Here Today... Gone To Hell!

For the first time someone has identified the source of the "Peruvian Guerilla General" quote from UIY2's "Civil War." It turns out Axl is directly quoting from a leader in the Shining Path group, who told the Chicago Tribune in 1989 that his group was "annihilating mayors and government officials, for example, to create a vacuum."

http://ask.metafilter.com/248027/Who-is-the-Peruvian-guerilla-general-quoted-in-this-Guns-N-Roses-song

Interesting.  I guess Axl was in or near Chicago when that paper came out?  I would certainly like to hear more from Axl on the backstory of his one time brother in laws arms dealing that led to him writing this song. 

I thought Raid was about his brother in law.

That article was actually quite interesting. Thanks!

They did some preproduction and writing for UYI in Chicago (as detailed on Slash & Duff's books) so very possible.

Did their Chicago UYI sessions go back that far in 89?  Also possible that he was back in Indiana as I would think the Chicago Tribune is big paper there.

Wow, this is a amazing find. Always cool to find out tidbits like this, and it all makes things seem clearer and more complete knowing where phrases originated from.

Axl's brother inlaw was an arms dealer, as in a gun smuggler?

The song was partially written by Duff.

Yes, it was late 89 and early 90. As Axldemocracy said Slash, Duff and Steven began wrinting the song as well as others in Chicago. Axl wanted them to be in Chicago so it woould be closer to Indiana than L.A. Izzy was in Indiana at that time in rehab. And for everyone to be away from L.A. and their drug dealers. Still according to Slash and Duff books things didn?t go smooth

I think the title of the thread is amusing, as when I first read it I thought someone was going to tell us that the intro part "What we got here is failure to communicate" etc, is from Cool Hand Luke.  :hihi: