Sweet Child o' Mine

Background and composition

Lead guitarist Slash has been quoted as having an initial disdain for the song due to its roots as simply a "string skipping" exercise and a joke at the time. During a jam session at the band's house in the Sunset Strip, drummer Steven Adler and Slash were warming up and Slash began to play a "circus" melody while making faces at Adler. Rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin asked Slash to play it again. Stradlin came up with some chords, Duff McKagan created a bassline and Adler planned a beat. In his autobiography, Slash said "within an hour my guitar exercise had become something else". Meanwhile, lead singer Axl Rose was listening to the musicians upstairs in his room and was inspired to write lyrics, which became complete by the following afternoon. He based it on his girlfriend Erin Everly, and declared that Lynyrd Skynyrd served as an inspiration "to make sure that we'd got that heartfelt feeling." On the next composing session in Burbank, the band added both a bridge and a guitar solo.

While the band was recording demos with producer Spencer Proffer, he suggested adding a breakdown at the song's end. The musicians agreed, but were not sure what to do. Listening to the demo in a loop, Rose started saying to himself, "Where do we go? Where do we go now?" and Proffer suggested that he sing that.

Music video

The "Sweet Child o' Mine" video depicts the band rehearsing in the Huntington Ballroom at Huntington Beach, surrounded by crew members. All of the band members' girlfriends at the time were shown in the clip. Rose was dating Erin Everly at the time, whose father is Don Everly of The Everly Brothers fame. McKagan's girlfriend Mandy from the all-female rock band The Lame Flames was there, as was Adler's girlfriend Cheryl and Slash's girlfriend Sally. Stradlin's dog was also featured. The video was extremely successful on MTV, and helped launch the song to success on mainstream radio.

In an effort to make "Sweet Child o' Mine" more marketable to MTV and radio stations, the song was cut from 5:56 to 4:12, with much of Slash's guitar solo removed. This move drew the ire of the band members, including Rose, who commented on it in a 1989 interview with Rolling Stone: "I hate the edit of 'Sweet Child O' Mine.' Radio stations said, "Well, your vocals aren't cut." "My favorite part of the song is Slash's slow solo; it's the heaviest part for me. There's no reason for it to be missing except to create more space for commercials, so the radio-station owners can get more advertising dollars. When you get the chopped version of 'Paradise City' or half of 'Sweet Child' and 'Patience' cut, you're getting screwed." The video uses the same edits as the radio version with the exception of Slash's solo, which is fully intact.

A 7-inch vinyl format and cassette single were released. The album version of the song was included on the US single release, while the UK single was the "edit/remix" version. The 12" vinyl format also contained the longer LP version. The b-side to the single is a non-album, live version of "It's So Easy".

On an interview on Eddie Trunk's New York radio show in May 2006, Rose stated that his original concept for the video focused on the theme of drug trafficking. According to Rose, the video was to depict an Asian woman carrying a baby into a foreign land, only to discover at the end that the child was dead and filled with heroin. This concept was rejected by Geffen Records.

There is also an alternative video for "Sweet Child o' Mine" with different shots, all in black and white.

Reception

"Sweet Child o' Mine" placed #37 on Guitar World's list of the "100 Greatest Guitar Solos." It also came in at number three on Blender's 500 Greatest Songs Since You Were Born, and at #198 on Rolling Stone's The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. In March 2005, Q magazine placed it at #6 in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks. On a 2004 Total Guitar magazine poll, the introduction's famous riff was voted number-one riff of all-time by the readers of the magazine. It was also in Rolling Stone's 40 Greatest Songs that Changed the World. It places #7 in VH1's "100 Greatest Songs of the '80s", and placed #210 on the RIAA Songs of the Century list.

The song is currently ranked as the 104th greatest song of all time, as well as the best song of 1987, by Acclaimed Music. The song has sold 2,609,000 digital copies in the US as of March 2012.

Australian Crawl controversy

In 2015, the web page of the Australian music TV channel MAX published an article by music writer Nathan Jolly that noted similarities between "Sweet Child o' Mine" and the song "Unpublished Critics" by the Australian band Australian Crawl, from 1981. The article included both songs, inviting readers to compare the two. It also cited a reader's comment on an earlier article that had originally drawn attention to the similarities between the songs. As of May 2015, this comment no longer appeared on the earlier article. The story went viral quickly, encouraging several comments on both the MAX article and the suggestion that "Unpublished Critics" had influenced "Sweet Child o' Mine", including one from Duff McKagan, bass player with Guns N' Roses when "Sweet Child o' Mine" was written and recorded. McKagan found the similarities between the songs "stunning," but admitted that he had not previously heard "Unpublished Critics."

Use in media

In film

The first time this song appeared in a movie was in 1988. It played as the credits were rolling for the movie Bad Dreams.

"Sweet Child o' Mine" was featured in the 2008 film The Wrestler. The song is played when Randy "The Ram" Robinson (played by Mickey Rourke) makes his entrance to the ring at the end of the film. Rourke, who is friends with Axl Rose, persuaded him to allow the song to be played in the film for a fraction of what would have been normally charged. Rourke himself used the song as his entrance music during his boxing career in the early 1990s.

The song is in the Sean Penn, Gary Oldman film State of Grace.

Sheryl Crow's cover of this song is featured in the Adam Sandler film, Big Daddy.

The Taken by Trees cover of this song appears at the end of the movie Life as We Know It. It also is used in the trailer for the 2009 remake of The Last House on the Left.

The introductory riff is heard in the 2010 film Gulliver's Travels, starring Jack Black.

In Step Brothers, Derek and his family sing this song during a car ride, causing them to swerve into oncoming traffic.

The song is featured in the 2015 film The Big Short when Mark Baum (Steve Carell) realizes that there is a housing bubble that may explode at any moment and will be the cause of the Financial crisis of 2007–08.

A cover of the song, sung by the cast, is featured in the 2016 film Captain Fantastic starring Viggo Mortensen.

Cover versions

In 1999, the song was covered by Sheryl Crow and re-recorded by the then-new Guns N' Roses members for the film Big Daddy; it was added to the re-released version of her third studio album, The Globe Sessions. Crow's version earned her a Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance. The recording was produced by Rick Rubin and Crow. A music video for Crow's version was also released, directed by Stéphane Sednaoui. A separate Guns N' Roses version which morphed into a live version halfway through was not featured on the original Big Daddy soundtrack album of the film, but can be heard during the film's ending credits. This Guns N' Roses version of the song was also featured in the 1990 film State of Grace, in a bar during a brawl.

During the Super Bowl XLV halftime show, which featured the Black Eyed Peas, Slash joined with vocalist Fergie to perform the song.

Formats and track listing

All tracks written by Guns N' Roses except where noted.

Personnel