- Civil War
- Release
- Use Your Illusion II
- Year
- 1991
- Label
- Geffen # GEF 24420
- Format
- CD · Album
- Language
- English
- Country
- USA
- Songwriter
- W. Axl Rose/Jeffrey Isbell/Michael McKagan/Saul Hudson
- Genre
- Rock · Hard Rock
- Primary theme
- Post-War
Annotation
Very well-known and popular hard rock group Guns n' Roses, featuring lead singer Axl Rose and guitarist Slash, formed in 1985, in Los Angeles, California, USA, released the song "Civil War", an anti-war track, which referenced Vietnam, and the assassinations of John F. Kennedy ("in my first memories they shot Kennedy" and Martin Luther King Jr. ("...wear a black armband when they shot the man who said "peace could last forever""). It originally appeared on the 1990 charity album Nobody's Child: Romanian Angel Appeal (Warner Bros. Records # 26280-2), to benefit Romanian orphans. It then appeared, as seen in the image, on the B-side (Geffen Records # GES 19039) to a single released for the film Terminator 2: Judgment Day, although the song is not featured in the film. The song appeared on the successful 1991 album Use Your Illusion II (Geffen Records # GEFD-24420). It was released worldwide in 1993. This song is commercially the most successful on this list, reaching # 4 in the US Billboard rock charts, and reaching the charts in many European countries, Australia, and New Zealand.1 The narrator said that he "never fell for Vietnam", and that "we got the wall of D.C." to remind people that they cannot blindly trust the freedom and democratic systems they live in: "everybody's fightin' for their promised land". The song argued that war benefited the rich in society, while the poor and young suffered.Sources1Wikipedia: Civil War (song)↩
Annotation by Justin A. Brummer
Annotation — Veterans Memorial Wall Songs
Very well-known and popular hard rock group Guns n' Roses, featuring lead singer Axl Rose and guitarist Slash, formed in 1985, in Los Angeles, California, USA, released the song "Civil War", an anti-war track, which referenced Vietnam, and the assassinations of John F. Kennedy ("in my first memories they shot Kennedy" and Martin Luther King Jr. ("...wear a black armband when they shot the man who said "peace could last forever""). It originally appeared on the 1990 charity album Nobody's Child: Romanian Angel Appeal (Warner Bros. Records # 26280-2), to benefit Romanian orphans. It then appeared, as seen in the image, on the B-side (Geffen Records # GES 19039) to a single released for the film Terminator 2: Judgment Day, although the song is not featured in the film. The song appeared on the successful 1991 album Use Your Illusion II (Geffen Records # GEFD-24420). It was released worldwide in 1993. This song is commercially the most successful on this list, reaching # 4 in the US Billboard rock charts, and reaching the charts in many European countries, Australia, and New Zealand.1 The narrator said that he "never fell for Vietnam", and that "we got the wall of D.C." to remind people that they cannot blindly trust the freedom and democratic systems they live in: "everybody's fightin' for their promised land". The song argued that war benefited the rich in society, while the poor and young suffered. Sources1Wikipedia: Civil War (song)↩
Annotation by Justin A. Brummer
Lyrics
English: Look at your young men fighting, look at your women crying / Look at your young men dying, the way they've always done before... / They shot Kennedy, and I went numb when I learned to see / So I never fell for Vietnam / We got the wall of D.C. to remind us all that you can't trust freedom when it's not in your hands / When everybody's fightin' for their promised land I don't need your civil war / It feeds the rich while it buries the poor / Your power hungry sellin' soldiers in a human grocery store / Ain't that fresh
About the artist
American hard rock band formed 1985 in Los Angeles, California ('Civil War'). [Source: Wikipedia]