Shadow Of Your Love

by **Soulmonster** Thu Aug 05, 2010 6:28 pm

SHADOW OF YOUR LOVE

Releases:
A 1986 faux-live outtake from the Live ?!★@ Like A Suicide sessions was included as a B-side on 12" versions of the It's So Easy · Mr. Brownstone single in 1987, and was also included on the 1988 Live From The Jungle EP. A studio recording from the 1986 Sound City session was included as a B-side on some versions of the Live And Let Die single in 1991 (sometimes mislabelled as a live version). The recording from a 1986 Rumbo Recorders session was eventually remixed and released as a single in it's own right in 2018 to promote the deluxe reissue of Appetite For Destruction.

Written by:
Axl and Paul Huge, possibly with Izzy.

Musicians:
Vocals: Axl Rose; lead Guitar: Slash; rhythm guitar: Izzy Stradlin; bass: Duff McKagan; drums: Steven Adler.

Live performances:
This song a song Axl wrote with Paul Huge in 1982 or earlier, before he had settled permanently in Los Angeles. It was brought into Hollywood Rose and then Guns N' Roses. It was played a lot in 1985, a few times in 1986 and once in 1987. After being released as a single again in 2018, it was heavily featured in the setlists. In total it has, as of {UPDATEDATE}, at least been played {SHADOWSONGS} times.

Lyrics:
Took my chances carelessly
I said I choked on my own cigarette
You can hand me another bottle of whiskey baby
But you haven't seen the worst yet

Now I'm reckless
Gonna have some fun
I had a woman who had said it was all alright
Now I'm back the only one

And I ain't standing
Never standing in the shadow of your love
Shadow of your love
Shadow of your love
Shadow of your love
Oh no

Stole my changes helplessly
I said yeah but I got no regrets
Money it was on the table
So I booked with all the bets

Living like your livin'
Ain't so hot
You ain't my idea
of a high-rollin' shot

So I ain't standing
I'm never standing in the shadow of your love
Shadow of your love
Shadow of your love
Shadow of your love
Oh no

High price calling
Hangin' over your head
I hope you've heard
Baby all I've said
You've gone cold
Or even misread
No use crying
You're as good as dead

Now I'm reckless
Gonna have some fun
I had a woman who had said it as all alright
Now I'm back the only one

And I ain't standing
Never standing in the shadow of your love
Shadow of your love
Shadow of your love
Shadow of your love
Shadow of your love
Shadow of your love
Shadow of your love
Shadow of your love
Shadow
Shadow
Shadow of your love
Oh no

Quotes:

Alan Santalesa, Izzy's band mate in Shire, would recount hearing Axl and Paul Huge play an early version of the song in the summer of 1982:

The first time I met Axl had to be the summer of 1982. They showed up.... I mean, it was him, known as Bill at the time, there was a guy named Paul and another guy that came with him, he was not a musician, he was just along for the ride. They came at the rehearsal, the garage, you know, the famous garage in the back of Dave [Jagosz]'s house, his parent's. They watched us play. We were introduced and then they got on our instruments and played a song. And that's when I first met him. That's the first time I heard him sing. I remember, you know, they started the song, this bare bone primitive song, which was the song they eventually recorded on one of their EPs, The Shadows Of Your Love. He put his head down and started wailing this scream, it was like a foghorn, you know, "My God, now he sings loud" and that was Shadows Of Your Love. They did this song, we talked a little bit and and then I didn't see him for a while.

Appetite for Distortion, October 2, 2017

Describing Axl's voice:

You know, it was so different from what I was into, but I was familiar with that style. [...] It was a lot like, I don't know if you're familiar with the Australian band that they ended up covering, Rose Tattoo? They wrote Nice Boys. It was even more primitive than AC/DC. It was just this [humming staccato guitars]. And him screaming. And then when I saw him eventually a lot of the songs were like that. It was not yet that technical, you know, inventive riffing that became Appetite for Destruction, that Aerosmith-like almost funk-like beats, jungle beats, it was none of that, it was just straight ahead wall of sound and him wailing.

Appetite for Distortion, October 2, 2017

Axl would talk about the making of the song:

You know, Shadow of your Love was… I wrote the lyrics kinda influenced by Thin Lizzy. And that was one of the songs that I wrote with Paul Huge, who was original guitarist from Indiana with Izzy and I, and now he’s in a band called Mank Rage. And we just wrote that like in 7 minutes, you know, we did it in 7 minutes years ago, and it is something we're really proud of. You know, and it’s my friend Josh’s favorite song. […] Well, I’d pondered the words years before that, and then when the song hit it was just like, “fssst!” It went through the files, the mental Rolodex, "This fits, go!". We had 7 minutes to jam, we didn’t have any equipment so it was like, we didn’t have a choice.

Rockline, November 27, 1991

Slash would think he likely heard it when seeing a Hollywood Rose show in February 1984:

Shadow of Your Love was one of these songs that Guns was doing when I first started with those guys. I actually saw Axl and Izzy and Chris Weber play in a version of Hollywood Rose around the time that Axl and Izzy and I first met, like before I didn't know who they were. Steven had talked me into going to the Gazzarri’s - it was, yeah, Gazzarri’s - to go see them play. And I was pretty much sort of a homebody, you know, I hated the scene on Sunset Strip at that time so much that I didn't like to go up there. But Steven loved it and said, “You gotta go check out the singer”. And so I finally went up there with him, and I saw Chris and Axl, and I don't know who was playing bass but Izzy was there. And I think Shadow of Your Love might have been as old as that. There's two songs that I remember playing when I got involved with Axl and Izzy, and it was Shadow of Your Love and a song called Reckless Life.

Metal Talks on Spotify, September 21, 2018

Steven would later remember playing the song while in Hollywood Rose in 1984, and mistakenly think it was a song written entirely by Izzy:

The first song I played with was a number Izzy wrote called "Shadow of Your Love".

Steven's biography, page 63

It would end up being Steven's favorite GN'R song, and recount playing it in Hollywood Rose:

[Being asked about his favorite Guns N' Roses songs]: I’d have to say Shadow of Your Love, I love the fuckin’ drums on it! It’s the first song that we as a band played. It was with Izzy and Axl and a guy named DJ on bass. Halfway thru rehearsing, Axl kicks the door in, grabs the microphone and runs up and down the fucking walls screaming for the rest of the song. Never in my life had I seen a person that insane, I was so happy!

Steven Adler Official Fan Site, 2001

And when Duff joined Guns N' Roses in 1985, he would list it as one of the songs Izzy and Axl already had:

Izzy and Axl already had some songs, and the other guys knew them: "Think About You," "Anything Goes," "Move To The City," "Shadow of Your Love," and "Don't Cry." And we did sped-up punk versions of the Stones' "Jumpin' Jack Flash" and Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel".

Duff's autobiography, "It's So Easy", 2011, p. 59

And Slash would remember it being in their first sets:

Anyway, so Shadow was one of those first songs that when Guns came together and I became a part of that. I don't even know who wrote it - maybe Chris Weber might have wrote it, I'm not really sure. But we played it as part of our set pretty early on in 1985. And then it sort of got phased out as we wrote a lot of new material, which was a little bit more complex and a little bit more sort of thought out, maybe, than Shadow of Your Love was.

Metal Talks on Spotify, September 21, 2018

Another one of the things that was really cool [when putting together Locked N' Loaded] was a song called "Shadow of Your Love" that we used to play in 1985. It was one of the earliest songs that we played together. It was part of the set back then, and as the Appetite lineup started writing those songs, it got phased out of the set and we didn't play it again for a long time.

Revolver Magazine, September 24, 2018

The song must have been an early favorite of the band, because when they tried our producers for their debut album, Mike Clink got to audition on that song:

We did one session with [Mike Clink] and recorded 'Shadow Of Your Love,' which was the best song in the set the first time I saw Hollywood Rose. Our version of it didn't make the album, but it was eventually released on a Japanese EP.

Bozza, Anthony, & Slash (2007). Slash. Harper Entertainment: New York. p. 166

That particular song was the song that we used to demo Mike Clink. When we were looking for somebody to produce the record, Tom Zutaut introduced us to Ron Nevinson’s engineer, Mike Clink, who had worked on, you know, Heart records and... But the one thing [was that] he engineered UFO records and he did the Strangers in the Night record. So that was my automatic – like, Strangers in the Night was, at least for guitar players, one of the great sort of guitar player standards, you know, for metal guitar playing, Michael Schenker and all that. So, I thought, okay, this guy will be interesting. So we went in the studio with Mike Clink, just to try him out, to see what it would sound like. And we recorded Shadow of Your Love. And the version of that song that we just released is that demo version that we did back in 1986.

Metal Talks on Spotify, September 21, 2018

We went into the studio with Mike Clink to see what that would sound like, that was the song that we did with him. That was the test track. We didn't put it on Appetite so it floundered all these years. To go in to remix and master that and release it after all this time — for me, it was, "Wow, this is a trip!" It's got a certain energy to it. You definitely get the spirit of the band from way back when.

Revolver Magazine, September 24, 2018

Despite this, it was not included on Appetite for Destruction, nor on Use Your Illusions:

I can't really say for sure why it didn't make the record in the end. It was just a real simple, good rocking song, but I guess it wasn't as "seasoned" as a lot of the other material. And probably Axl didn't quite see the potential in it.

Guitar World, July 2007

But for the band's re-release of Appetite for Destruction in 2018, the song would be released as a single and the band would start playing it again:

And then, to do Shadow Of Your Love. That particular recording was what we... that was when we went in to try out Mike Clink before Appetite, when we were going through trying to figure out who was gonna be the right guy to produce us. That was the song that we did, that’s the version of it that we did. And so, it’s just cool, I mean, you know, it’s like one of those things that we never thought it would see the light of the day, just put it out there as one of these songs on this record, with all these, you know, different versions, and live versions, and this and that and the other. And actually we got up and start playing it. I haven’t played that song since 1985. [...] Shadow was one of those things we were doing in 1985. There is a few songs that we were doing back then that we sort of just, I think, evolved out of. We started writing, you know, music that was gonna be on Appetite, and so, some of those songs sort of fell by the wayside, and we sort of grew out of them. But I... you know. So that’s what happened. We used it to the demo with Mike and then that was the last we ever played it.

Sirius XM's Trunk Nation, August 3, 2018

But it's fun playing it now. It's like, it's amazing in 2018 to be introducing a song that we haven't played since 1985.

Metal Talks on Spotify, September 21, 2018

The remastering, that was basically easy. It actually does sound really good, which I was skeptical about.

Clay Marshall via Blabbermouth, September 2018

As for why it wasn't included on Appetite for Destruction:

The [first] Guns N' Roses lineup — the 'Appetite For Destruction' lineup — that was one of the first songs that we played, and we played that and a handful of other songs live at our first gigs. As this lineup started writing new material, it sort of slowly but surely got phased out. We didn't play it again for a while, and then when we were looking for producers and met Mike Clink, we wanted to go and record a song with him before we signed on to do a whole album. 'Shadow Of Your Love' was the song that we picked. That version you're hearing now is that demo from back then. I think we just grew out of it, but now, it's a lot of fun. This last European tour we just did, we put it in the set, and it's a blast. There's something really cool about having a song like that that you haven't played in fuckin' thirty years, and then all of a sudden, it's out on the radio, and you get to go back and start playing it. It's got a cool, cool attitude. It's pretty kinetic.

Q1043 NY, August 23, 2018

Shadow Of Your Love NeWborder_zpsk3uwcgt1

by **Soulmonster** Wed Aug 09, 2017 12:32 pm

Another one from the Hollywood Rose era, “Shadow of Your Love” never made it onto Appetite for Destruction even though the song matches the album’s swagger, lyrical content and frenetic intensity. We can even imagine it between “You’re Crazy” and “Anything Goes” in the track listing. (Hollywood Rose paired “Shadow” and “Anything Goes” in a couple of low-budget, single-camera shot videos.) Written by Axl Rose and childhood friend Paul Tobias, the song carried over to Guns N’ Roses’ first sessions. Steven Adler claims it was the first song they performed together. “It was magic from the first day,” the drummer told MusicRadar. “The first song we played in rehearsal was ‘Shadow of Your Love,’ and Axl showed up late. We were playing the song, and right in the middle of the song Axl showed up and he grabbed the microphone and was running up and down the walls screaming. I thought, ‘This is the greatest thing ever.’ We knew right then what we had.” Briefly considered for inclusion on G N’ R Lies, “Shadow of Your Love” was relegated to B-side status, showing up officially on the 12” picture disc single for “It’s So Easy” in 1987 and then on the flip for “Live and Let Die” in 1991. The song opens up with Rose screaming, “Wake up! It’s time to play!” — which he would later hijack for the live introduction of “Welcome to the Jungle” by howling, “Wake up! Time to die!” It’s an intonation he still does to this day in some form.

Source: http://ultimateclassicrock.com/guns-n-roses-appetite-for-destruction-double-album/

by **Soulmonster** Tue May 01, 2018 9:53 pm

On May 1 2018, the band would use a clip of Shadow of Your Love to tease visitors to gnr.fm, together with a counter.

by **Blackstar** Wed May 02, 2018 1:46 am

Alan Santalesa from the band Shire shared some interesting info in this interview:

https://www.a-4-d.com/t2959-2017-10-02-interview-with-alan-st-lesa-on-appetite-for-distortion

He said he met Axl for the first time around 1982-83 at the Jagosz's rehearsal place (the brothers Mike and David Jagosz, singers in LA Guns and Shire respectively). Axl was there with two friends, and played Shadow Of Your Love with one of them, who was "Paul" (Paul Huge/Tobias, I guess).

by **Blackstar** Mon May 07, 2018 11:19 pm

Transcript of the part about Shadow Of Your Love:

Alan Santalesa wrote:The first time I met Axl had to be the summer of 1982. They showed up… “they”, I mean, it was him, known as Bill at the time, there was a guy named Paul, and another guy that came with them – he was not a musician, he was just along for the ride. They came at the rehearsals, the garage – you know, the famous garage in the back of David’s [Jagosz] house. They watched us [Shire] play, we were introduced and then they got to rent our instruments and played a song. That’s when I first met him; that was when I first heard him sing.
I remember they started this song, this barebone primitive song, which was the song they eventually recorded for one of their EPs, “Shadows Of Your Love”. He put his head down and started wailing, this scream was like a foghorn… you know, “My god, he sings loud”, and that was “Shadows Of Your Love”. They did this song, we talked a little bit [...].
It was so different from what I was into but I was familiar with that style. There was a lot of like – I don’t know if you are familiar with the Australian band they ended up covering, Rose Tattoo, Nice Boys… It was even more primitive than AC/DC, it was just that dah-nah-nah-nah and him screaming. And when I saw him eventually a lot of songs were like that. It was not yet that technical inventive riffing that became Appetite For Destruction and Aerosmith like, almost funk like beats, jungle beats. There was none of that. It was just straight ahead wall of sound and him wailing. [...] Yeah [it was just the two of them playing Shadow Of Your Love that day].

by **Blackstar** Tue May 08, 2018 3:32 am

Shadow Of Your Love was… I wrote the lyrics kinda influenced by Thin Lizzy. And that was one of the songs that I wrote with Paul Huge, he was original guitarist from Indiana with Izzy and I, and now he’s in a band called Mank Rage. And we just wrote that like in 7 minutes, you know, we did it in 7 minutes years ago and it is something we're really proud of, you know, it’s my friend Josh’s favourite song. […] I pondered the words years before that and then when the song hit it was just like it went to the (?) mental road. It was "hey, let's go!". We had 7 minutes to jam, we didn’t have any equipment so it’s like we didn’t have a choice. [Rockline radio interview, 1991].

by **Soulmonster** Sat May 16, 2020 7:54 pm

[Being asked about his favorite Guns N' Roses songs]: I’d have to say Shadow of Your Love, I love the fuckin’ drums on it! It’s the first song that we as a band played. It was with Izzy and Axl and a guy named DJ on bass. Halfway thru rehearsing, Axl kicks the door in, grabs the microphone and runs up and down the fucking walls screaming for the rest of the song. Never in my life had I seen a person that insane, I was so happy!

Steven Adler Official Fan Site, 2001

by **Soulmonster** Sat May 16, 2020 7:56 pm

by **Blackstar** Sun May 17, 2020 12:21 am

Soulmonster wrote:DJ?

Steven mentions him in his autobiography, too:

The next Tuesday we [=Slash and Steven] went to see Rose perform. We arrived at about six o’clock. There were a lot of bands playing, so there was anywhere between fifty and seventy-five of each band’s faithful listening during each set. The stage was sectioned off so there could be three bands’ gear onstage at any one time. The guys in Rose were on the stage-right end.
It was a long event, band after band, like twelve of them. Rose got to play only three songs. I learned that the guys featured on the flyer who caught my attention were vocalist Axl Rose and guitarist Izzy Stradlin, two childhood friends from Indiana. I thought they looked cool and that even their names were cool. They had a guy named Rob Gardner on drums with them, but I wasn’t that impressed with him.
The bass player’s name was DJ. I believe he helped write “Move to the City,” one of the songs they performed. He was skinny and had long black hair, good-looking rock ’n’ roll kind of guy. But he was only in the band for a couple of months.

[Steven's autobiography, My Appetite For Destruction, 2010]

by **Soulmonster** Sun Aug 20, 2023 9:31 am

Alan Santalesa, Izzy's band mate in Shire, would recount hearing Axl and Paul Huge play an early version of the song in the summer of 1982:

The first time I met Axl had to be the summer of 1982. They showed up.... I mean, it was him, known as Bill at the time, there was a guy named Paul and another guy that came with him, he was not a musician, he was just along for the ride. They came at the rehearsal, the garage, you know, the famous garage in the back of Dave [Jagosz]'s house, his parent's. They watched us play. We were introduced and then they got on our instruments and played a song. And that's when I first met him. That's the first time I heard him sing. I remember, you know, they started the song, this bare bone primitive song, which was the song they eventually recorded on one of their EPs, The Shadows Of Your Love. He put his head down and started wailing this scream, it was like a foghorn, you know, "My God, now he sings loud" and that was Shadows Of Your Love. They did this song, we talked a little bit and and then I didn't see him for a while.

Appetite for Distortion, October 2, 2017

Describing Axl's voice:

You know, it was so different from what I was into, but I was familiar with that style. [...] It was a lot like, I don't know if you're familiar with the Australian band that they ended up covering, Rose Tattoo? They wrote Nice Boys. It was even more primitive than AC/DC. It was just this [humming staccato guitars]. And him screaming. And then when I saw him eventually a lot of the songs were like that. It was not yet that technical, you know, inventive riffing that became Appetite for Destruction, that Aerosmith-like almost funk-like beats, jungle beats, it was none of that, it was just straight ahead wall of sound and him wailing.

Appetite for Distortion, October 2, 2017

by **Soulmonster** Sat Feb 03, 2024 9:26 am

And then, to do Shadow Of Your Love. That particular recording was what we... that was when we went in to try out Mike Clink before Appetite, when we were going through trying to figure out who was gonna be the right guy to produce us. That was the song that we did, that’s the version of it that we did. And so, it’s just cool, I mean, you know, it’s like one of those things that we never thought it would see the light of the day, just put it out there as one of these songs on this record, with all these, you know, different versions, and live versions, and this and that and the other. And actually we got up and start playing it. I haven’t played that song since 1985. [...] Shadow was one of those things we were doing in 1985. There is a few songs that we were doing back then that we sort of just, I think, evolved out of. We started writing, you know, music that was gonna be on Appetite, and so, some of those songs sort of fell by the wayside, and we sort of grew out of them. But I... you know. So that’s what happened. We used it to the demo with Mike and then that was the last we ever played it.

Sirius XM's Trunk Nation, August 3, 2018

by **Soulmonster** Tue Feb 06, 2024 5:42 pm

On why the song wasn't included on Appetite:

The [first] Guns N' Roses lineup — the 'Appetite For Destruction' lineup — that was one of the first songs that we played, and we played that and a handful of other songs live at our first gigs. As this lineup started writing new material, it sort of slowly but surely got phased out. We didn't play it again for a while, and then when we were looking for producers and met Mike Clink, we wanted to go and record a song with him before we signed on to do a whole album. 'Shadow Of Your Love' was the song that we picked. That version you're hearing now is that demo from back then. I think we just grew out of it, but now, it's a lot of fun. This last European tour we just did, we put it in the set, and it's a blast. There's something really cool about having a song like that that you haven't played in fuckin' thirty years, and then all of a sudden, it's out on the radio, and you get to go back and start playing it. It's got a cool, cool attitude. It's pretty kinetic.

Q1043 NY, August 23, 2018

by **Soulmonster** Mon Feb 26, 2024 4:30 pm

Shadow of Your Love was one of these songs that Guns was doing when I first started with those guys. I actually saw Axl and Izzy and Chris Weber play in a version of Hollywood Rose around the time that Axl and Izzy and I first met, like before I didn't know who they were. Steven had talked me into going to the Gazzarri’s - it was, yeah, Gazzarri’s - to go see them play. And I was pretty much sort of a homebody, you know, I hated the scene on Sunset Strip at that time so much that I didn't like to go up there. But Steven loved it and said, “You gotta go check out the singer”. And so I finally went up there with him, and I saw Chris and Axl, and I don't know who was playing bass but Izzy was there. And I think Shadow of Your Love might have been as old as that. There's two songs that I remember playing when I got involved with Axl and Izzy, and it was Shadow of Your Love and a song called Reckless Life. Anyway, so Shadow was one of those first songs that when Guns came together and I became a part of that. I don't even know who wrote it - maybe Chris Weber might have wrote it, I'm not really sure. But we played it as part of our set pretty early on in 1985. And then it sort of got phased out as we wrote a lot of new material, which was a little bit more complex and a little bit more sort of thought out, maybe, than Shadow of Your Love was. But it's fun playing it now. It's like, it's amazing in 2018 to be introducing a song that we haven't played since 1985.

That particular song was the song that we used to demo Mike Clink. When we were looking for somebody to produce the record, Tom Zutaut introduced us to Ron Nevinson’s engineer, Mike Clink, who had worked on, you know, Heart records and... But the one thing [was that] he engineered UFO records and he did the Strangers in the Night record. So that was my automatic – like, Strangers in the Night was, at least for guitar players, one of the great sort of guitar player standards, you know, for metal guitar playing, Michael Schenker and all that. So, I thought, okay, this guy will be interesting. So we went in the studio with Mike Clink, just to try him out, to see what it would sound like. And we recorded Shadow of Your Love. And the version of that song that we just released is that demo version that we did back in 1986.

Metal Talks on Spotify, September 21, 2018

by **Soulmonster** Tue Feb 27, 2024 12:59 am

Another one of the things that was really cool [when putting together Locked N' Loaded] was a song called "Shadow of Your Love" that we used to play in 1985. It was one of the earliest songs that we played together. It was part of the set back then, and as the Appetite lineup started writing those songs, it got phased out of the set and we didn't play it again for a long time.We went into the studio with Mike Clink to see what that would sound like, that was the song that we did with him. That was the test track. We didn't put it on Appetite so it floundered all these years. To go in to remix and master that and release it after all this time — for me, it was, "Wow, this is a trip!" It's got a certain energy to it. You definitely get the spirit of the band from way back when.

Revolver Magazine, September 24, 2018

by **Soulmonster** Sat Mar 16, 2024 6:37 am

Talking about the remastered version released in 2018:

The remastering, that was basically easy. It actually does sound really good, which I was skeptical about.

Clay Marshall via Blabbermouth, September 2018

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