Axl Rose’s horrifically offensive concept for the ‘Sweet Child O Mine’ music video
Guns N’ Roses are often unfairly pigeonholed when it comes to their classics. They have a massive range of talent on board as they can perform songs both slow and fast, long and short, aggressive and sweet with an element of precision. That being said, like so many artists, they fall into the trap of having very specific songs assigned to them, and in their case, one of these songs is ‘Sweet Child O Mine’.
The song is considered a classic not just in rock but in music in general. The opening riff is the stuff of legend, as it pricks ears and fills dancefloors after just a few seconds of being played. It’s one of the most iconic pieces of music to be strummed on a six-string, and yet it’s something that Slash came across completely accidentally.
Slash admitted he was never a fan of the arrangement for ‘Sweet Child O Mine’, saying that it didn’t fit with the hard rock exterior that the band were trying to champion on their debut album. As such, he wrote the opening riff as a joke, as he thought it sounded like “circus music.” He hoped a bad riff would kill the song, but it ended up elevating it.
“You know, Guns N’ Roses was always a real hardcore, sort of, AC/DC kind of hard rock band with a lot of attitude,” said the guitarist. “If we did any kind of ballads, it was bluesy. This was an up-tempo ballad […] It’s a great song — I’m not knocking it — but at the same time, it just did not fit in with the rest of our, sort of, schtick. And, of course, it would be the biggest hit we ever had.”
It turns out that the song’s nature wasn’t the only controversial aspect, though. While many people listen to the track and hear a sweet-sounding love song, Axl Rose wanted the video to portray something much darker. His thought process was likely in line with Slash’s, as he knew it was a slow ballad and wanted to create something that better represented the band’s violent hard-rock nature. However, Rose’s idea was too extreme, and the band opted for a simple music video.
The lead singer revealed in an interview that he wanted the video to centre around the theme of drug trafficking. He said he wanted a video depicting a woman carrying her baby into a foreign land. The viewer would root for the woman to get to her end destination, but at the end of the video, it would be revealed the child was dead and had been stuffed with heroin. The idea was too extreme, even for a hard rock band like Guns N’ Roses, and they went for something totally different and more palatable.
It’s interesting to hear about the pushback on ‘Sweet Child O Mine’, given that many of the songs released on Guns N’ Roses following Use Your Illusion albums were relatively slow, such as ‘Yesterday’, ‘Don’t Cry’, and ‘November Rain’. There was a progression heard within the band, and it all likely stems from the success of a song they initially weren’t sure about.
