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

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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of 2015, Australian music website Max TV highlighted the similarities between "Sweet Child O' Mine" and a song called "Unpublished Critics" by the band Australian Crawl. "['Unpublished Critics' has] the same chugging chord progression, a similarly-sweeping lead break, the verse melody, and the elongated one-syllable vocal in the chorus," the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  "Unpublished Critics" was on Australian Crawl's album Sirocco, which was released by Geffen Records in 1981, more than six years before "Sweet Child O' Mine" came out.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the lead singer for Australian Crawl, told the Daily Mail that "it is not inconceivable" that GNR could've heard "Unpublished Critics" prior to "Sweet Child O' Mine," he did not accuse them of plagiarism.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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  (#14) Slash Hated 'Sweet Child' For A Long Time

  "Sweet Child O' Mine" might have been a massive hit that helped propel GNR to fame, but it took a while for Slash to really appreciate the song. "I hated it for years," he admitted to Q magazine in 2005. "But it would cause such a reaction - just playing the first stupid notes used to evoke this hysteria - so I've finally gotten to appreciate it."

  In a 2014 interview with WEBN radio host KiddChris, he said, "I didn't hate it, but I wasn't fond of 'Sweet Child O' Mine.' And that gives you a good idea of how credible my opinion is... the actual riff itself I love." He continued:

  You know, [GNR] was always a real [heavy], sort of, AC/DC kind of hard rock band with a lot of attitude. If we did any kind of ballads, it was bluesy. This was an uptempo ballad... But at the same time, it's a great song - I'm not knocking it - but... it just did not fit in with the rest of our, sort of, shtick. And, of course, it would be the biggest hit we ever had.
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  (#17) Sheryl Crow Won A Grammy For Best Female Rock Performance For Her Cover Of 'Sweet Child,' But It Was Negatively Received By Many

  Sheryl Crow recorded a cover version of "Sweet Child O' Mine" that was used in the Adam Sandler film Big Daddy. In February 1999, Crow won the Grammy Award for best female rock vocal performance for her version of the song.

  But not everyone was a fan of Crow's interpretation. In 2011, the readers of Rolling Stone voted it the fourth-worst cover song of all time, finishing behind Miley Cyrus's cover of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit," Limp Bizkit's version of The Who's "Behind Blue Eyes," and Madonna's cover of Don McLean's classic "American Pie."
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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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  (#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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  (#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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