Guns N’ Roses’ ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’ Returns To Top Of The Charts
The enduring 1987 hit appears in the trailer for Marvel’s ‘Thor: Love and Thunder.’
Legendary rock band Guns N’ Roses have found continued success with one of their biggest hits, “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” thanks to its appearance in the trailer for Marvel’s upcoming film, Thor: Love and Thunder. Today, it has reached No.1 on Billboard’s Hot Hard Rock Songs chart – almost 35 years after its release. The third single off Guns N’ Roses’ 1987 debut, Appetite for Destruction, the song originally topped the Billboard Hot 100 in the fall of 1988.
“Sweet Child O’ Mine” was written during a jam session that Guns N’ Roses held on Los Angeles’ Sunset Strip. Guitarist Slash had been experimenting with different melodies, and the rest of the members built the song around that. “Writing and rehearsing it to make it a complete song was like pulling teeth,” Slash told Q Magazine in 2005. “For me, at the time, it was a very sappy ballad.” Frontman Axl Rose added the lyrics, which were based on his then-girlfriend, model Erin Everly (who also appeared in the song’s iconic video).
In the decades since its release, the song’s reach has extended far beyond that Sunset Strip jam session. In October 2019, “Sweet Child O’ Mine” became the first music video of the 80s to earn over a billion views on YouTube. Last August, the hit also surpassed a billion streams on Spotify.
After taking a break from the studio, Guns N’ Roses have returned with new material. In February, they dropped Hard Skool, a four-song collection that featured their two most recent singles: “Hard Skool” and “Absurd.”
Next month, the band is set to headline Florida’s Welcome To Rockville music festival. Fans across the globe will still have opportunities to catch Guns N’ Roses on tour this year, with the band playing shows across Europe, South America, Australia, New Zealand, and Mexico. A complete list of tour dates, along with more information, is available through the band’s official website.
