Slash and Zakk Wylde Jam on Voodoo Child

Guns N' Roses - Sweet Child O' Mine

Sweet Child O' Mine Lyric

She's got a smile that 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
And if I stared too long
I'd probably break down and cry

Whoa, whoa, whoa
Sweet child o' mine
Whoa, oh, oh, oh
Sweet love of mine

She's got eyes of the bluest skies
As if they thought of rain
I hate to look into those eyes
And see an ounce of pain

Her hair reminds me
Of a warm safe place
Where as a child I'd hide
And pray for the thunder
And the rain
To quietly pass me by

Whoa, whoa, whoa
Sweet child o' mine
Whoa, oh, oh, oh
Sweet love of mine

Where do we go
Where do we go now
Where do we go
Sweet child o' mine

Song Notes : "Axl Rose wrote this about his girlfriend, Erin Everly, who is the daughter of Don Everly of the Everly Brothers. They married in 1990 but divorced a month later"

"This was the first Guns N' Roses song to chart in the US. The first 2 singles from Appetite For Destruction, "It's So Easy" and "Welcome To The Jungle," flopped, although "Welcome To The Jungle" became a hit when it was re-released"

"This didn't hit US #1 until a year after Appetite For Destruction was released. Its success prompted the group to re-release "Welcome To The Jungle," which then became a hit"

"Slash came up with the riff when he was playing around on his guitar. He thought it was silly and wanted nothing to do with it, but Axl loved it and had him keep playing it. Izzy Stradlin added some chords, and the song came together. For a long time, Slash hated it, but it eventually grew on him"

"This won Best Single, Heavy Metal/Hard Rock at the 1989 American Music Awards. The group performed "Patience" at the show with Don Henley sitting in for Steven Alder (who was sick) on drums"

"In 1989, this won the MTV Video Music Award for Best Heavy Metal Video"

"A third verse Axl wrote was edited out because the record company thought it made the song too long"

Guns N' Roses - Welcome to The Jungle

Welcome to The Jungle Lyric

Welcome to the jungle
We've got fun 'n' games
We got everything you want
Honey, we know the names
We are the people that can find
Whatever you may need
If you got the money, honey
We got your disease

Chorus:
In the jungle
Welcome to the jungle
Watch it bring you to your
knees, knees
I wanna watch you bleed

Welcome to the jungle
We take it day by day
If you want it you're gonna bleed
But it's the price you pay
And you're a very sexy girl
That's very hard to please
You can taste the bright lights
But you won't get them for free

In the jungle
Welcome to the jungle
Feel my, my, my serpentine
I, I wanna hear you scream

Welcome to the jungle
It gets worse here everyday
Learn to live like an animal
In the jungle where we play
If you got a hunger for what you see
You'll take it eventually
You can have anything you want
But you better not take it from me

Chorus

And when you're high you never
Ever want to come down, YEAH!

You know where you are
You're in the jungle baby
You're gonna die

In the jungle
Welcome to the jungle
Watch it bring you to your
knees, knees

In the jungle
Welcome to the jungle
Feel my, my, my serpentine

In the jungle
Welcome to the jungle
Watch it bring you to your
knees, knees

In the jungle
Welcome to the jungle
Watch it bring you to your
It's gonna bring you down-HA!

Song Notes : "Axl Rose wrote the lyrics when he was in Seattle, which gave him some perspective on the size of Los Angeles"

"This song is about Los Angeles. It exposes the dark side of the city many people encounter when they go there to pursue fame. Guns N' Roses knew this side of the city well: in 1985, they lived in a place on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles that they called "Hell House." The house was often filled with drugs, alcohol and groupies"

Slash (from the notes to Guns N' Roses: The Hits): "I was at my house and I had that riff happening and Axl came over and he got those lyrics together, and then the band sort of arranged it. We got an arrangement for the whole band, 'cause that's how we work. Someone comes in with an idea and someone else has input and in that way everyone's happy. That came together really quickly too, that was arranged in one day."

"This song caused further tension between Axl Rose and Slash in 2001 when Slash wanted to let the producers of Black Hawk Down use it in their movie, but Axl refused unless he could re-record it with the new members of Guns N' Roses (the old members would have lost out on royalties). After Axl formed a new version of the band in 2001, things got testy between him and the previous members, and Axl has blocked use of their songs in movies"

Guns N' Roses - Don't Cry

Don't Cry Lyric

Talk to me softly
There's something in your eyes
Don't hang your head in sorrow
And please don't cry
I know how you feel inside I've
I've been there before
Somethin's changin' inside you baby
And don't you know

Don't you cry tonight
I still love you
Don't you cry tonight
Don't you cry tonight
There's a heaven above you baby
And don't you cry tonight

Give me a whisper
And give me a sigh
Give me a kiss before you tell me goodbye
Don't you take it so hard now
And please don't take it so bad
I'll still be thinking of you
And the times we had ... baby

And don't you cry tonight
Don't you cry tomight
Don't you cry tonight
There's a heaven above you baby
And don't you cry tonight

And please remember that I never lied
And please remember
How I felt inside now honey
You gotta make it your own way
But you'll be alright now sugar
You'll feel better tomorrow
Come the morning light now baby

And don't you cry tonight
An don't you cry tonight
An don't you cry tonight
There's a heaven above you baby
And don't you cry
Don't you ever cry
Don't you cry tonight
Baby maybe someday
Don't you cry
Don't you ever cry
Don't you cry
Tonight

Song Notes : "As stated by Axl Rose in an interview with Geffen Records for a video collection, this song was the first song written by the band. Rose wrote it with guitarist Izzy Stradlin after they each fell for the same girl. She wouldn't make a choice and told Axl while he was sitting on a park bench, "Don't Cry Bill," which provided the title"

Shannon Hoon, who was lead singer of Blind Melon, sang backup on this track. Hoon and Axl Rose both grew up in Lafayette, Indiana. Hoon also sang on "November Rain."

"This song appears on both Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II. The second version is considered the alternate, and contains different lyrics"

Guns N' Roses - Civil War (Live/Voodoo Child Intro)

Civil War Lyric

"What we've got here is failure to communicate
Some men you just can't reach...
So you get what we had here last week
Which is the way he wants it
Well, he gets it
And I don't like it anymore than you men"

Look at your young men fighting
Look at your women crying
Look at your young men dying
The way they've always done before

Look at the hate we're breeding
Look at the fear we're feeding
Look at the lives we're leading
The way they've always done before

My hands are tied
The billions shift from side to side
And the wars go on with brainwashed pride
For the love of God and the human rights
And all these things are swept aside
By bloody hands time can't deny
And are washed away by your genocide
And history hides the lies of our civil wars

D'you wear a black armband
When they shot the man
Who said "Peace could last forever"
And in my first memories
They shot Kennedy
And I went numb when I learned to see
So I never felt for Vietnam
We got the wall of D.C. to remind us all
That you can't trust freedom when it's not in your hands
When everybody's fighting for the promised land

And
I don't need your civil war
It feeds the rich while it buries the poor
Your power hungry sellin' soldiers
In a human grocery store
Ain't that fresh
I don't need your civil war

Look at the shoes you're filling
Look at the blood we're spilling
Look at the world we're killing
The way we've always done before
Look in the doubt we've wallowed
Look at the leaders we've followed
Look at the lies we've swallowed
And I don't want to hear no more

My hands are tied
For all I've seen has changed my mind
But still the wars go on as the years go by
With no love of God or human rights
'Cause all these dreams are swept aside
By bloody hands of the hypnotized
Who carry the cross of homicide
And history bears the scars of our civil wars

"We practice selective annihilation of mayors
And government officials for example to create a vacuum
Then we fill that vacuum
As popular war advances
Peace is closer"

I don't need your civil war
It feeds the rich while it buries the poor
Your power hungry sellin' soldiers
In a human grocery store
Ain't that fresh
And I don't need your civil war
I don't need your civil war
I don't need your civil war
Your power hungry sellin' soldiers
In a human grocery store
Ain't that fresh
I don't need your civil war
I don't need one more war

I don't need one more war
Whaz so civil about war anyway

Son Notes : "This song is politically charged, and has an entire verse about President Kennedy's assassination. It also deals with the Vietnam War and the battle for civil rights in the US"

"Slash (Saul Hudson), Duff (Michael McKagan) and W. Axl Rose wrote this for Use Your Illusion 2, which was released simultaneously with Use Your Illusion 1. The song originally appeared on the 1990 album Nobody's Child, a fundraising compilation for Romanian orphans"

On September 27, 1993, Duff explained where the song came from in an interview with the radio show Rockline: "Basically it was a riff that we would do at soundchecks. Axl came up with a couple of lines at the beginning. I went in a peace march, when I was a little kid, with my mom. I was like 4 years old. For Martin Luther King. And that's when: 'Did you wear the black arm band when they shot the man who said: 'Peace could last forever?'. It's just true-life experiences, really.'"

The speech at the beginning of the song is from the movie Cool Hand Luke: "What we have here is a failure to communicate..."

"Part of the American Civil War song "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" is used at the beginning and end of the song"

"The line, "Did you wear a black armband when they shot the man who said, 'Peace could last forever'" could be referring to the black hand's assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand that triggered World War I. It could also refer to the assassination of John Lennon, who strongly opposed the Vietnam war. The black armbands a sign of mourning, so the whole line asks whether we mourned for John Lennon as many others did at that time"

Guns 'N Roses - Estranged

Estranged Lyric

When you're talkin to yourself
And nobody's home
You can fool yourself
You came in this world alone
(Alone)

So nobody ever told you baby
How it was gonna be
So what'll happen to you baby
Guess we'll have to wait and see
One, two

Old at heart but I'm only 28
And I'm much too young
To let love break my heart
Young at heart but it's getting much too late
To find ourselves so far apart

I don't know how you're s'posed
To find me lately
An what more could you ask from me
How could you say that I never needed you
When you took everything
Said you took everything from me

Young at heart an it gets so hard to wait
When no one I know can seem to help me now
Old at heart but I mustn't hesitate
If I'm to find my own way out

Still talkin' to myself
And nobody's home
(Alone)

So nobody ever told us baby
How it was gonna be
So what'll happen to us baby
Guess we'll have to wait and see

When I find out all the reasons
Maybe I'll find another way
Find another day
With all the changing seasons of my life
Maybe I'll get it right next time
An now that you've been broken down
Got your head out of the clouds
You're back down on the ground
And you don't talk so loud
An you don't walk so proud
Any more, and what for

Well I jumped into the river
Too many times to make it home
I'm out here on my own, an drifting all alone
If it doesn't show give it time
To read between the lines
'Cause I see the storm getting closer
And the waves they get so high
Seems everything we've ever known's here
Why must it drift away and die

I'll never find anyone to replace you
Guess I'll have to make it thru, this time
Oh this time
Without you

I knew the storm was getting closer
And all my friends said I was high
But everything we've ever known's here
I never wanted it to die

Song Note : Though Axl Rose has the only writing credit for this song, in the album's CD booklet he offered this telling dedication: "Slash, thanks for the killer guitar melodies."

This is one of Guns N' Roses' longest running songs, as well as one of the longest and most expensive music videos ever made. The video is the third and final part of an unofficial trilogy of videos "Don't Cry" and "November Rain."

"The music video was part of a trilogy along with the ones for "November Rain" and "Don't Cry." They were inspired by the short story Without You. This is the best known of a collection of horror tales, The Language Of Fear, penned by author and friend of Rose, Del James. The house in the promo in Malibu, California actually belongs to Rose, who has lived there since 1991"

Guns n' Roses - November Rain

November Rain Lyric

When I look into your eyes
I can see a love restrained
But darlin' when I hold you
Don't you know I feel the same

'Cause nothin' lasts forever
And we both know hearts can change
And it's hard to hold a candle
In the cold November rain

We've been through this such a long long time
Just tryin' to kill the pain

But lovers always come and lovers always go
And no one's really sure who's lettin' go today
Walking away

If we could take the time to lay it on the line
I could rest my head
Just knowin' that you were mine
All mine
So if you want to love me
Then darlin' don't refrain
Or I'll just end up walkin'
In the cold November rain

Do you need some time...on your own
Do you need some time...all alone
Everybody needs some time...on their own
Don't you know you need some time...all alone

I know it's hard to keep an open heart
When even friends seem out to harm you
But if you could heal a broken heart
Wouldn't time be out to charm you

Sometimes I need some time...on my own
Sometimes I need some time...all alone
Everybody needs some time...on their own
Don't you know you need some time...all alone

And when your fears subside
And shadows still remain
I know that you can love me
When there's no one left to blame
So never mind the darkness
We still can find a way
'Cause nothin' lasts forever
Even cold November rain

Don't ya think that you need somebody
Don't ya think that you need someone
Everybody needs somebody
You're not the only one
You're not the only one

Song Notes : "The lyrics and the video are based on a short story by Del James called Without You. The story is part of a collection called The Language Of Fear, which was brought back to market in 2008 after being out of print. The new version of the book contains an intro by Axl Rose, who wrote: "Del James has a personal knowledge of most of the situations he writes about, and has a love of the gutter from having been there." James contributed lyrics to 2 Guns N' Roses songs: The Garden and Yesterdays, and has directed several music videos"

"The original version was 25 minutes long, and the song was edited down to 8:59. It is the longest ever Top 10 hit and contains the longest guitar solo in a Top 10 single - Slash actually plays 2 guitar solos in the song. Rose put the song's lengthy gestation period down to opposition from Slash and Duff McKagan"

"The video was a huge production and got a lot of play on MTV. It starred actress and model Stephanie Seymour, Axl Rose's girlfriend at the time. In the video, she and Axl get married with Slash serving as best man and the rest of the band in the front row. After the wedding, it starts raining and the next scene is Stephanie's funeral in the same church. The video cost over $1.5 million to make"

"This won for best cinematography at the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards, where it also received a Video Vanguard award. Guns N' Roses performed this at the end of the show with Elton John on piano"