Back in the early 90’s, the movie soundtrack was in its chart dominating pomp. The formula was simple; take a huge band or artist, have them write an exclusive tune for a Hollywood blockbuster, sit back and watch the song and the movie rake in the dough.
In 1991, the biggest, buzziest movie on the slate was James Cameron’s spectacular Terminator 2: Judgment Day, starring bodybuilder-turned-Hollywood A-lister Arnold Schwarzenegger as the titular T-800 robot. The same year, the biggest, buzziest band on the planet were Guns N’ Roses, still riding the wave of the astounding success of their 1987 debut album Appetite For Destruction. Pairing them up together made perfect sense – two massive names for the price of one.
In 1991, hunger for new GN’R music was huge. They’d released a cover of Bob Dylan’s Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door on the soundtrack to 1990 Tom Cruise movie Days Of Thunder, and a brand new song, the mini-epic Civil War on charity album Nobody’s Child: Romanian Angel Appeal the same year. But it would be their Terminator tie-in You Could Be Mine that would properly announce their return – with a huge helping hand from Arnie himself.
For GnR, the song that would eventually come to be associated with Terminator 2 was one that they had being toying with since before Appetite For Destruction’s release: the swerving, juddering You Could Be Mine. Initially titled Cocaine Talking, the song rode along on a massive sleazy riff, frontman Axl Rose’s, threat-laced screams and pointed lyrics: “With your bitch-slapping rapping and cocaine tongue, you get nothing done…” – rich coming from a band famed for their chemical proclivities.
“If you listen to the lyrics, it’s about how all these nice young girls in L.A. can’t do anything before they do their coke,” bassist Duff McKagan said in 1988, three years before You Could Be Mine was released. “The song’s definitely not a pro-cocaine song. It’s about how the shit really fucks up your head.”
GN’R planned to include the song on their forthcoming Use Your Illusion double album set, but while the band were in the studio, filming was wrapping up on T2. As part of the films marketing campaign, executives believed a single, with a big budget music video, was needed to promote it. Enter The Terminator himself.
“Back then, if you could get a good video, it would get played on MTV 15 times a day,” producer Larry Kassanoff told SFX in 2017. “So, I asked him [Schwarzenegger] if he would do it, and he said ‘Only if you get the best band in the world to do it.’ And I said, ‘Okay, who’s the best?’ Arnold thought about it, came back to me and said, ‘If you get Guns N’ Roses I’m in.’ But to get them there was a lot of schmoozing with the band. Arnold and Maria [Shriver] invited the band over to their house for dinner one night, and sure enough they agreed.”
Thanks to the mutual respect between the two unlikely parties, an agreement was quickly reached.
“They’re big fans of Terminator,” Schwarzenegger told MTV in 1991. “They’ve expressed that many times. I’ve always been a fan of their music, so we checked into what it would be like to do a video together, or to get some of their music.”
“Duff and I actually went and hung out at his house,” Guns guitarist Slash continued to MTV. “He seemed to be into the whole thing. We had a lot of shots with Arnold!”
As well as tequila slammers round Arnie’s house, the band were also invited to see an exclusive screening of the movie alongside Cameron and Schwarzenegger.
“We had a specific screening; it was just for the cast, James and myself, and Guns N’ Roses,” Schwarzenegger told The Ringer in 2021. “I think that Axl Rose was extremely impressed. I remember him going to Jim [Cameron] and saying, ‘I’m in.’”
Given that whichever song they released would be the launchpad for the next chapter in Guns N’ Roses’ career, it needed to have an impact. “It worked out really cool,” Axl told MTV in 1991. “We let them listen to a lot of material and they picked was You Could Be Mine.”
But this was more than just a cross-cultural soundtrack tie-in. Schwarzenegger decided he wanted to appear in the accompanying promo video.
“We filmed the show in [New York venue] the Ritz,” Axl said. “And Arnold was flying back from Congress and going ‘I want to be in the video’. So, Arnold got all his people and put together a video.”
The clip saw the band performing live as they are stalked from the crowd by Arnold’s Terminator, interspersed by action from the movie, before he confronts GnR backstage and decides they are a “Waste of ammo”. Just seeing the combination onscreen immediately made it one of the most memorable and exciting videos of the 90s.
“We hung out and he was really, really cool,” GN’R guitarist Slash said. “He gave the whole band jackets from the movie and these French bikers jackets with bullet holes everywhere.”
The single was released on June 25, 1991, a week before Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The idea of bringing these two cultural behemoths together was a masterstroke: Terminator 2 became the biggest movie at the box office the weekend it was released, and the highest grossing film of the year. And while GN’R didn’t quite reap the same benefit, with You Could Be Mine peaking at No.29 on the US singles charts, it paved the way for the blockbusting one-two of the simultaneously released Use Your Illusion I and II later than year.
It’s all aged very well for everyone; T2’s 4K restoration is back in cinemas, Skynet robots still quite haven’t enslaved the human race, and You Could Be Mine is still being played by Guns N’ Roses to stadium sized crowds around the globe.
