Irish weddings will never be the same again.
We can’t think of a single song that is more popular at social events in Ireland than the Guns n’ Roses’ hit ‘Sweet Child O’Mine’.
Some openly love it, others regard it as a guilty pleasure and we can guarantee that the people who declare to despise everything to do with it will still be singing it after a few pints at their cousin’s wedding.
So, nearly 30 years after its release, it would come as a pretty big surprise to hear that it might be ripped off, right?
It’s a claim that has been made in Australia of late by a website Max TV, who claim that the Guns n’Roses smash hit sounds eerily like a song by a band known as Australian Crawl, a song which goes by the far less catchy title of ‘Unpublished Critics’.
The band released the song in 1981, six years before the release of ‘Sweet Child O’Mine’, and it should be pointed out that a member of the band has acknowledged the similarities and has no intention of trying to make a quick buck at Guns n’ Roses’ expense.
Hardcore investigative journalists that we are at JOE, we’ve gone and found videos of both songs for the benefit of comparison, so you can see if there really is something in this claim at all.
As far as we’re concerned, while there might be some similarities in the chord progression in both songs, there is absolutely nothing here to suggest that Guns n’Roses might have been guilty of plagiarism.
Nothing at all.
Now that that’s all cleared up, let’s have one more listen to the ORIGINAL G n’R classic, which, like it or love it, is still ridiculously popular nearly three decades on.
LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ podcast – listen to the latest episode now!
