I figured I would jump in with what a lot of other bloggers do and start going through my collection of music singles. It’s a pretty easy way for me to add another post each week – just pick out something and talk a bit about it.

For the first few months I’ll go over one a week, these are not related to each other in any way other than they are singles in my collection. I think there’s roughly 17 to look at, that number could go up by a few after I have another look through my collection.

If my count is right, this should conclude my “general” singles series in November. At that point I’ll get into the one band’s singles collection that I do have a fair number of – that being Iron Maiden. (shocking, I’m sure). That series will run for at least half a year at a once-a-week clip and will grow by at least a little bit in the time before and during it.

But enough exposition, let’s just get to it. The first one I’m gonna go over is the one I most recently acquired. As the title suggests, it is the Guns N’ Roses Civil War “EP.” This was released in a variety of configurations, I opted for a cheap CD version with three tracks – two songs and an interview with Slash. This version was a European release – while other parts of the world got versions of the EP, nothing was distributed in the US.

The song is a little bit odd in history as it was originally released as part of a charity compilation about a year before its appearance on Use Your Illusion II. This EP was released in several countries in 1993 though in some odd way it doesn’t technically count as a single released from the UYI albums. I don’t know why and the distinction isn’t really important.

I previously discussed the Use Your Illusion albums in great detail back last September – here’s a link to the first of four (!) parts of that where I went about turning the two albums into one. In the final portion I talked about my five favorite tracks on the albums and – spoiler alert – number one was

Civil War

The song is the reason for being in terms of this single. I wrote about it before – it’s an amazing work. It’s a gripping look at the tangled threads wove in society from the 1960’s until 1990, and it’s not any less meaningful today. Sadly, it’s probably more poignant. Civil War might have gotten a bit overlooked in the wake of the bombastic singles from the records but over time it’s gotten due recognition as one of the best tracks from those albums, if not the best. I really don’t need to say much more about it since I’m almost positive this song will turn up in another series of mine…someday.

Garden Of Eden

This song appears on some configurations of this EP and not on others. Since it’s on my CD it’s what I’ll go with. The song is a short one and pretty good. It does pretty well on sequencing here since it’s a fast and loose song that is a bit of fun to contrast the heavy subject matter of Civil War. The song has a punk-ish edge to it and, although I didn’t select it for my “final cut” of UYI songs, it’s one I’m happy to hear.

Interview with Slash

The exclusive content to this EP is a small interview with Slash. It runs seven minutes and there is no one asking Slash questions. I assume the questions were edited out and that Slash didn’t really talk for seven minutes straight but I honestly don’t know for sure. Slash talks about how the band’s mega success wasn’t entirely clear to him as it was happening and goes over a few other things through the interview. It doesn’t have any dirt or jaw-dropping revelations but it’s a nice listen from a few years before he would originally leave the group.

All in all this was a neat little single to add to the collection. It doesn’t offer any alternate versions or anything, both songs are album cuts. The interview stands as the exclusive content. Not a red-hot collector’s item but not a bad pick-up.