The song by Guns N’ Roses was “too lightweight” for Slash

This was also intentional. No part of the band’s music was to be marred by the MTV suits or the glam metal aesthetic. So when “Welcome to the Jungle” started playing on the same stations that once carried bands like Poison and Winger, the days of the rest of the Sunset Strip glam scene were numbered.

While the group was working on their songs, there were also a handful of tracks they had worked on in separate projects. Although it’s generally accepted that Axl Rose and Slash wrote the majority of the material, Izzy Stradlin is really the unsung hero when it comes to the vulnerable side of the group.

Although his name appears on questionable songs like “Used to Love Her,” Stradlin’s style is largely indebted to the classic Rolling Stones method, including the use of open chords and singing with a somewhat raspy throat. “Patience” was the first time one of his pieces was in the spotlight, but “Think About You” was the precursor.

If Rose wrote “Sweet Child O’Mine” as his pseudo-love song, then this is Stradlin’s kind of junkie lament about an old flame. Every rock band needs this kind of ballad to balance out their album, but Slash felt the tune was far too mellow to be associated with anything.

Speak with Guitar edge, Slash recalled that he actually didn’t like the song at all and thought they should drop it. He said, “It’s a song that Izzy had complete when we started. I was never a big fan of it because it was just too lightweight… But I enjoyed recording it. I managed to get some ideas down on paper and was happy with how the song sounded.”

It’s easy to imagine this kind of tender love song, but the rest of the band completely turns Stradlin’s original version on its head. There are definitely some traces of that gentle piece with the singer-songwriter style of the plucked part in the chorus, but it’s hard to take it seriously when you hear the rest of them thundering in the background. Hearing them take everything into darker realms feels like a junkie screaming in pain for their lover even though they know it’s probably over. Then again, there’s nothing in this world a Keith Richards-style smile can’t fix.

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