Random Behind Scenes Of Guns N’ Roses Hit Single ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’ (17 items)

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  (#2) Rose Composed The Lyrics For 'Sweet Child' Based On A Poem He Wrote For His Then Girlfriend Erin Everly

  At the time the band was getting ready to record Appetite for Destruction, Rose was in a relationship with Erin Everly (daughter of Don Everly from the pop duo The Everly Brothers). When he heard the guitar riff Slash had come up with, he was reminded of a love poem that he tried to write to Everly. He based the lyrics for "Sweet Child O' Mine" off of this poem.

  Rose admitted, "It's the first positive love song I've ever written, but I never had anyone to write anything that positive about, I guess." Indeed, it is the polar opposite of his other musical work, which includes ballads like "Back Off B*tch."

  Although the song became a huge hit, Rose's relationship with Everly did not last. The couple married in April 1990, but the marriage was annulled less than a year later.
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  (#9) Clink Banned Substances From The Studio While GNR Was Recording 'Appetite for Destruction'

  GNR were already famous in the Los Angeles rock music scene for their live act, and some were touting them as rock's "next big thing" when the band went into Rumbo Studios in Los Angeles in August 1986 to start recording Appetite for Destruction, their debut album. 

  GNR was well known for their heavy partying, drinking, and use of illicit substances. But when Clink (who had already worked on Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger") was hired to produce their first album, he laid down the law and insisted the studio be a clean space. 

  "He kept us at arm's length," Slash admitted. "We partied really hard, but when we were in the studio, we were pretty much together. There was no doping and all that stuff."
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  (#16) GNR Was Accused Of Plagiarizing 'Sweet Child' From A Song By The Band Australian Crawl

  In the spring of 2015, Australian music website Max TV highlighted the similarities between "Sweet Child O' Mine" and a song called "Unpublished Critics" by the band Australian Crawl. "['Unpublished Critics' has] the same chugging chord progression, a similarly-sweeping lead break, the verse melody, and the elongated one-syllable vocal in the chorus," the article claims. It was quickly removed from the Max TV website.

  "Unpublished Critics" was on Australian Crawl's album Sirocco, which was released by Geffen Records in 1981, more than six years before "Sweet Child O' Mine" came out. Perhaps coincidentally, Geffen Records was also GNR's label.

  While James Reyne, the lead singer for Australian Crawl, told the Daily Mail that "it is not inconceivable" that GNR could've heard "Unpublished Critics" prior to "Sweet Child O' Mine," he did not accuse them of plagiarism. Nor did he plan to sue, saying, "I'm not about to take on the might of the [GNR] lawyers."

  Reyne told the Daily Mail that he hadn't paid much attention to "Sweet Child O' Mine" when it was released. "I didn't think 'oh my god'... I didn't really listen to the song, I was more looking at the video thinking, 'Are they stoned? Or on smack?'"

  In a 2015 interview, GNR bassist McKagan admitted that the similarities between the two songs were "pretty stunning." But he reiterated, "We didn't [copy] it from them! I swear, I never heard that song until a couple of days ago."
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  (#13) The Band Members Were Surprised, And Not All Of Them Were Happy, When 'Sweet Child' Started Doing Well On Radio And On MTV

  Unlike Clink, GNR did not have any expectations about "Sweet Child O' Mine" becoming a hit. "We had no idea what [the song] would do for the album," McKagan admitted. "You should have seen the... difference [in crowd reaction] before, and after, that single came out." 

  McKagan said that prior to "Sweet Child O' Mine," very few GNR fans would turn out to shows where they opened for more popular bands like Aerosmith. But "afterwards everybody was on their feet with their cigarette lighters switched on. It was amazing, night and day. It happened that quickly."

  A few weeks after "Sweet Child O' Mine" was released as their second single in the US, Appetite for Destruction hit No. 1 on Billboard's albums chart. But while Steven Adler and Rose, who called his mother to share the news, were over the moon about their success, McKagan and guitarist Izzy Stradlin were not as excited.

  Stradlin didn't think it was cool, wasn't a punk thing, to have so much success. McKagan had a similar reaction, saying, "We're a rock-and-roll band. We've never written a song for commercial purposes. We... despise that."

  Slash, meanwhile, wanted nothing more than their success, saying, "I always figured we'd just be a cult band."
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  (#4) Producer Spencer Proffer Suggested The 'Where Do We Go? Where Do We Go Now?' Breakdown At The End Of The Song

  Before they decided to go with Mike Clink as their producer, the band worked with Spencer Proffer to record some demos. When he heard "Sweet Child O' Mine," Proffer thought the song needed a breakdown after Slash's solo.

  In his autobiography, Slash remembered they were sitting in the control room trying to figure out what to use as the breakdown section when Rose started ad-libbing, "Where do we go." He described the scene:

  Axl said, more to himself than the rest of us, "Where do we go now?... Where do we go?"

  "Hey," Spencer said, turning the music down. "Why don't you just try singing that?"
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  (#8) Slash Compared Writing The Song To Pulling Teeth

  McKagan said writing "Sweet Child O' Mine" took all but five minutes, and the band wasn't awfully confident of its potential. Although they were able to compose the tune quickly, "writing and rehearsing to make it a complete song was like pulling teeth," according to Slash. 

  To Slash, the song was just a "sappy ballad" and he "hated it for years." The process of putting it together might not have seemed worth the effort at the time, but as the public responded to the hit, the guitarist warmed up to it. 

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