10 Legendary Songs That Were Completely Improvised

Most of the members of Guns N Roses have emphasized how easy the Appetite for Destruction record came together. Although there's a lot of moving parts that went into the recording of the songs, all of the actual arrangements were fairly easy to get down, like when they took 20 minutes to write Welcome to the Jungle. For the softer side of Guns' sound though, Slash was joking around when he came up with one of his classic riffs.

While waiting for the rest of the band to show up for rehearsal, Slash was jamming with Steven Adler and started to play a riff that was centered around a circus melody. It may have been meant for Slash to just warm up his fingers, but Steven thought that the song had potential and started to add a beat behind it. Little did they know that Axl Rose was actually right above their practice place, writing lyrics for the song inspired by his new relationship with his girlfriend Erin Everly.

Even though Guns got one of their biggest hits out of the deal, Slash has always had a strange relationship with Sweet Child O Mine in the years since, saying that he doesn't really see the same kind of power that everyone else sees in it. Then again, you can't really blame him that much. Here you had a riff that was just you goofing around one day, and for some reason that's the one song that everyone is going to remember you by. It might pay the bills, but that excitement goes away over time.