APPETITE FOR DISCUSSION
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SoulMonster
APPETITE FOR DISCUSSION
Welcome to Appetite for Discussion -- a Guns N' Roses fan forum!

Please feel free to look around the forum as a guest, I hope you will find something of interest. If you want to join the discussions or contribute in other ways then you need to become a member. We especially welcome anyone who wants to share documents for our archive or would be interested in translating or transcribing articles and interviews.

Registering is free and easy.

Cheers!
SoulMonster

Nightrain

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Nightrain Empty Nightrain

Post by Soulmonster Wed Aug 04, 2010 1:50 pm

Nightrain Newbor11
NIGHTRAIN
Album:
Appetite for Destruction, 1987, track no. 3.



Written by:
Most of the lyrics written by Axl; Izzy and Slash came up wit the main guitar riffs, then Duff, Steven Axl and Izzy flashed out the arrangement.

Musicians:
Vocals: Axl Rose; lead guitar: Slash; rhythm guitar: Izzy Stradlin; bass: Duff McKagan; drums: Steven Adler.

Live performances:
The song was played live for the first time on December 20, 1985, at The Music Machine, Hollywood, USA. All incarnations of Guns N' Roses have played this song live. In total it has, as of {UPDATEDATE}, at least been played {NIGHTRAINSONGS} times.
Lyrics:

Loaded like a freight train
Flyin' like an aeroplane
Feelin' like a space brain
One more time tonight

Well I'm a west coast struttin'
One bad mother
Got a rattlesnake suitcase
Under my arm
Said I'm a mean machine
Been drinkin' gasoline
And honey you can make my motor hum

I got one chance left
In a nine live cat
I got a dog eat dog sly smile
I got a Molotov cocktail with a match to go
I smoke my cigarette with style
And I can tell you honey
You can make my money tonight

Wake up late honey put on your clothes
Take your credit card to the liquor store
That's one for you and two for me by tonight
I'll be
       
Loaded like a freight train
Flyin' like an aeroplane
Feelin' like a space brain
One more tonight

I'm on the nightrain
Bottoms up
I'm on the nightrain
Fill my cup
I'm on the nightrain
Ready to crash and burn
I never learn
I'm on the nightrain
I love that stuff
I'm on the nightrain
I can never get enough
I'm on the nightrain
Never to return - no!

Loaded like a freight train
Flyin' like an aeroplane
Feelin' like a space brain
One more tonight

I'm on the nightrain
An I'm lookin' for some
I'm on the nightrain
So's I can leave this slum
I'm on the nightrain
And I'm ready to crash an' burn
I'm on the nightrain
Bottoms up
I'm on the nightrain
Fill my cup
I'm on the nightrain
Whoa yeah
I'm on the nightrain
Love that stuff
I'm on the nightrain
An I can never get enough
Ridin' the nightrain
I guess I
I guess, I guess, I guess I never learn
On the nightrain
Float me home
Ooh I'm on the nightrain
Ridin' the nightrain
Never to return
Nightrain


Quotes regarding the song and its making:

Talking about writing the song:

Well, when we were, like, on the skids and really down and out living in L.A., we had no money, no jobs, so we could barely afford to live in the little studio that we were playing in. So, you know, since you couldn’t afford to go out and buy a case of beer or a bottle of Jack, because that was just like way out of our reach, you could get a bottle of Nightrain for, like, $1.75 and you’d get way fucked up on it - or drunk (laughs). We used to buy tons of this stuff. And one night, when we were really screwed up - we were, like, floored one night and we started singing it, and it just came together.

We made cool [concert] flyers and, in addition to sending them to people on our list, we posted them all over the city. We always posted flyers as a band, at night. The first time I discovered Night Train wine was one one of these epic nocturnal flyerings campaigns - which were best accomplished while drinking from a brown paper bag. Afterward I was happy to find that the liquor store around the corner from our storage space also stocked it. At $1.29 a bottle, Night Rain instantly became a band staple; we started piecing together the song 'Nightrain' a week later while rehearsing before another flyer-posting outing.
Duff' autobiography, "It's So Easy", 2011, p. 90

We wrote Nightrain walking on Sunset Boulevard, from the Rainbow and the Roxy, passing out flyers on our way to The Troubadour, drinking it. We were all on the Nightrain. It was a dollar and nine cents for the bottle. It was all we could afford.
Marc Canter: Reckless Road

'Nightrain' is just like 'Welcome to the Jungle'; it's very indicative of what the band's all about. I remember when it first came together, we'd hitchhiked to the Rainbow and were walking down to the Troubadour and we just started yelling "Nightrain", because we were drinking it.
Geffen Press Kit, 1987

Nightrain was very much a two-guitar thing, and when I worked on that with Izzy that was one of the only times that we actually sat down. He had his single-note thing and I beefed it up with something heavier.
Total Guitar Magazine, December 2004

'Night Train' was pieced together from a few different moments. I remember first working on the main riff of that song with Izzy [/i](...). [i]We didn't know where the song was going  and we didn't have any kind of subject in mind, but the groove was so right and we locked in and felt it out (...). Izzy played Duff what we'd done and Duff worked on it, filling out  the groove and making our riffs into a proper instrumental. None of us had any words in mind for this piece , but we were very inspired by it and it floated around in the band's consciousness until it found the appropriate vessel, which happened to be a celebration of our favorite drink, Night Train.
Bozza, Anthony, & Slash (2007). Slash. Harper Entertainment: New York. pp. 119

'Nightrain' is a funny story. We wrote the chorus when Izzy, Axl and I were walking around Hollywood drinking Night Rain. At the time, it was just sort of a day in the life. Then Izzy and I were hanging out at this little studio apartment we used to live in and we got the basic arrangement down. Then I got the flu or strep or something, and Duff, Axl, Izzy and Steve managed to get more of the arrangement down without me. I remember being completely pissed because I couldn't be there. I hated missing anything. [...] if I were to play that [end] solo now, it would be way more fluid. But part of the beauty about that solo is that I wasn't technically capable of playing as fast as the song was going, so the solo has a little bit more of a rocky feel to it, which is cool.
Guitar Edge Magazine, March 2007

I moved into this apartment building and my next-door neighbor was West Arkeen, this crazy little guitar-player guy, this little freak. He went to the Guitar Institute a couple blocks from our house, and he came out of the Institute, and there was some guy selling an Alesis drum machine and a four-track cassette recorder. It was apparently Sheila E.’s bus driver. Somehow he got stiffed and he’s like, “Fuck it, I’m selling this shit.” So West comes home with this drum machine, [and] we figured out how to use the stuff. The demo of “It’s So Easy” was pretty great. West at this exact same time had taught me how to tune the guitar to open E. We used like, every feature on the drum machine: cowbell, woodblock, and everything on this demo. I sang it, tuned the guitars, put the drum track on, and it was just this cool little lazy summertime hit. West and I would recall all these “summertime hits,” we’d call them. I had an apartment and West had an apartment before we had a rehearsal space, and it became an encampment for about two months for the band. “It’s So Easy,” “Yesterdays,” and I think “14 Years,” a lot of songs were recorded on West’s four-track. I think “You’re Crazy” came out on the West four-track. Sitting in an apartment, we’d play a lot of acoustic guitars, so I think “Easy” was recorded on acoustic guitar. Thing about our songs, we played ’em all on acoustic guitar. “Night Train,” we wrote on acoustic guitar. Because we’d write them in little cramped apartments.
The Onion A.V. Club, May 2011

While Tex's band sound-checked, Axl, Joe [Raz' brother], and I headed out to the back alley to do some drinking exercises. The guys had recently gotten into cheap wine, Night Train Express, and when Joe returned from a nearby liquor store with two bottles of that crap, Axl cracked open a bottle, took a big swig, smiled like a spectacular sunset over the glimmering ocean, and said, "This stuff is the best. We should do a song about it."

He whipped out his harmonica and tooted, "dant da na-na dant-dah," then proceeded to scribble into his notebook at warp speed. A few minutes later, he sang us his latest musing. I really thought he was kidding around, but no one should ever underestimate the power of cheap wine consumed in an alley. Within the hour, Guns N' Roses was working the song out during their sound check. "Night Rain" made it into the set that very evening, and for a period of time seemed to be their unofficial song.
Raz Cue, "The Days of Guns, & Raz's", 2015, p. 230-231

Well, when that song first happened, it started with Izzy [Stradlin] playing the single-note melody. And then I came up with the three note chords that sort of mirror that and made it into a dual guitar kind of thing. And it was a band thing from that point on. But that was really Izzy's little melody that we embellished.


Introducing the song:

Alright, this is a new one that we have, that we pinned at sound check today. This one is called 'Nightrain'.
Music Machine, December 20, 1985

Alright, this next one is brand new. It's dedicated to alcoholics anonymous. You buy it in your fuckin' liqour stores. It is nineteen percent alcohol and it's called 'Nightrain'.
The Troubadour, January 4, 1986


Talking about the song:

It's a dollar a bottle, nineteen percent alcohol. Drink a quart of it and you'll blackout.
Geffen Press Kit, 1987

Great rhythm. "Nightrain" just rocks. Personally, I like the guitar solo in it. I like that part of the song because me and Duff are rockin'. Has more feel to it than just a machine.
Geffen Press Kit, 1987

We were living in the Gardner Street studio, this place where we had one little box of a room. We had no money, but we could dig up a buck to go down to this liquor store where they sold this great wine called "Night Rain" that would fuck you up for a dollar. Five dollars and you'd be gone. We lived off this stuff.
Geffen Press Kit, 1987

Nightrain was the commercially available, tangible product that we could afford at our expense. The other stuff was a little more complicated, but Nightrain was just a simple beverage that we could get with very little money and in great quantity and live on. I think at the time, since we couldn't afford booze and food, it had enough supplements that we could survive on it alone.
Marc Canter: Reckless Road

That song has a rhythm to it in the verses that from the start always made me go crazy. The first time we played it, even, I started jumping up and down - I couldn't help it. When we had our huge stage later on, I'd run the length of it, jump off the amplifiers, and lose it just about every single time we played it. I'm not sure why, but no other song we've ever played live made me move like that.
Bozza, Anthony, & Slash (2007). Slash. Harper Entertainment: New York. pp. 119

Nightrain just works. There is no other song that drives like Nightrain.

[Asked about his favorite GN'R song] I gotta go back to my first favorite, which was Nighttrain.

And Nightrain is a great song, you know, like the super... And it brings up a really fun memory of those, you know, going out and flyering and and drinking Night Train. That's the reason you say you're on the Night Train, because it wasn't just booze, it was like so much sugar and they must have dozed it with something else. Acid or something, I'm not sure.


Nightrain Newbor11


Last edited by Soulmonster on Fri Oct 04, 2024 2:08 am; edited 12 times in total
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Nightrain Empty Re: Nightrain

Post by Soulmonster Sun Apr 08, 2018 4:27 am

Raz mentioned how the band came up with Nightrain during the sound check to the Music Machine gig at December 20, 1985:

While Tex's band sound-checked, Axl, Joe [Raz' brother], and I headed out to the back alley to do some drinking exercises. The guys had recently gotten into cheap wine, Night Train Express, and when Joe returned from a nearby liquor store with two bottles of that crap, Axl cracked open a bottle, took a big swig, smiled like a spectacular sunset over the glimmering ocean, and said, "This stuff is the best. We should do a song about it."

He whipped out his harmonica and tooted, "dant da na-na dant-dah," then proceeded to scribble into his notebook at warp speed. A few minutes later, he sang us his latest musing. I really thought he was kidding around, but no one should ever underestimate the power of cheap wine consumed in an alley. Within the hour, Guns N' Roses was working the song out during their sound check. "Night Rain" made it into the set that very evening, and for a period of time seemed to be their unofficial song
[Raz Cue, "The Days of Guns, & Raz's", 2015, p. 230-231].
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Post by Soulmonster Sun Apr 08, 2018 4:48 am

It would be interesting to hear how this first version of Nightrain sounded. Played live only hours after coming up with it. Although, it could of course be that the band had come up with riffs, melodies, etc, earlier that became parts of the song when it all came together at soundcheck.

Anyone heard it? Is it on Youtube?
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Nightrain Empty Re: Nightrain

Post by FRANSAD Mon Jun 10, 2019 12:28 pm

Here is a small clip from the intro of Nightrain from that gig. As far as i know it's the only circulating piece of audio from that show, the rest is in Canter's hands. Him hoarding all those shows is a crime against humanity!!!!!

nightrain intro
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Post by Blackstar Mon Jun 10, 2019 1:28 pm

FRANSAD wrote:Here is a small clip from the intro of Nightrain from that gig. As far as i know it's the only circulating piece of audio from that show, the rest is in Canter's hands. Him hoarding all those shows is a crime against humanity!!!!!

nightrain intro

Wow, thanks for this!
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Nightrain Empty Re: Nightrain

Post by Soulmonster Mon Jun 10, 2019 2:55 pm

FRANSAD wrote:Here is a small clip from the intro of Nightrain from that gig. As far as i know it's the only circulating piece of audio from that show, the rest is in Canter's hands. Him hoarding all those shows is a crime against humanity!!!!!

nightrain intro

THANK YOU! Amazing to hear. A bit slower, it seems.

Marc sent me a few more clips than just the Perfect Crime clip that I received... I suppose I will have to go through my files to see if I can find them again.
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Post by Soulmonster Fri Jan 08, 2021 9:45 am

New quote from Slash on Nightrain:

Well, when we were, like, on the skids and really down and out living in L.A., we had no money, no jobs, so we could barely afford to live in the little studio that we were playing in. So, you know, since you couldn’t afford to go out and buy a case of beer or a bottle of Jack, because that was just like way out of our reach, you could get a bottle of Nightrain for, like, $1.75 and you’d get way fucked up on it - or drunk (laughs). We used to buy tons of this stuff. And one night, when we were really screwed up - we were, like, floored one night and we started singing it, and it just came together.
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Post by Soulmonster Tue May 23, 2023 12:48 pm

[Asked about his favorite GN'R song] I gotta go back to my first favorite, which was Nighttrain.
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Post by Soulmonster Fri Oct 04, 2024 2:08 am

Well, when that song first happened, it started with Izzy [Stradlin] playing the single-note melody. And then I came up with the three note chords that sort of mirror that and made it into a dual guitar kind of thing. And it was a band thing from that point on. But that was really Izzy's little melody that we embellished. [...] And one great thing about working with Izzy was that his approach was always very, very simple. It was a sort of primitive kind of a thing where if it caught my ear, I would be able to counter it with something that was a little bit more chunky. [...] That's one of the great things about Izzy—his little parts would really inspire me sometimes. And “Nightrain" was one of those kinds of things.
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