Axl Rose was tired of hearing Lynyrd Skynyrd. Then he copied their style and sold 1,000,000 singles

Guns N’ Roses drew on Lynyrd Skynyrd’s melodic style while shaping “Sweet Child O’ Mine”, one of their biggest hits. Axl Rose said he had grown tired of hearing Skynyrd while growing up in Indiana, but revisited the band’s recordings to capture the heartfelt quality he wanted for the song.

The article describes how Slash’s playful guitar riff became a love song for Rose’s then-girlfriend, Erin Everly, with Izzy Stradlin’s chords and Duff McKagan’s bass helping build it into a full band arrangement. Their uncertainty about the song’s direction also led to its “Where do we go now?” section. The account presents the track as an example of Guns N’ Roses adapting southern rock influences to their own sound.