Knockin' On Heaven's Door is not a GN' R song, FFS

“Oh you like GN’ R? I love Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door, it's my favorite song of theirs.”

So fuckin’ tired to hear this. SO tired that you’re gonna read a post about this song, which is probably one of the most covered in history. Yes, it’s kind of a nonsense.

Heaven’s Door was first realeased in 1973, on the original soundtrack album for Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. It fastly became a hitin the charts, and therefore synthetized lots of cover versions.

I’m not going to detail all the known cover versions, you got a great list on a famous collaborative online encyclopedia with a name starting with a W and ending with Ikipedia. I’m gonna talk about the ones I really know.

Of course, the Guns N’ Roses versions are well known. In fact, there was 6 different versions officially released, which is consequent considering the quite limited discography of the band. There was a live recording from a 1987 at the Marquee, a first studio take on the Days Of Thunder Soundtrack, the “classic” studio version on Use Your Illusion II, an edited version of this one on the 1998 compilation Use Your Illusion, the unedited Live at The Freddie Mercury Tribute concert version and the heavily patched and remixed version on Live Era 87-89.

When you listen to early Guns N’ Roses bootlegs, it is quite clear that performing this song was a way for the band to please their audience with a well known-anthem that also allowed people to participate. The band never claimed that Bob Dylan was a huge influence on them, and, sonically or lyrically, he really isn’t. Originally, their cover version was merely an electrified version of the song, with an added stripped down-break allowing people to sing, in the middle of the performance. But with the recording of their studio take, things changed a bit, and my dislike for the song became stronger. Mostly thanks to Axl, the touching “naked” track was submerged under layers of keyboards, overdubs. The infamous phone call in the middle of the song, the strange Axl interludes on the Days Of Thunder version really ruined what could have been the reference version of this song. Thankfully, we have a really stunning lead guitar work from Slash, and a rock solid drum track by Matt Sorum who more than Steven Adler really makes the song justice. The quite rare 1998 edit removes the phone call, and things then get a little better.

But with the launch of the monumental Use Your Illusion World Tour in 1991, Guns N’ Roses changed their way of playing the song. They ended up adding a ridiculous “reggae interlude” : if you consider the Zep’s D’Yer Mak’Er ridiculous, just give it a listen. Like the band, their cover became increasingly bloated, self indulgent and finally ridiculous. Knowing that story, it really hurts me when people limit GN’ R carreer to Heaven’s Door, and the Paradise-Jungle-Sweet Child Trinity.

Fuck, the best cover of this song ever is right here : Roxy Music’s Bryan Ferry nails it way better than GN’ R.