Pretty Tied Up

"Pretty Tied Up"
Song by Guns N' Roses from the album Use Your Illusion II
Released 1992 (single)
September 17, 1991 (album)
Recorded A&M Studios
Record Plant Studios
Studio 56
Image Recording
Conway Studios
Metalworks Recording Studios
1990-1991
Genre Hard rock, heavy metal
Length 4:46
Label Geffen Records
Writer Izzy Stradlin
Producer Mike Clink
Guns N' Roses
Use Your Illusion II track listing
"Breakdown"
(7)
"Prety Tied Up"
(8)
"Locomotive"
(9)

"Pretty Tied Up" (subtitled "The Perils of Rock n Roll Decadence") is a song by the rock band Guns N' Roses. Written by rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin, it appears on the band's 1991 album Use Your Illusion II. The song opens with the sounds of a coral sitar played by Stradlin. Stradlin may have been inspired by a bondage encounter with a dominatrix and her client, which he described in an interview:[1]

My Mexican friend Tony took me to meet this woman named Margot at her house. She gave us some tequila or something and she goes in the bedroom and we walk in and there's this big fat naked guy with an onion in his mouth. He's wearing women's underwear and high heels and he's tied up with duct tape against the wall. Me and Tony were like, What the fuck is going on here? Cracking up laughing. She was this dominatrix chick.

Slash has stated that the song was written one night at Izzy's house, before the band went to Chicago to write. According to Slash, Izzy was so high on heroin that night that he made a sitar out of a cymbal, a broomstick and some strings, thus serving as the inspiration for the sitar heard at the beginning of the track.[2]

A live version can be heard on the album Live Era: '87-'93.

The song was first played live at the Rock in Rio 2 festival on January 20, 1991.

Personnel

References

  1. ^ "1992 - Musician". Chopaway.com. http://www.chopaway.com/articles/musician92.php. Retrieved 19 October 2010. 
  2. ^ Bozza, Anthony, & Slash (2007). Slash. Harper Entertainment: New York. p. 258