8+

"Estranged" by Guns N' Roses which clocks in at 9:24

The following is part 3 of 4 (part 1 HERE, part 2 HERE) in a special series of Guns N' Roses related 8+ posts written by my friend Ryan Vanderboosh.



Estranged

The dull thud of being taken down a peg or two can sometimes serve to open one’s eyes to a quieter sort of beauty. This poignant meditation on humility is deftly punctuated by Slash’s fifth solo (out of seven). None too Rumsfeldian --it’s true-- but as gorgeous, fragile, & irreplacible as a 5,000-year-old Assyrian frieze looted from the National Museum in Baghdad. Here we have the most soap-operatic of the four. Estranged’s virtuosity & unapologetic grandstanding make it the most take-it-or-leave-it.

i’ll take. Much like the sight of a clown costume & the whiff of chloroform will for some conjure memories of losing their virginity, the hallmarks of popping our musical cherry will stir our sympathy forever. (Which is why i fear my younger brother will never get over Dave Matthews, and has a better than average chance of being charged with date-rape before he finishes college.) Quick story: feeling crotchety late one night at a Colombian bar, the soul-crushing progression of Men at Work songs on the overhead tv inexplicably gave way to the Estranged video. At that point where Slash levitates up from what the viewer can only surmise is his jam studio in Atlantis, and those magical plasma-charged electro-dolphins leap into the air above him, crapping out the flaming, headless corpses of Cobain, Hemmingway, and Robespierre --let me tell you, it was a warm blanket made out of chicken soup-flavored Bengay on my nerves. i was a hair’s breadth away from joining FARC, but instead i just got cocked and air-drummed as obnoxiously as i knew how.

(to be continued...)

Buy Use Your Illusion II HERE on Amazon.

EAR FARM's 8+ is a weekly feature that showcases songs longer than 8 minutes. In the recent past these songs were featured on EF's 8+:
Guns N' Roses - "Coma"
Guns N' Roses - "November Rain"
Sleep - "Jerusalem (Pt. 4)"
The Velvet Underground - "The Gift"
Elton John - "Funeral for a Friend / Love Lies Bleeding"
Jenő Jandó - "Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2"
The Temptations - "Take a Stroll Thru Your Mind"
Deerhoof - "Look Away"

To see a full list of every song featured in EAR FARM's 8+ click HERE.