Songoftheday 2/25/16 - She's got a smile it seems to me reminds me of childhood memories, where everything was as fresh as the bright blue sky...

"Sweet Child O' Mine" - Guns N Roses
from the album Appetite For Destruction (1987)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 14

Today's song of the day comes from the rock band Guns N' Roses, who came together in the mid-80s from members of two Los Angeles-based bands, L.A. Guns and Hollywood Rose. With guitarist Izzy Stradlin and lead singer Axl Rose from Hollywood Rose, along with lead guitarist Slash (who replaced original member Tracii Guns from L.A. Guns), bassist Duff McKagan, and another Hollywood Rose alumnus, drummer Steven Adler, the band worked their way through the dirty underbelly of Hollywood's rock bars gathering a mighty following until they finally were signed to a record deal. They released their debut studio album Appetite For Destruction in 1987, with the ass-kicking first single "Welcome To The Jungle" making it on to rock radio, reaching #37. The second single would be their pop breakthrough, a classic hard-edged love song "Sweet Child O'Mine", written by Axl, Slash, and Stradlin, and produced by Mike Clink. With Axl's lyrics meant for his then-girlfriend Erin Everly (daughter of Don of the Everly Brothers), the song was both traditional in the love-song sense but way harder and faster than any of the other pop-metal power-ballads that preceded it...

"Sweet Child O'Mine" went all the way to #1 on the American pop chart in September of 1988 (their only trip to the top there). The song also climbed to #7 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock radio chart. Internationally, the single made the top ten in Ireland (#4), New Zealand (#5), and the UK (#6), and hit the top ten in Australia, Austria, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. The track would go on and win an American Music Awards, along with the MTV Music Video Awards in 1989.

But besides any accolades, their was a definitely shift in rock radio after "Sweet Child O' Mine",  with shiny-bright metal bands being edged out for more dirty, organic fare, and synth-based rock fleeing to its own "Modern Rock" format.

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Here's GN'R performing the song live at the Ritz in New York in 1988...

...and again in Paris in 1992...

In 1999, Sheryl Crow covered "Sweet Child O'Mine" for the movie Big Daddy, and won a Grammy for Female Rock Performance (something the band never did in their career). The single made it to #29 on the Alternative Rock radio chart, and #30 on the British singles chart...

...and finally, Axl with a retooled GNR in 2014...

Up tomorrow: One more guitar band head over heels.