A Review of Unreleased Songs by Guns N' Roses

In this brief article, I wish to take a look at past leaks by Guns n' Roses, since many of these songs are relatively unknown. While few songs are true gems, there are those that are, and thus I will offer a quick review of unreleased studio material by the band between 1987 and 1993.

While Guns n' Roses recorded more than 12 songs for "Appetite For Destruction", there are no demos of unreleased songs available from these recordings. There are, however, demos of "November Rain" available from those days. One demo is piano based, while perhaps more interesting is an acoustic demo by the band.

Four known unreleased songs exists from this era, however. Two are covers, one of Elvis' "Heartbreak Hotel", the other a Rolling Stones' cover of "Jumpin' Jack Flash". Both versions are hard hitting and fairly similar to the other in style. It is possible to find extremely high quality versions of these tracks, and even if the versions are not at the Appetite For Destruction-level, they definitely sound good! I would consider these interesting even for casual fans.

At some old bootlegs, you may also find an acoustic version of "Jumpin' Jack Flash". The song may have been considered for "Lies", although this is not known. Both the audio quality of the available demo and the quality of the version is, however, lower than the higher quality, faster version.

Another acoustic song from the "Lies" sessions is "Cornshucker". The song was probably written by Duff and it has explicit lyrics. Note that I do not support those stickers and when I say it does, I mean it. The song is about sexual diseases and if you manage to see the humor, however, it's somewhat fun. An extremely high quality version of this song is available.

Looking at the "Use Your Illusion"-sessions, the band recorded several old songs. One of these are "Ain't Goin' Down", which you can also find an instrumental version of from the early days. I would rate this version higher than the lyrics version, although both are somewhat cool. Other songs from "Use Your Illusion" includes "Sentimental Movie" (a weird, yet somewhat cool song which Duff is singing), "Bring It Back Home" (a Slash riff with an underdeveloped song), "Too Much Too Soon" (another weird song that seems to be going nowhere) and "Just Another Sunday". While the latter is another underdeveloped song, I believe it showed some promise. It is probably an Axl song, and my guess is that it is some of what we will hear on "Chinese Democracy" in that song.

The real gem from the "Use Your Illusion" albums is a song titled "Crash Diet", however. This song only features Axl, Duff and possibly Izzy with a drum machine and band friend West Arkeen playing lead guitar. It is great however, and unfortunately, the band claims they forgot the song.