Here Today... Gone To Hell!

Hello, i hope i'm allowed to post this message in this forum. But because it is a gnr song i guess its ok. Well i have to do a class assignment for my humanties class. People are going to bring in lyrics and the actual song and were going to study the lyrics. I chose to do Coma by GNR. Now can anyone tell me any information about the song? Besides that its about Axl's Past. Thanks

www.gnrinfo.tk


Coma

Drums / Percussion: Matt
Bass: Duff
Lead and Rhythm Guitar: Slash
Rhythm Guitar: Izzy
Vocals: Axl
Sound Effects: Bruce Foster, Johann
Bitches: Susanne Filkins, Patricia Fuenzalida, Rose Mann, Monica Zierhut-Soto, Michelle Loiselle, Diane Mitchell


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Audio: N/A

Single: No
Video: No

Written by: "Coma" was written by Axl and Slash. Axl wrote the lyrics, while Slash wrote the music, probably with some influence from Axl.
Written in: "Coma" was written in or before 1990.

Performed live: "Coma" was played live at least 4 times between 1991 and 1993. It was performed live for the first time in Richfield, OH, June 4, 1991.

Addiional Information: "Coma" was originally called "Girth"

In Their Own Words:

Slash: I wrote some really cool shit when I was high. There's a song called "Coma", a long song, really heavy, and I wrote that loaded.

Duff: We have actually got this song calld "Girth"... Well, it's not going to be called "Girth" on the album, it'll get changed, but it's such a heavy song we call it "Girth" for now. It's named after this guy West [Arkeen], who writes with us sometimes. He's a real little fucker, right? but his dick, it's only about this long but it's like this wide, man! so he got the girth, right? so we call this song "girth"...'

Axl: It's like 11 minutes and 45 seconds long, with no chorus. And I think there was only like one verse that somewhat repeats itself. It's Slash's baby - it's his monster. The song used to be called Girth.

Izzy: It's fuckin' 15 minutes long. And I still don't know it, man. I have to take a special chord chart with me whenever we play it. There's like 50 chords at the end of it and I just can't follow them.

Axl: Writing "Coma" on "Use Your Illusion I" was so heavy I'd start to write and I'd just pass out. I tried to write that song for a year, and couldn't. I went to write it at the studio and passed out. I woke up two hours later and sat down and wrote the whole end of the song, like, just off the top of my head. It was like, don't even know what's coming out, man, but it's coming. I think one of the best things that I've ever written was maybe the end segment of the song "Coma". It just poured out. I thanked Slash for that, because I used to curse him, going, "Man, that son of a bitch has written this thing and I've got to write to it and don't know what to write." It was so hard; it made me feel like, "I don't know how to write, I should just quit." But I finally did write it, and I ended up feeling a lot better about a lot of situations that I expressed in that song.

Slash: I like "Coma" a lot. It's got a defibrillator in it - you know, the instrument that starts your heart when it's stopped. And there's some EKG beeps too. We were just fucking around, but the song is heavy, and Axl's vocals are gorgeous - I mean really amazing.

Axl: I started writing about when I OD'ed 4 years ago. And the reason I OD'ed was cos of stress - I couldn't take it. And
I just grabbed this bottle of pills, in an argument, and just gulped them down. And I ended up in the hospital. But I liked that I wasn't in the fight anymore. And I was fully concious that I was leaving. I liked that. But then I go - all of the sudden my first real thoughts were that 'ok, you havn't toured enough, the records not gonna last, it's gonna be forgotten, listen man, you have work to do. Get out of this!' And I went 'no', and I woke up, and pulled myself out of it.
But in the describing of that, some people could take it wrong, and think this means 'go put yourself into a coma'. And, so, it's really tricky, and I'm still playing with the words, to figure like, how to show some hope in there.

Duff: "Coma" is monstrous!

Slash: Mike put something on the little rhythm part between the chords. I don't know what he used. I was going for a certain kind of a sound. Since I don't use effects, I don't know anything about them, except for echoes. I told him what I wanted, and he managed to pull it out of his rack somehow.

Gilby: "Coma" [gave me most trouble] without doubt. I still don't know it. It's like this 15- or 20-minute song with no
repeats. Oddly enough, I really love playing "Coma" because it's different every time. I also like "Pretty Tied Up" and "Locomotive." I like playing the fast, hard ones.

great song : ok: welcome 2 d board :peace:

Thats from his interview with loader and stuff?

Coma by far and away is my favorite Guns N Roses song. It is a masterpiece. This song is very under-rated.

It's funny... I was trying to play this song in my guitar today, but forgot the chords, lol. I thought: "fuckin' slash, this is too damn long to play!!".   :hihi:
Still, I LOVE to listen and to play this song.  8)

 ? Wow, that's a great choice of songs! ?You're going to have a blast discussing that one! ?More useless trivia about Coma: ?the doctor who actually treated Axl after an o.d. has his voice on the track during the treatment sequence.

 ? Have fun! ?I think this song has alot to say about Axl and his relationship with the world...even almost 15 years after the song was written!

-Axl4Prez ?:beer:

This is song is actually very important to me in a way. I was totally stressing things and i listened to it and wow i just kinda disappeared into my own little world like Axl did. BTW I SAW VR YESTERDAY! SLASH,DUFF, AND MATT OWNED. WEILAND ROCKS.

Without a doubt, one of my all time favorite GnR tracks. It's basically two songs in one(imo). The first part deals with going down into the coma, the second, fighting for life. Love it, love it, love it.

Izzy's comments about the song are hillaroius  :rofl:

Could you imagine the guy while playing the song live saying something like "Slash stop right there, what's next a G or C"?

Thanks for posting Izzy. I'd never read these comments before. :)

HAHAHA!  No.

were you there ? NO.

Why not? Just because Axl wasn't really a music writer didn't mean he didn't have influence in how he wanted things to sound.

slash wrote all the music for it. "It's Slash's baby - it's his monster" - Axl.

Slash is a well-known liar and misled Axl. The truth is that Axl wrote the whole song.

 ???

Read the quote again, I think you misunderstood it. It says that AXL said the song was Slash's baby, not that SLASH did. If Axl wrote the song, he would be the liar according to your quote from 2Na.

This was my point here.  Slash wrote it all.  I just laughed because people on this board usually have a tendancy do say "Axl helped..." or "Axl brought it out of...." or "Axl made it what it is..." etc.

They can't just allow someone else to have written one of the best peices of music GnR has ever had, without Axl's input (which with Coma, is extremely common knowledge).

Well clearly Axl was involved, he didn't spend months writing this thing just to accept whatever Slash gave him, Coma is their combined talents, and virtually all the other songs where to......

Loved reading all those quotes from the band, are there any morne about the other Illusion songs?

Coma and Estranged are my fav GN'R songs, just so deep and so fuckin heavy.
It makes me sad that we'll never hear any more Axl/Slash collaborations like that anymore.

i agree totally metallex

estranged is number 1
coma a close 2nd on my all time fav GNR songs


its so emotional and deep and really pulls me outta the funk

i listen to Oh My God first for the rage
then i listen to Coma for the anger and confusion
then i listen to Estranged for the misery and then for the hope

a great formula for when u feel like shit!!!!!!!

Lets not start this again.

If by 'wrote' you mean lyrics.. yes Axl wrote the song. Slash wrote the music. Some influence from Axl simply means that Slash would have taken on board Axl's comments about how the music might accompany these lyrics from his point. Simple.

in this case i think axl wrote the amazing lyrics but had no hand in arranging the music


axl said that slash wrote the music and he had that music to write lyrics too.

so every single bit of music was already wrote when axl got it to work on the lyrics.


Axl isnt a guitarist, Slash isnt an incompetent baphoon*sp* that cant do shit without axl standing over him.

Slash gave a completed musical track to axl and he wrote the lyrics so u can say without Slash we never wouldve had Coma because Axl never wouldve wrote the lyrics if Slash hadnt done the music first.

So since Coma contains some of Axl's best lyrics to date, can we say Slash helps bring out the best in Axl?? well no not really cause maddy,the blues etc etc are pretty damn amazing.

Slash definitely gets mad props for Coma though.

Of course, I don't think that Axl wrote Coma. Slash wrote the music, Axl wrote the lyrics and maybe it was his idea adding the voices and noises. I just wanted to be faster than some 'GN'R fans' who have the tendency saying that Axl was Guns N' Roses, and every credit goes to him.

Coma is definately among the big 3 in GN'R's songs.
Coma
Estranged
Madagascar (not even a studio version yet, but still love it)
Three epics that I can listen to over and over.
"Kind of like it in this Coma, cause I never wannnaaaaa...come back to this....worrrllldd aggaaainnn...."

you're not the only one.

i tell u what madagascar is the new estranged in some ways for me


if people could just open their minds and relate their lives to those quotes instead of being close minded and writing them off as the MLK quotes they would really appreciate that song 100 times more.

i use to hate the quotes simply cause i didnt listen, i didnt realize what axl was tryin to do with those quotes how he pieced together different dialogue from movies to tell a story

i mean how fuckin genius is that? honestly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

so now that song has very very deep meanin to me.

Make up your damned minds, people.  :D

Coma--one of the best artistic songs of our time--very experiemental--like a journey.
When I was younger, I would listen to this song with my eyes closed and make-up a visual plot line for this--sorta like a mini movie....
this should've been part of the trilogy (or rather tetragy??) of don't cry/n. rain/estranged videos!
Axl's voice and genuis lyrics are so touching---so yearning!  :yes:
Slash's guitars reach new levels here as well.
Voice and guitar are intertwined here!  (so please let's not pitch the two genuises against each other!)
oh, and thanks for the 2nd post with the quotes!  nice : ok:

Coma obviously ROCKS!!!

,y favorite part is the outro: "Live your life like its a coma...."
that whole ending, lyrically, is amazing.

i love the intro music and chord changes: A to Am, G to Gm, F to Fm...very cool

Slash's solo is totally intense...those bends just make me wanna pass out every time i hear the solo

Its nice to see Axl n Slash shine here, for one of the last times ever

at the beginning, when axl starts

hey you cought me in a coma -there's some really great guitar behind that

i wish they played that for a run b4 the vocals kicked in

otherwise- the song rocks : ok:

Problem for me is that im shit scared that nothing on CD will even compare to Coma, Axl set the bar so high with that one that its gonna be real hard to beat.

Haha, funny thing just happened. I read the info on the song then decided to put it on, then decided to have a look on that website and was reading on some songs for what seemed like ages... I was really getting lost in the moment of reading the info on some songs and then snapped out of it and realised Coma was still going... I laughed.

Damn just put Coma on again, It's such a dark song Axl's lyrics are pure poetry : ok:. It really is one of my favourite Guns songs :drool:

I know it's a long song, but I'm surprised they didn't do it more live in concert.

Read the quote again - and its been said for years that it was the combined effort of the two.  I somewhat doubt that Axl created this one on his piano.

I agree 100%. My favorite GN'R song as well.

Estranged is heavy? There's a piano solo!


Loved the quotes. Coma is an underrated giant in the Guns catalog of awesome songs.

Doesn't matter who wrote it. The song is fuckin awesome and that's what counts.

Thanks , you make me wanted to ear this song again : ok:

Of all the big songs on the UYI albums i prefer Estranged and Locamotive most of all. I was never really into November Rain, it's one of the songs that gets played too much). Coma is good, although i only really like the song from the middle to the end. I simply don't have the patience to wade though the first half, way too dragged out for my liking, which brings me convienetly onto T.W.A.T. Boring intro, slow, boring, but half way though the song is amazing and feels like it's about to end, and it don't end, it keeps on going and going and going  :beer:  and the end is so suited to Slash (too bad)

Coma is the most fantastic creation of the whole nineties.
That's why I always choose Use Your Illusion I as the best GNR album: Coma and November Rain in one album.
God Bless Axl Rose and his babys.