Guns N’ Roses, GN’R Lies: Then and Later

Then: Christian Lipski
Later: Michael Small

Then

By Christian Lipski

Oh, how we were all aching for new Guns. I burned through my taped copy of Appetite For Destruction (b/w The Cult’s Electric) a million times in 1987, and needed something new. When Lies was released I was desperate. I remember being a little disappointed with the “live” side (which had been released in 1987 and wasn’t really live), but I dug the new stuff.

I remember that it took me a while to realize that the voice singing “Patience” was still Axl. The overwhelming acousticness of side two made it seem like an intimate performance in a rehearsal room somewhere, more casual and loose. I got a kick out of Axl’s blatant offensiveness in “One In A Million;” it was so intentional. Like I said, it seemed like a loose get-together, all first takes and goofing around. The lyrics were not very polished (or at times very good), but it was authentic Guns N’ Roses.

Really more an appetizer than a meal, Lies was greedily snapped up and devoured, but ended up just making me hungry for more. The songs didn’t hit as hard as the ones on Appetite, even with the addition of the live tracks, so they didn’t really satisfy. I remember thinking of the release as a place holder for the “real” new album, but that ended up taking another two years to arrive, and when it did, it was its own disappointment. I suppose that I had an underlying worry that the band was releasing Lies because it was in no way cohesive enough to survive much longer.

Later

by Michael Small

Guns N’ Roses were a really big deal to the boys in my class in grades seven and eight. The over-the-top cursing and lurid sexism in Axl Rose’s lyrics were kind of the ultimate exciting, forbidden thing for boys to hear at that age, and GN’ R albums were a lot easier to get than porn (though in my 18-and-over life, I still have never bought porn). We all probably figured that if any of our parents knew what we were listening to, they’d take those records away—which was at least half of the band’s appeal to us.

I already had both Use Your Illusion records on cassette, so GN’ R Lies was the first CD I ever bought—alongside Gordon, the first Barenaked Ladies album. I’m probably the only person who has ever bought those two records together, but it was 1992, and I was only 13. I was there with my “cool” uncle, who made part of his living reviewing CDs. He got me into Nirvana and REM around the same time. Being with me as I made these purchases may have embarrassed him slightly.

GN’ R Lies was released in 1988, and is two EPs in one—a reissue of 1986’s faux-live Live Like a Suicide, followed by four new, mostly acoustic numbers. “Patience” was the hit, though the record is best known for the controversy generated by its closing song, “One in a Million,” whose lyrics lashed out at “immigrants and faggots” as well as “police and niggers.” I definitely didn’t agree or identify with that song, though I can remember listening to the entire disc many times. I’m not sure how I reconciled those lyrics with my general love of Guns N’ Roses. I probably just ignored them. I was pretty into the dark humor of “Used to Love Her,” and the full-on assault of the first four electric tracks was awesome to listen to as someone who was just getting into rock music.

It’s been years and years since I’ve listened to any of my old Guns N’ Roses records, aside from songs from Appetite for Destruction coming on at the odd party; they’ve just never resonated with me emotionally or nostalgically, the way some other records I first heard in my early and mid-teens do. That mostly has to do with Axl Rose’s lyrics, that, while exciting in their illicit-ness, I could never identify with as a 13-year-old in 1992—something that was cemented when Sloan’s Twice Removed had the opposite effect on me two years later.