#31 "You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory" by Guns N Roses

An album from the nineties that everyone hated was GNR's "The Spaghetti Incident"... everyone but me! I thought it had a lot of cool songs on it. Sure, it was all covers, but I liked hearing the music that inspired Axl, Slash, and company to pick up guitars in the first place. They covered punk songs from the likes of The Damned, The Stooges, The New York Dolls, and The Misfits, but also included an old 50's tune by The Skyliners, a 70's rocker by Nazareth, and even added a Charles Manson song into the mix!?! You can't fault them for covering all their bases.

My favorite song in the collection was "You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory." The song was originally recorded by Johnny Thunders on his solo album "So Alone." Thunders was the former guitarist from The New York Dolls and a legend in the NY punk scene. Though most hard-core old school punks will crucify me for putting GNR's version here instead of the original, I really like this tribute by Guns' bassist Duff McKagan.

Duff McKagan brought some punk cred to GNR. He was pretty important in the early alternative music scene in Seattle, before he hooked up with Axl and the boys, and he always looked like he walked straight out of CBGB's, complete with the padlock-on-a-chain necklace that he sported. I like his voice and the husky way he sings this track. Thunders' original actually sounds a little sadder. The lyrics, said to be an acknowledgement of Johnny's pathetic drug-addled life, don't seem as tough as when Duff sings them, especially lines like "And even though they don't show, the scars aren't so old."

"You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory" is from the album "The Spaghetti Incident?" To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.