THE 1000 BEST SONGS IN THE WORLD EVER.

463-Guns N’ Roses-Sweet Child o’ Mine.

1989-Number 6 single.

Best Bit-At 0.01. Axl Rose wrote the romantic lyrics about his future wife Erin Everly, the daughter of Don Everly (see also best songs 799.) The groups guitarist Slash was not impressed, as according to him a Rock band don’t make songs with soppy lyrics.

‘Sweet Child o’ Mine’ was the third single released from Guns N’ Roses debut studio Album ‘Appetite for Destruction,’ from 1987. The song became their only Billboard Number 1 single with sales in excess of 2,500,000 copies, the Album is one of the best selling of all time, with sales of around 30 million units. All five group members W. Axl Rose, Slash, Izzy Stradlin, Duff McKagan and Steven Adler share the song writing credits, as they also all do on the Album’s other 11 tracks (see also best songs 8.)

It was Slash who came up with the critically acclaimed and memorable guitar riff, but apart from his input he isn’t a big fan of the song, he has said,’You know Guns N’ Roses was always a real hardcore, sort of, AC/DC kind of hard rock band with a lot of attitude. If we did any kinds of ballads, it was bluesy. This was an uptempo ballad, that’s one of the gayest things you can write. 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.’

In 2015 an article by the Australian writer Nathan Jolly noted the similarities between ‘Sweet Child o’ Mine’ and a 1981 song by the Australian band ‘Australian Crawl,’ with their song ‘Unpublished Critics.’ Duff McKagan the bass player with Guns N’ Roses found the similarities between the two songs ‘stunning,’ but said that he had not previously heard ‘Unpublished Critics.’

‘She’s got a smile it seems to me, reminds me of childhood memories, where everything was as fresh as the bright blue sky. Now and then when I see her face, she takes me away to that special place.’