Slash: 4 lyrics from Guns N’ Roses guitarist [LISTA]

You might know him for his look, with his top hat and curly hair. Or even for the riffs, or even for the classic scene of his solo in the desert, in the video of “November Rain.” What even some fans don’t pay attention to, however, is the talent of slash as a lyricist. In his career, the guitarist of Armas e Rosas was also responsible for some of the band’s most iconic verses.

slash admits that composition is not his favorite role in music. In an interview with MetroLyrics, in 2012, he declares that he doesn’t consider himself “verbally expressive” and that, instead of writing lyrics or poems, he prefers to express himself using “just music.” Despite this, the musician was responsible for part of the verses of Armas e Rosasas well as much of the poetry of his solo career.

This Saturday, the 23rd, slash turns 57 years old – 37 since the band’s creation in Los Angeles, California. To remember this equally talented side of the guitarist, we recall below four lyrics that bear his signature – or rather, that of Saul Hudson, his real name and the way he signs the tracks.

“Paradise City”

In an interview with fuse, slash revealed that the original lyrics of “Paradise City”, from the classic Appetite for Destruction, was written by him – and that the verses were quite different from the ones that ended up being recorded. According to him, the track would say: “Take me down to the Paradise City where the girls are fat and they got big titties” (“Take me to Paradise City, where the girls are fat and have big tits”). “We thought it would be funny, but it didn’t end up on the record that way,” she said.

“Mr. Brownstone”

Still in Appetite for Destruction, slash would have taken up the pen again, this time beside Izzy Stradlin to tell the story of his own heroin addictions with “Mr. Brownstone” – which is clear in lines like “I used ta do a little but a little wouldn’t do/So the little got more and more“(Used to do a little bit, but a little doesn’t help/So the little turned into more and more”).

“With the”

The last track on the disc Use Your Illusion I, “With the” had part of the lyrics written by slashin an apartment rented by him and by Izzy Stradlin in Hollywood Hills. In his biography, slash recalls: “I had been trying to write this song for a year, and I couldn’t. I went to the studio to try and write it and I “passed out”. I woke up two hours later and sat down to write the complete ending to the song, as if out of my head. It was like I didn’t know what was going on, but I kept writing. I think one of the best things I wrote was the final segment of the song ‘With the’. She just came.”

“Nighttrain”

According to the website genius, “Nighttrain” talks about drinking with the brand’s wine night train. During the iconic show of Armas e Rosas at The Ritz in New York in 1988, slash would have said that the track speaks of “a walk in the park”. Later, in his biography, he wrote that the idea for the lyrics came during a walk in which he would be drunk (on Night Train wine!) and repeating what would become the song’s chorus: “I’m on the night train!“