If The World

by **Soulmonster** Sun Aug 29, 2010 10:47 pm

IF THE WORLD

Albums:

Chinese Democracy, track no. 5, November 2008.

Written by:
Axl Rose and Chris Pitman.

Musicians:
Axl Rose – lead vocals, backing vocals, keyboards, piano, guitar
Robin Finck – lead guitars, keyboards
Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal – lead guitar
Buckethead – lead guitar
Paul Tobias – rhythm guitar, piano
Richard Fortus – rhythm guitar
Tommy Stinson – bass, backing vocals
Dizzy Reed – keyboards, piano, synthesizer, backing vocals
Chris Pitman – keyboards, programming, sub bass, backing vocals, bass, 12 string guitar, mellotron
Bryan "Brain" Mantia – drums, percussion
Frank Ferrer – drums, percussion

Live performances:
'If The World' was played live for the first time on December 11, 2009, in Taiwan. In total it has, as of {UPDATEDATE}, at least been played {IFTHEWORLDSONGS} times.

If The World
From the alternative Red Hand album artwork
Credit to troccoli

If The World
From the alternative Grenade album artwork
Credit to troccoli

Lyrics:

If the world would end today
And all the dreams we had
Would all just drift away
You know there's nothing more to say
if the world would end
And our love slipped away

I never knew the way that you look at me
Would ever mean so much to me
But in my heart I found
The feelings that I've never shown
And now they've
Got the best of me

If the world would end today
then all the dreams we've had
Would all just drift away
You know there's nothing more to say
If the world would end
And our love slipped away

Oooh,
La la ...
La la ...

I never thought all the love I was lookin' for
Could ever be so close to me
But you're the only one
I have ever loved that has ever loved me
And now you've got the best of me

If the world would end today
And all the dreams we had
Would all just drift away
You know there's nothing more to say

If the world would end today
And all the dreams we had
Would all just drift away
You know there's nothing more to say
If the world would end
And our love slipped away
If the world would end
And our love slipped away

Quotes regarding the song

Chris and Axl talking about the song:

That track was particularly good to work on - it was a track that was recorded quickly. We did it very quickly and it felt right to put it on that movie.

DMG, October 2008

It's about Environmental Decay in its Futurist Context.

WickedInfo, November 2008

As with many songs I write, it all started with my old 12 string guitar sitting next to my sofa. I bought these from a pawn shop years ago for $50 and have never changed the strings since. This gave her a pretty bass-heavy sound. I just started with this riff which allows for some pretty cool vocals. Crazy as I am, I recorded this straight onto a drum machine sampler, MPC2000, and edited it in such a way that it sounded almost mechanical.

After that I wrote the drums with a dub/reggae beat, hitting the second and fourth beats really hard. After that I went to my studio and added strings, piano, bass, echo guitar, synth and sub-bass. I gave Axl the recordings and he added his part by recording the vocals in a single night. When I heard what he had done with the material, I was completely blown away. I've never heard a song like this before - that's the way it is to this day. Later we added guitar solos as a "spice on top" so to speak.

Neue Rheinische Zeitung, December 17, 2008

You know, there’s people… some people like the song and they heard it earlier and thought it might work for, like, a Bond movie or something. And that’s kind of how the song happened, basically trying to kinda write a combination between James Bond and black exploitation films of the ‘70s. And then you might notice, “You know, that chorus, it’s stupid.” Well, I agree. It was done on purpose. Just what we were doing was that we were making fun of really bad Bond songs, so we decided to make our own bad Bond song. So that was kind of fun. So this was fun, our Bond movie of “If the world will end today.”

Kyocera Dome Osaka, Osaka, Japan, December 16, 2009

Tommy would later talk about looking forward to playing the song live:

“If the World” is another one [I look forward to playing live]. It doesn’t have a lot of bass – it’s mostly whole-notes. We’ve had to work on the arrangement to make it work with a live band, but I think that one will be a lot of fun to play live.

Bass Player, June 2009

by **Soulmonster** Fri Jan 28, 2022 4:53 am

As with many songs I write, it all started with my old 12 string guitar sitting next to my sofa. I bought these from a pawn shop years ago for $50 and have never changed the strings since. This gave her a pretty bass-heavy sound. I just started with this riff which allows for some pretty cool vocals. Crazy as I am, I recorded this straight onto a drum machine sampler, MPC2000, and edited it in such a way that it sounded almost mechanical.

After that I wrote the drums with a dub/reggae beat, hitting the second and fourth beats really hard. After that I went to my studio and added strings, piano, bass, echo guitar, synth and sub-bass. I gave Axl the recordings and he added his part by recording the vocals in a single night. When I heard what he had done with the material, I was completely blown away. I've never heard a song like this before - that's the way it is to this day. Later we added guitar solos as a "spice on top" so to speak.

Neue Rheinische Zeitung, December 17, 2008

by **Blackstar** Thu Aug 04, 2022 11:29 pm

You know, there’s people… some people like the song and they heard it earlier and thought it might work for, like, a Bond movie or something. And that’s kind of how the song happened, basically trying to kinda write a combination between James Bond and black exploitation films of the ‘70s. And then you might notice, “You know, that chorus, it’s stupid.” Well, I agree. It was done on purpose. Just what we were doing was that we were making fun of really bad Bond songs, so we decided to make our own bad Bond song. So that was kind of fun. So this was fun, our Bond movie of “If the world will end today.” From the "black James Bond. "Black Bond"... "Bond... black Bond."

Kyocera Dome Osaka, Osaka, Japan, December 16, 2009

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