Sweet Child O' Mine
Axl
"That's a true story about my girlfriend at this time. /../ I had written this poem, reached a dead end with it and put it on the shelf. Then Slash and Izzy got working together on songs and I came in, Izzy hit a rhythm, and all of a sudden this poem popped in my head. It just all came together. A lot of rock bands are too fucking wimpy to have any sentiment or any emotion in any of their stuff unless they're in pain. It's the first positive love song I've ever written, but I never had anyone to write anything about before, I guess."
[An Interview With The Gunners, Hit Parader - March 1988]

Slash
"If you listen to "Sweet Child of Mine," the tempo on the very beginning is different from when the drums come in, which is a little faster. I had to play the beginning 50 times to get it right with the drums."
[In The Classic Way, Guitar - Sep, 1988]

""Sweet Child O' Mine" was a joke. It was a fluke. I was sitting around making funny faces and acting like an idiot and played that riff. Izzy started playing the chords that I was playing, strumming them, and all of a sudden Axl really liked it. I hated that song because it was so stupid at first. I hated the guitar part. Now I really like it because I've gotten it to the point where it sounds really good when I play it live, and I'm so used to the song so I like it a lot more. But it definitely wasn't something I hummed out in my head. It was more like me fucking around with the guitar. "
[Stix (1992) Slash - Guitar From The Gut, Guitar For The Practicing Musician - Nov 1992]

"The band was signed already, and the rest of the band had moved on to greener pastures, living with some girls or something. But where Izzy and I lived, we had no electricity and no hot water. It was a house some manager - with whom we had no intentions of working with - rented us, which we destroyed completely. And on an evening everybody happened to be there, I was sitting in front of the broken down fireplace going [sings opening bars]. It was literally a joke! The next thing you know, Izzy started playing the basic chords, Axl got inspired and started singing."
[Turner (2001) 10 Rockin' Riffs From Appetite, Lies, Use Your Illusion I-II, Guitar One - June 2001]

Duff
"It was probably the hardest song for me and Steve to record, just because you have to keep a steadiness and also keep the emotion in it. /../ The thing about 'Sweet Child,' it was written in five minutes. It was one of those songs, only three chords. You know that guitar lick Slash does at the beginning? It was kinda lika a joke because we thought, 'What is this song? It's gonna be nothin', it'll be filler on the record.' And except that vocal-wise, it's very sweet and sincere, Slash was fuckin' around when he first wrote that lick."
[An Interview With The Gunners, Hit Parader - March 1988]