How Guns N’ Roses turned a joke into a classic: “The biggest hit we ever had”
The Los Angeles hard rockers Guns N’ Roses formed in the mid-1980s with the classic lineup of Axl Rose, Slash, Izzy Stradlin, Duff McKagan and Steven Adler. After signing to Geffen Records in 1986, the band set about recording a debut album. As a group of hedonistic youths, only the passion for rock ‘n’ roll kept the ship afloat, and with the arrival of Appetite for Destruction in 1987, it was apparent this five-piece had a knack for infectious and virtuosic composition.
Appetite for Destruction catapulted Guns N’ Roses to global fame thanks to a bounty of iconic hits such as ‘Paradise City’, ‘Welcome to the Jungle’, and ‘Nightrain’. However, it was ‘Sweet Child o’ Mine’ that stood proud as the album’s talisman. It remains the band’s most popular hit to this day, with a staggering two and a half billion streams on Spotify.
Even the most devoted, long-haired, top hat-wearing fan could be excused for panning ‘Sweet Child o’ Mine’ in the modern day as a truly worn-out disc, but Slash wasn’t particularly keen, even on the day of its creation. “I hated it for years,” Slash once revealed. “But it would cause such a reaction, so I’ve finally gotten to appreciate it.”
The guitarist was always into the band’s more bruising side, inspired by The Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix at their heaviest. He’s certainly not synonymous with quaint ditties, but fooling around was also part of the band’s ethos, and during the long days on the road, they would often have joke jams that just so happened to spawn the odd song.
“You know, Guns N’ Roses was always a real hardcore, sort of, AC/DC kind of hard rock band with a lot of attitude,” the lead guitarist added while speaking to WEBN of his reservations when one of these lighter jams began to be taken rather more seriously by Rose.
“If we did any kind of ballads, it was bluesy,” he added. “This was an uptempo ballad. That’s one of the gayest things you can write. But at the same time, it’s a great song – I’m not knocking it – but at the 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.”
As it transpires, the track was conceived as an insincere practice arrangement on Slash’s fretboard. Slash thought it was a silly throwaway piece, comparing it to some novelty circus music and pulling faces at his bandmates. However, Rose heard something in it and persisted with the creation. Although he might have been the era’s leading hellraiser, there was always a softer yearning side to Rose, and Slash’s arrangement somehow brought that to the fore.
“It’s a combination of influences,” Slash said of his guitar riff in an interview with Rolling Stone. “From Jeff Beck, Cream and Zeppelin to stuff you’d be surprised at: the solos in Manfred Mann’s version of ‘Blinded By The Light’ and Gerry Rafferty’s ‘Baker Street’.” All of that came together to form something as euphoric as The Who’s ‘Baba O’Riley’, and as instantly recognisable as ‘Satisfaction’.
When it came to Rose’s sentimental lyrics, he had been listening to a lot of Lynyrd Skynyrd at the time and found additional inspiration in revisiting his childhood. With the joke suddenly no longer a laughing matter, his thoughts turned to his first romantic muse and simpler times with Erin Everly.
“The ‘blue sky’ line actually was one of my first childhood memories – looking at the blue sky and wishing I could disappear in it because it was so beautiful,” Rose once recalled in an interview with The Los Angeles Times. “A lot of rock bands are too wimpy to have any sentiment or any emotion in any of their stuff unless they are in pain,” Rose added, speaking to Rip in 1987.
“‘Sweet Child o’ Mine’ is the first positive love song I’ve ever written, but I never had anyone to write anything about before.”
