The best Guns N’ Roses songs of all time

published 22 June 2023

Have your headbands, oversized top hats, and leather jackets at the ready. Guns N’ Roses are all set to rock Glastonbury’s Saturday headliner slot. It promises to be a clear high point for a band that has experienced its fair share of peaks and troughs over the years - as this 'best Guns N’ Roses songs' guide proves.

Ever since forming in 1985, LA’s Guns N’ Roses have courted controversy and polarised opinion. The band’s hedonistic repackaging of classic hard rock riffs took the charts by storm throughout the late 80s, while a turn towards more histrionic, MTV-friendly fare gave them a stake in the turbulent music scene of the early ’90s.

Throughout it all there have been several break ups and reformations, with countless line-up changes along the way. The one constant through all of these shifts has been controversial vocalist Axl Rose, whose distinctive rasp has come to define the band’s sound even as some of his unsavoury comments and lyrics have drawn criticism.

Also noteworthy is Stoke on Trent’s very own Slash, the original – if not ever-present – top-hatted guitar wizard responsible for all of the band’s most famous riffs. And boy, there are a lot of them.

Here, then, are the ten best songs released by Guns N’ Roses. Make sure to vote for your favourite GNR track if you want to see it scoring higher.

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10 best Guns N’ Roses songs

The first experience of Sweet Child O' Mine for a lot of people back in 1987 would have been as the ninth track on Appetite For Destruction, the band’s debut album. After eight of the muckiest heavy rock tracks since the ’70s, to be suddenly confronted with one of the sweetest ballads of the era must have felt like a breath of bracingly fresh air.It still feels that way today. The lyrics are impossibly soppy, of course, but you just try and resist that melodic guitar lead or Axl Rose’s lovestruck croon.

Viewed objectively, November Rain is an utterly preposterous song, one that almost falls apart under the weight of its many constituent parts. Those parts include a schmaltzy piano-and-synthesised-orchestral opening and three guitar solos, the latter of which forms a portentous instrumental coda.Would we change any second of its protracted nine minute run time, though? No, reader, we would not – though the band itself tried, inserting a more tasteful orchestral score in a 2022 rerelease. For our money, though, it’s perfect pomp-rock just as it is.

Don’t Cry existed from pretty early on in GNR’s life, but it wasn’t committed to tape until the Use Your Illusion sessions. Even so, the band obviously had a lot of affection for the track, choosing to record it twice in quick succession – one for Use Your Illusion I and the other for Use Your Illusion II.There isn’t a huge difference between the two tracks sonically, if we’re being honest, but the alternative version features much more bitter and cynical lyrics, if that’s more your bag.

Whistling? As the first single released from G N’ R Lies, the band’s speedy EP follow-up to its uncompromisingly raucous debut album, Patience was not what anyone expected at the time.As a way of demonstrating Guns N’ Roses were about more than just hard rock riffs and odes to partying, however, Patience was a resounding success. Besides scoring the band another momentum-sustaining hit, Patience heralded the move to a more sprawling, ambitious, and - yes – softer sound over the coming years.

Featuring the infamous spoken aside of “What’s so civil about war anyway?”, it’s fair to say that Civil War isn’t the most nuanced of protest songs. Still, given the – ahem – questionable nature of many of GNR’s lyrics, Civil War’s anti-conflict message represents an all-too-rare thoughtful moment from the band.While it was written in 1988 and initially recorded in 1990, Civil War also fits in nicely with Use Your Illusion II’s sprawling rock-opera stylings. Indeed, it’s a clear album highlight.