History
Contrary to popular belief, "You Could Be Mine" was not originally going to be the official theme of Terminator 2: Judgment Day. However, the references to Guns N' Roses that were made in the film (from John Connor's friend's Guns N' Roses t-shirt to the T-800 taking out his shotgun from a box of roses, thus playing a pun on the band's name) were so clear and obvious that it was a wise business decision to make when director James Cameron decided to recruit the band to perform a song. As it would turn out, "You Could Be Mine" was selected to be included in the film. Arnold Schwarzenegger had the band members over for dinner at his own home to negotiate the deal.
The lyric "With your bitch slap rappin' and your cocaine tongue you get nothin' done" from the chorus appeared on the inner sleeve of Guns N' Roses' debut album Appetite for Destruction, released in 1987 (the song had already been written by then). This "tradition" was followed by the line "Ain't It Fun" on the Use Your Illusion albums released in 1991 - two years later GN'R cover of the song "Ain't It Fun" appeared on "The Spaghetti Incident?" album. The end of first verse, "we've seen that movie too", is a reference to Elton John' song "I've Seen That Movie Too", from the album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. Slash states that the song's writing began at the first preproduction session for Appetite for Destruction.
The song has a minute-long drum and guitar intro. It was played during the ending credits of Terminator 2 and was heard in the film itself in early scenes with John Connor. The original script called for The Ramones song "I Wanna Be Sedated" to be played instead. The song also featured in another part of the Terminator series, Terminator Salvation.
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Famous quotes containing the word history:
“When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand—a center of gravity.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are rather of the nature of universals, whereas those of history are singulars.”
—Aristotle (384–322 B.C.)