The song Axl Rose used to copy Lynyrd Skynyrd
Rock and roll has always been a genre indebted to those before. While artists like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones may get put on a pedestal as the greatest that the genre has to offer, some of the best rock songs of all time come from artists who take the lessons of the British invasion and invert them slightly to suit their own needs. Even though Guns N’ Roses were meant to be a no-frills hard rock band, one of their biggest hits came from them aping the sounds of southern rock.
Before the group had even gotten together, it was clear that they wouldn’t be the same kind of outfit that played the hair metal anthems of their peers. Instead of cowering to what MTV wanted, Axl Rose and Slash became the twin figures of what the band stood for, playing tracks that had much more in common with artists like The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin than Poison and Def Leppard.
Although their tracks may have been unavoidable on MTV after Appetite for Destruction blew up, none were for the faint of heart. Compared with their massive hooks, ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ and ‘Paradise City’ served as a diary of what the real Los Angeles looked like, shining a spotlight on those groups struggling to eat from day to day and barely clinging to life.
Then again, even true artists tend to have a sensitive side come through in their music. Just like every hair metal band had their own power ballad, ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’ would become the group’s go-to anthem, originating from a riff that Slash wrote as a joke to mimic the sounds of a circus melody.
Once Rose heard it, he started to pour his heart out for his girlfriend at the time, Erin Everly. By the time everyone came in to finish off the track, their indecisiveness on where to go next resulted in the ‘Where do we go now?’ breakdown section, bringing the edge back into their tame love song.
When coming up with the melody, Rose would say that he used the same model he heard from tracks by Lynyrd Skynyrd. Forever a staple of the southern rock sound, the songs from Ronnie Van Zant were known for taking the simplicity of rock and roll and turning it into musical magic, penning odes to his roots on ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ and massive hymns of heartache on ‘Tuesday’s Gone’.
By the time Rose began writing, he mentioned Skynyrd’s brand of melodic writing seeped into his usual style, saying, “I’m from Indiana where Lynyrd Skynyrd are considered God to the point that you ended up saying, ‘I hate this f*cking band!’ And yet, for ‘Sweet Child,’ I went out and got some old Skynyrd tapes to ensure we’d got that heartfelt feeling.”
Whereas Van Zant’s track may have had a homespun feel, Rose’s melody is all his own, creating the kind of earnest love song that can only come from someone who thinks they have found their soulmate. Guns N’ Roses may not have been the type to write anything earnest and pleasant, but sometimes dipping into the pool of Southern rock can get you in tune with affairs of the heart.
