Patience Sweet Child O Mine Welcome To The Jungle Guns N Roses

Patience Album: G 'N' R Lies (1988)
Sweet Child O' Mine Album: Appetite For Destruction (1987)
Welcome To The Jungle Album: Appetite For Destruction (1987)
by Guns N Roses

Following the manic aural onslaught of their debut album Appetite for Destruction, Guns N' Roses gave us "Patience," a tender song where Axl Rose sings about waiting it out in a relationship. It was the only single issued from the second album, G N' R Lies.

Patience was a trendsetter in its use of all-acoustic instrumentation, making it safe for hard rockers to display their sensitive, vulnerable sides in a more understated way rather than utilizing the power ballad format so popular among hair bands in the late '80s.

Axl Rose did the whistling on this track. He's also the one who blows the whistle on "Paradise City."

This song plays in the 1991 Robert DeNiro film Cape Fear in a scene where Juliette Lewis' character plays it to drown out her parents' fighting. It also appears in the 2013 film Warm Bodies.

This is a very popular karaoke song, but one that you might want to avoid. Kimberly Starling of The Karaoke Informer says it's one of the Top 5 songs that tends to bomb. "It just eludes the average ear and when you get off key on this one it sounds to the ear like a turd in a punch bowl looks to the eye," she says.

Before Geffen Records decided it was too long, the title for the album was Lies! The Sex, The Drugs, The Violence, The Shocking Truth.

On January 30, 1989, Guns N' Roses played Patience at the American Music Awards with Don Henley on drums because Steven Adler was in rehab. Henley did it as a favor to Axl Rose, who sang harmony vocals on his song "I Will Not Go Quietly," which appeared on his The End Of The Innocence album later that year.

The suitably understated video for Patience was directed by Nigel Dick and shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.
After helping his daughter Toni learn the song, Chris Cornell got inspired in March of 2016 to record "Patience" himself. His version wasn't released until July 20, 2020, two years after the singer's death on what would have been his 56th birthday.

Patience topped the Mainstream Rock Songs chart, giving him his first solo Billboard #1. Cornell also reached the summit eight times on the tally when fronting Soundgarden and Audioslave and on another occasion as guest vocalist on Zac Brown Band's "Heavy Is the Head."

The lyrics for Sweet Child O' Mine came from a poem Axl Rose was working on. He wrote the song about his girlfriend, Erin Everly, the daughter of Don Everly of the Everly Brothers. After dating for four years, they got married at a quickie wedding in Las Vegas on April 28, 1990, but just nine months later, the marriage was annulled, with Everly claiming abuse.
Appetite For Destruction was Guns N' Roses' first album, released in July 1987. It took a long time to catch on, and three cracks at a hit single before it did.

"It's So Easy" was the first single, followed by "Welcome To The Jungle." Both flopped, but when "Sweet Child O' Mine" was released as the third single in June 1988, it made a steady climb to the top, bringing the album with it. The song hit #1 in September; the album reached the top spot in August. In the wake of the "Sweet Child" success, "Welcome To The Jungle" was re-released and this time became a hit.

Slash came up with the riff for Sweet Child O' Mine 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. According to Duff McKagan's 2012 autobiography, Slash always considered it the worst Guns N' Roses song.

Slash told Rolling Stone magazine: "It's [Sweet Child O' Mine] a combination of influences. From Jeff Beck, Cream and Zeppelin to stuff you'd be surprised at: the solos in Manfred Mann's version of 'Blinded By The Light' and Gerry Rafferty's 'Baker Street.'"

Axl listened to a bunch of Lynyrd Skynyrd songs before recording his vocal. He liked their down-home, genuine sound and wanted to duplicate it on Sweet Child O' Mine.

Axl Rose had a rough childhood, but in Sweet Child O' Mine he recalls one pocket of light, remembering childhood memories "where everything was as fresh as the bright blue sky."

He told the Los Angeles Times: "The 'blue sky' line actually was one of my first childhood memories - looking at the blue sky and wishing I could disappear in it because it was so beautiful."

The video for Sweet Child O' Mine was directed by Nigel Dick, who did the first five Guns N' Roses videos. Unlike their later epics for "November Rain" and "Don't Cry," the Sweet Child O' Mine video is just grainy, black-and-white footage of the band performing the song. It was good enough to win them the MTV Video Music Award for Best Heavy Metal Video.

A third verse Axl wrote for Sweet Child O' Mine was edited out because the record company thought it made the song too long.

The song hit #1 in America on September 10, 1988, and stayed there for two weeks. While it was climbing to the top spot, Guns N' Roses was touring as the opening act for Aerosmith. By the end of the tour on September 15, G N' R had eclipsed their headliners in popularity and were chosen for the cover of Rolling Stone for their November 17 issue.

The tour went very well thanks to a ground rule Aerosmith established: no drugs in their presence. The now-rehabbed Aerosmith could see Guns N' Roses heading down the same path of addiction, but made no effort to preach to them about the dangers, as they knew the Gunners would have to make their own mistakes. Aerosmith did, however, give T-shirts to the band listing the rehab centers they had been through instead of tour dates, which they felt was their statement.

Sweet Child O' Mine revealed a sensitive side that G&R hadn't shown before and has done so sporadically since: "A lot of rock bands are too wimpy to have any sentiment or any emotion in any of their stuff unless they are in pain,... 'Sweet Child O' Mine' is the first positive love song I've ever written, but I never had anyone to write anything about before."

In the video for Sweet Child O' Mine, a few moments before Slash's solo takes off, Axl can be seen taking off his jacket. Axl had so many bracelets on his arms, he had trouble getting his jacket off, which made them do a number of retakes. Axl stated in a 2006 radio interview with Eddie Trunk, "The video they wanted to do for the song was supposed to be of an Asian woman carrying a baby into the United States. At the end of the video, the baby is cut open and there is heroin inside because that's what the song is about."

Sweet Child O' Mine is the most-covered song that Slash has ever written. He told UK's Metro newspaper: "There are some really good instrumental versions for the piano or violin, but I've been horrified by some muzak versions. I've been sitting in a doctor's office thinking, 'That sounds familiar,' and then realizing it's someone's interpretation of what I've written. That can be a creepy feeling."

Slash broke out the wah-wah pedal for his guitar solo, which landed at #3 on Guitar World's 2015 list of greatest wah solos of all time.

Sweet Child O' Mine 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 on drums for an ailing Steven Alder.

Sweet Child O' Mine was remixed and re-released in the UK in May 1989, where it went to #6. When first released there in August 1988, it made #24.

Sheryl Crow covered Sweet Child O' Mine in 1999 for the Adam Sandler movie Big Daddy, scoring a #30 hit in the UK and earning her the Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance in 2000. Her version appears near the middle of the movie right after they take the kid away; the Guns N' Roses original is played at the end with the credits. >>
The guitar solo is ranked #37 in Guitar World magazine's 2013 list of the 100 greatest guitar solos of all time (Slash's "November Rain" solo ranks #6).

In an interview with Uncut magazine February 2008 Slash was asked where the weirdest place that he'd heard one of his songs was. He replied: "I've heard 'Paradise City' and 'Patience' in some odd places, but the weirdest thing is hearing Muzak versions of 'Sweet Child O' Mine' in elevators and shopping malls. I've even heard an arrangement of it for harp. Recently I was in a hotel and the lounge pianist was playing it. I get a mixture of emotions when that happens. Part of it is 'hey wow, that's our tune!,' part of it's embarrassment at even noticing it, part of it's bewilderment of somebody else playing your music, someone who knows nothing about you, who has never met you, who is just playing your music as part of a thousand pieces of material that they have to play. Imagine how, say, Paul McCartney must feel, hearing his music absolutely everywhere."

In 2008, the Recording Industry Association of America declared Appetite for Destruction the best-selling debut album in the US with 18 million copies sold. The previous record holder was Boston's 1976 self-titled debut, which sold 17 million.
This song plays near the end of the 2008 movie The Wrestler when Mickey Rourke's character makes his entrance into the ring. Axl Rose, who is friends with Rourke, allowed the low-budget film to use the song for almost nothing, something Rourke thanked Axl for at the Golden Globe awards when he won for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama.
In 2009, a mellow jazz version by Taken By Trees, aka the Swedish singer Victoria Bergsman, reached #23 in the UK thanks to its use in TV commercials for the department store John Lewis.

Sweet Child O' Mine runs 5:55 and was issued at that length as a single, which was fine for rock radio. When it became clear that the song also had tremendous pop appeal, Geffen Records distributed a truncated version running 3:42 with the intro cut down and the second guitar solo (after the second verse) removed. This was a good option for radio stations with listeners that would only tollerate so much rock guitar; it got the song on the air across a breadth of formats.

Speaking with the radio station WEBN in Cincinnati, Ohio, Slash admitted that he isn't fond of Sweet Child O' Mine apart from its riff. He explained: "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 kind of ballads, it was bluesy. This was an uptempo ballad. That's one of the gayest things you can write. But at the same time, 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, sot of, schtick. And, of course, it would be the biggest hit we ever had."

On October 15, 2019 Sweet Child O' Mine became the first music video from the '80s to reach one billion views on YouTube. The previous year, the band's "November Rain" clip also became the first '90s video to reach the one billion mark on the platform.

An instrumental version of Sweet Child O' Mine was used on the series finale of The Office in 2013 when Phyllis has to carry an injured Angela down the aisle to marry Dwight.

"Sweet Child o' Mine" features on the soundtrack of Thor: Love and Thunder and was also used in the film's marketing. Director Taika Waititi, a huge GnR fan, said it helped "reflect the sort of crazy adventure that we're presenting."
"Sweet Child O' Mine" re-entered the UK Singles Chart at #40 after Guns N' Roses performed it at Glastonbury 2023 during the Saturday headline slot. It was its first time in the UK Top 40 since 1989.

"Sweet Child O' Mine" features in the fourth episode of The Summer I Turned Pretty's second season, which aired on July 21, 2023. The song plays as Belly and Jeremiah face the "Tower of Terror" ride at Magic Mountain.

Welcome To The Jungle 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.

Axl Rose wrote the lyrics to Welcome To The Jungle when he was in Seattle, which gave him some perspective on the size of Los Angeles.

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."

In 2007 Rolling Stone magazine ran a feature on the 20th anniversary of Appetite For Destruction. They explained that a famous lyric from Welcome To The Jungle originated when Axl Rose spent a night in a Queens schoolyard before joining the band. Said Rose: "This black guy said, 'You're in the jungle! You gonna die.'"

On 93.1 WIBC FM, a radio station in Indianapolis, Indiana, Jake Query, a friend of Axle Rose, gave a different account, saying: "When Axl Rose hitchhiked to Los Angeles, California, on the last leg, a truck driver drove him to Los Angeles, and when Rose got out of the truck, the truck driver said, 'Welcome to the Jungle."

When Welcome To The Jungle was released as a single in 1987, it charted in the UK but flopped in America. It finally became a hit in the US when they re-released it in October 1988 after "Sweet Child O' Mine" hit #1.

Welcome To The Jungle was used in the 1988 Clint Eastwood movie The Dead Pool, where the band makes a cameo. It also plays in the opening sequence of the 1989 film Lean On Me, about an inner-city high school reformed by principal Joe Clark. Other movies to use the song include:

The Lego Ninjago Movie (2017)
How to Be Single (2016)
The Interview (2014)
Megamind (2010)
Selena (1997)
The Program (1993)

Welcome To The Jungle was the second UK single and third US single from Appetite For Destruction. The first single, "It's So Easy," was a flop.

Numerous college and pro sports teams use Welcome To The Jungle to intimidate their opponents at home games. The Cincinnati Bengals of the NFL were probably the first. The Norwegian Soccer team Lillestrom SK uses this song before every home game.

Welcome To The Jungle was the first track on Appetite For Destruction, which caused controversy because of its cover, a drawing of a robot apparently raping a woman.

The album was a raging success, selling 18 million copies in America by 2008, making it the best-selling debut album in history until 2018, when the RIAA certified Cracked Rear View by Hootie & the Blowfish at 21 million.

Slash re-recorded his guitar parts as he was dissatisfied with his first attempts. To produce the vicious yet pure tone, the Guns N' Roses gunslinger used a Les Paul '59 replica plugged into a Marshall JCM, aided most likely by some Jack Daniel's.

The video was shot at Park Plaza and 450 South La Brea in Hollywood. The band's first video, it was very successful, winning at the 1988 MTV Video Music Awards for Best New Artist Video. Guns N' Roses performed the song on the show.

Welcome To The Jungle was used in the 2017 movie Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and the next installment, Jumanji: The Next Level (2019). The films are set in a virtual jungle.

When Axl says "my serpentine," he's describing his famous dance, which he copied from Richard Black, lead singer of the band Shark Island.

Slash left the band in 1996, leaving Axl Rose firmly in control. Rose kept the band going with new members and in 2001 got in yet another dispute with Slash when producers of Black Hawk Down wanted to use "Welcome To The Jungle" in the movie. According to Slash, Axl refused unless he could re-record it with the current members of Guns N' Roses, meaning Slash and the rest of the Appetite For Destruction lineup would have lost out on royalties.

Welcome To The Jungle never made it into the film, which tells the story of an ill-fated US raid on Mogadishu in 1993. It was going to be used in a scene where Army Rangers are preparing for the raid - in real life, they really did blast the song before heading out. The Faith No More song "Falling To Pieces" was used in its place.

Guns N' Roses made a surprise appearance at the 2002 MTV Video Music Awards where they performed Welcome To The Jungle. At the time Axl Rose was the only original member in the band, but there was great anticipation for their album Chinese Democracy, which was expected soon. The album finally appeared in 2008.

Welcome To The Jungle is used in the soundtrack to the Playstation 2 game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Axl lends his voice to one of the radio stations.

In 2007, three teens at Booth Free School in Roxbury, Connecticut (one of them a janitor), were messing around with the public address system when one of them sang some lyrics to this song, including "You're in the jungle baby; you're gonna die." This freaked out one teacher, who thought it was a threat, barricaded herself in a classroom and called the police, who came in and detained the three teens until they could clear up the misunderstanding.

A line from this song became a bit of a catch phrase for Axl Rose, who began screaming at crowds when performing it at shows, "Do you know where the f--k you are!?" Axl said it in 2006 when he introduced The Killers at the MTV Video Music Awards.

Guns N' Roses opened for Aerosmith in the summer of 1988, culminating in a show on September 15 at the Pacific Amphitheatre in Costa Mesa, California. At this final show, Aerosmith's road crew had some fun by dressing up in gorilla costumes and messing around on stage when G N' R performed Welcome To The Jungle. It was all in good fun, as the bands got along great, with Axl expressing his admiration for Aerosmith at every show. When Aerosmith took the stage that night, they had Guns N' Roses join them for an extended jam of "Mama Kin," a song Guns often covered.

By the end of the tour, Guns N' Roses was the hotter band - "Sweet Child O' Mine" hit #1 the week the tour ended.
Slash's gear for the entire Appetite For Destruction album was a Kris Derrig-built 1959 Les Paul replica guitar, and a rented S.I.R. (known to S.I.R. as Stock #36) Marshall 1959 Superlead Metal Panel modded by Frank Levi and Glenn Buckley (based on Tim Caswell's modification to Stock #39).

Welcome To The Jungle soundtracked a 2016 Super Bowl commercial for the Taco Bell Quesalupa featuring basketball player James Harden, soccer star Neymar, actor George Takei and "Texas Law Hawk" Bryan Wilson. In the spot, we learn that the cheesy treat will be bigger than Tinder, drones, and possibly even football.

Welcome To The Jungle was used four times on The Simpsons:

"Bart Has Two Mommies" (2006)
"Mobile Homer" (2005)
"Eight Misbehavin'" (1999)
"Marge on the Lam" (1993)

Axl Rose wasn't the first famous frontman from Indiana to write a lyric about the seedy section of Los Angeles: In 1981, Van Halen released "Mean Street" on their Fair Warning album; David Roth is from New Castle, Indiana, but the group formed in LA.

"Welcome to the Jungle" features on the soundtrack of the 2022 movie Thor: Love and Thunder. Guns N' Roses is one of the film's director Taika Waititi's favorite bands, and he used several of their other songs for the film, including "Sweet Child O' Mine," "November Rain" and "Paradise City." Waititi said he wanted the music to reflect the same aesthetic of the film with its "bombastic, loud, colorful palette."