The song Axl Rose wrote to overcome “emotions that were killing me”
Guns N’ Roses might not be a band that you think of as the most emotional on the planet, but they could tap into the hard stuff when necessary.
When you listen to their debut album, it doesn’t feel as though there is a whole lot of room for genuine emotion. The brief was pretty simple: venom. That meant injecting venom back into a Los Angeles rock scene that was very much lacking in it. This meant doom adjacent lyrics, energetic songs and riffs that could make anyone in earshot’s hair stand on end.
The only song on that debut album which was remotely emotional was the classic ‘Sweet Child O Mine’, and even that was nearly pushed back on by the band because it felt a bit soft. Slash has gone on record saying that he despised the song because he didn’t feel as though it fit effectively into the band’s image. Hindsight is 20/20, but at the time, the guitarist couldn’t see the light through those thick mirrored aviators.
“I hated it for years,” said Slash when discussing the track, “But it would cause such a reaction, so I’ve finally gotten to appreciate it.”
The guitarist spoke in a separate interview about how songs translate differently to different people. “You know what happens is you come up with something you think is cool, but how it’s going to translate to other people, you never know,” he said, “I was the guy who initially was not a big fan of ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’ back in the day. That was more not because of the riff, it was really more about the type of song it was at the time.”
While Slash might have been against embracing the more ballad-driven side of Guns N’ Roses initially, he was eventually happy to lean into this kind of music on some of the band’s later albums, particularly Use Your Illusion I and II, as Axl Rose was keen to embrace more experimental and emotional music. You can hear the experimental side of the band on tracks like ‘Coma’, meanwhile, some of their more emotional tracks are delivered on ‘Estranged’.
The song very much played into its title, as Rose sang about being lonely when he was going through his divorce with Erin Everly. It was a side to Rose that had only ever poked its head above water every now and then, one that showed him as a vulnerable human rather than a fame-addicted rock star. Rose admitted it was one of his most emotional tracks, and those emotional factors meant that he wanted to move around when performing on stage, acknowledging and swimming in these feelings rather than shying away from them.
“There’s something really wild, for me, in performing ‘Estranged’ ’cause all of a sudden I realized I don’t want to be sitting at the piano playing this song to keep the energy of the song moving live,” he said, “I need to be moving around and there’s something about being able to be up there moving around during it that’s actually a present, a gift or something.”
He continued, speaking in more depth about his complicated emotions within that song, “Being able to dance and rejoice in a song. That came from situations and emotions that were killing me. You know, we pretty much mean everything we say. We don’t put anything down that we’re not willing to stand behind or attempt to stand by for the duration.”
