Paradise city

It was the very early 1990s, before Nirvana and Pearl Jam, before the megaconcerts by Metallica and U2. Terminator 2 was still a forthcoming movie. But its ‘theme song’, You could be mine, was all over music channels. That song had clips from the movie, especially the iconic scene where the T-800 first meets John Connor, drops its bouquet of roses and takes out the gun to shoot the T-1000 that is chasing John. This was not the first metal song I was exposed to. Scorpions’ Wind of change was the rage after the Berlin Wall fell. And Survivors’ Eye of the tiger was a familiar tune. But those were ‘soft rock’, and Terminator 2 publicity brought the ‘hard stuff’ to me. I soon raided a friend’s collection and got myself a mixed tape — new CDs were too expensive, and technology to write CDs were years away. This tape had Aerosmith old and new (Sweet emotion, Walk this way with RUN DMC and Janie’s got a gun), Bon Jovi (Living on a prayer, and some other stuff that I don’t remember), Def Leppard (some tracks from Hysteria) and Paradise City, Welcome to the jungle and Sweet child o’mine. Guns N’ Roses became my favourite band right away. Then Use Your Illusions I and II were out — my first original albums (still tapes). But Paradise City was, and still is, far and away the best hard rock song I’ve ever heard. And that’s why it’s in the list (the others discussed already are: Srabon and Get back).