Songfacts®:

• This was the first official and authorized release of new music from Guns N' Roses since 1999's "Oh My God," the band's contribution to the End of Days soundtrack. That song peaked at #26 on the Mainstream Rock chart.
• This song was debuted at Guns N' Roses January 1, 2001 concert at the House of Blues in Las Vegas, their first show in over seven years.
• Axl Rose wrote this song after watching on TV the 1998 movie Kundun, which is about Tibet's 14th Dalai Lama. At the end of the movie the Dalai Lama escapes from the communist Chinese government disappearing into exile. Rose said at the Las Vegas concert that this song's emotion came from that final scene. He added: "And its not necessarily pro or con about China, its just that right now China symbolizes one of the strongest, yet most the oppressive, countries and, governments in the word. And we are fortunate to live in a free country. And so in thinking about that it just kinda upset me, and we wrote this little song called 'Chinese Democracy.'"
• After hearing this song for the first time former Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash commented to a Boston radio station: "That sounds cool. It's good to hear [Axl Rose's] voice, you know?"
• Chinese Democracy was the first proper Guns 'n Roses album for fifteen years. The band's previous release was their 1993 cover set The Spaghetti Incident?. The CD was released exclusively through Best Buy, continuing a trend of big releases limiting their distribution in exchange for promotion from a big reseller. A few weeks earlier, AC/DC released their Black Ice album only at Wal-Mart. >>>

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  Bertrand - Paris, France
• This was Guns N' Roses first entry on the Billboard Hot 100 since their cover of "Sympathy For The Devil" peaked at #55 in 1995.