Paul McCartney discussed his disappointment with Guns N’ Roses’ rendition of his 1973 song “Live and Let Die” on a recent episode of his podcast A Life on Lyrics. The song was released by the singer and his band Wings as the title track for the eponymous James Bond film. Afterwards, GNR recorded a cover of the song for their 1991 album, “Use Your Illusion I.” Regarding the band’s cover, McCartney offered his opinion, saying: Actually, I felt that was pretty good. The fact that this young American ensemble would actually pull it off astounded me more.
McCartney’s Kids’ School Experience. He continued by recalling how his kids would proudly tell their classmates that their dad had written “Live and Let Die,” and he disclosed the response they got as follows: “What’s funny is that my kids would say, ‘My dad wrote it,’ when they got to school. They would always say, “No, he didn’t; it was Guns N’ Roses,” in an attempt to discredit them. It was just Guns N’ Roses for a while. Paul’s Contentment With The Cover. However, the musician added that he was pleased that Guns N’ Roses recorded it almost 20 years after he originally released it:
“I was overjoyed that they had completed it. I enjoy hearing my music performed by others. Slash Regarding The Band’s Selection Process for the Song Cover. In 1993, the GNR version was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance (35th Annual). Slash explained to John Stix how the band chose to record the song in the April 1992 issue of Guitar for the Practicing Musician.
It’s one of those tunes that Axl [Rose] and I have always cherished, much like “Heaven’s Door.” Although it’s always been a fairly powerful song, we’d never talked about it and didn’t realize we both enjoyed it. That came up one night while we were discussing a cover song, and we said, “Yeah! Let’s do it!” I went to practice with Izzy, Matt, and Duff to see if we could play it well, and it sounded incredibly intense.
The two versions’ performance on the chart
Slash gave Rose credit for his work on the synthesizer in “Live and Let Die” in his autobiography published in 2007. He said that rather than using genuine horns, the horn sounds were produced using synthesizers. Slash emphasized that Axl put a lot of effort into fine-tuning the sound and attention to detail. Though opinions on which version is superior may differ, McCartney’s song performed better on the charts. It peaked at number two in the US and nine in the UK in 1973. Only number 33 in the US and number 5 in the UK were reached by the Guns N’ Roses version. Both versions of the song are available for listening below.
