Live And Let Die

by **Soulmonster** Fri Aug 06, 2010 9:31 am

LIVE AND LET DIE

Album:
Use Your Illusion I, 1991, track no. 3.

Written by:
Paul McCartney and Linda McCartney.

Musicians:
Drums: Matt
Bass: Duff
Lead and Rhythm Guitars / 6-String Bass: Slash
Rhythm Guitar: Izzy
Piano: Dizzy
Synthesizer Programmers: Johann Langlie, Axl
Vocals / Keyboards: Axl
Horns: Matthew McKagan, Rachel West, Robert Clark, Jon Trautwein
Background Vocals: Axl, Shannon Hoon

Live performances:
The song was played for the first time at Warfield Theatre, USA, on May 9, 1991. Since then it has been a fixture on the set-lists. In total it has, as of {UPDATEDATE}, at least been played {LALDSONGS} times.

Lyrics:

When you were young and your heart was an open book
You used to say live and let live
You know you did
You know you did
You know you did
But if this ever changin world in which we live in
Makes you give in and cry

Say live and let die
Live and let die

What does it matter to ya
When ya got a job to do
Ya got to do it well
You got to give the other fella hell

You used to say live and let live
You know you did
You know you did
You know you did

But if this ever changin world in which we live in
Makes you give in and cry
Say live and let die
Live and let die

Quotes regarding the song and its making:

I thought about [covering Live and Let Die] once a long time ago but just thought you would never be able to get that the way it sounds, that well. [...] And then I ran at the movie [The James Bond movie ' Live and Let Die'], I was watching it, and this song comes and it's like 'Welcome to the Jungle 2'. [...] And it just felt right so we ended up playing it a little bit, in rehearsal, and it started working, and now we've actually gone and start recording it and finding out that 'Wait, we are good enough to play this song.' We didn't think we were. We didn't think we were good enough to get it done right, but Slash is doing most of the string arrangements on guitar with a harmonizer. To me it's like Tom Waits meets Metallica, it's the way I sing it, so rough and scratchy, like I sound like Tom Waits. It's working out really good, it sounds like us. Everybody who hears it thinks that it sounds like the perfect song for us.

Famous Last Words, MTV, 1990

[…]it was a song that Axl really dug and I really dug and Axl came in and said: 'What do you think about 'Live and Let Die'?' And I said: `Yeah, it's been on my mind for the last year.'

VOX, January 1991

We have pretty varied musical tastes. I mean, collectively, I couldn't name in a week what we listen to Er, '...Heaven's Door' was something that came out of the blue because I liked the song and Axl liked it but we'd never talked about it. One day it came up and we were talking on the phone and I said, 'You wanna do that? Great!'. We did it at The Marquee for the first time, 'Live And Let Die' was the exact same thing. I went to rehearsal after Axl and I had talked about it and tried to see if the band could play it and make it sound good and Axl came in, heard what we were doing and just loved it. That's how it happened. It's cool, you know!?! [laughs]

RAW, October 1991

Yeah, I grew up on [The Beatles and Paul McCartney], you know, and appreciated it. But one of the main reasons we did Live and Let Die... There’s a few reasons. One, because a critic in L.A. was bagging on all the James Bond songs, and how they were all great, but Live and Let Die was a terrible song. And so we kinda decided that maybe he needed to hear that for another five years (chuckles). […] You know, cuz we knew that if we did it, we did it well; and this person would have to hear it. Another reason was that it was something to shoot for, you know, in quality; and also, you know, if we could show that we could do that kind of song, it would, like, show the quality in the rest of our songs. Another thing is like, you know, it was kind of –not much, but a little bit of a hard pill to swallow- that we consider Welcome to the Jungle 2 is Live and Let Die, and it’s somebody else [that] wrote it, not us. […] You know, but that’s kinda like a more mature version of Welcome to the Jungle, to at least Slash and I.

Rockline, November 27, 1991

It's one of those songs, like 'Heaven's Door,' that Axl and I have always loved. It's always been a really heavy song, but we'd never discussed it, and didn't know that we each liked it. We were talking one night about a cover song and that came up, and we're like, "Yeah! Let's do it!" So I went to rehearsal with Izzy and Matt and Duff, just to see whether we could sound good playing it, and it sounded really heavy. It's actually heavier when we play it live than it is on the record, because of the horns and synthesizer. Live it's got more bottom to it.

Guitar, April, 1992

Really the same thing that inspired us to do Heaven’s Door – because everybody used to ask us why we did that. It was a song that I just grew up loving and Axl really dug, but we never talked about it. And somewhere before we went to rehearsals or pre-production to do the Illusion records, we got to talking about different songs and that song came up, so it was mutual. So we went into rehearsal to see if we can make it sound half decent, just to give it credit where credit’s due, and it sounded good. So that was that.

BBC, May 31, 1993

[About Axl's fondness for synths and keyboard during the production of the Illusion albums]: When we did 'Live And Let Die,' it was all synths - those horns are not horns. What Axl did there was really complex; he spent hours dialing all of that shit in, getting the nuances just right, and I have to give him that.

Bozza, Anthony, & Slash (2007). Slash. Harper Entertainment: New York, pp 318

This is a song that we recorded as a present for Mr. Paul McCartney... And also because this Los Angeles critic was writing about all the James Bond songs [...] which ones were good... and how Paul McCartney's was the worst, pop, pussy type Bond song ever written. And I kind of thought "Well, if that's the case, maybe homeboy needs to hear it for five more fucking years! This is 'Live and Let Die'...

The Forum, in Inglewood, CA, USA, July 30, 1991

by **Soulmonster** Sat Jun 01, 2019 10:24 am

A review of sorts in Kerrang! in December 1991:

ZODY: The worst thing Axl Rose ever did was have the therapy. If this is what the cure leads to, for fuck's sake stop taking the tablets! How anybody can think that Paul McCartney is hip, it's not even bad taste! That was a very bad mistake, Axl. What a turkey! How on earth he got Slash to agree to doing this I've no idea.

CAL: I've never been into 'em, and I don't like those styles of vocals at all. To me it sounded like the Barron Knights, with Slash playing guitar!

DAVE: What have the Barron Knights ever done to you?!

by **Soulmonster** Tue Jan 05, 2021 1:25 pm

New quote from Slash:

Heaven’s Door was something that came out of the blue, because I liked the song and Axl liked it, but we’d never talked about it. One day it came up and we were talking on the phone, and I was like, “You want to do that?! Great!” We did it at the Marquee for the first time. Then Live and Let Die was the same situation, exact same thing. I went to a rehearsal after Axl and I talked about it, I tried to see if the band could play it and make it sound good, and Ax came in, he heard it and we rocked out of it, and that’s how it happened. And it’s cool, you know; I really dig it.

ITV Raw Power, August 31, 1991

by ludurigan Sun Oct 01, 2023 9:17 am

"This is a song that we recorded as a present for Mr. Paul McCartney... And also because this Los Angeles critic was writing about all the James Bond songs [...] which ones were good... and how Paul McCartney's was the worst, pop, pussy type Bond song ever written. And I kind of thought "Well, if that's the case, maybe homeboy needs to hear it for five more fucking years! This is 'Live and Let Die'..."

(Axl Rose introduces 'Live and Let Die' during the Guns n' Roses show at The Forum, in Inglewood, CA, USA, July 30, 1991)

Very Happy

Starts around 16m05s on the video below

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