Guns N’ Roses “Sweet Child O’ Mine” Retooled as 1920s New Orleans Jazz

in Comedy, Music | February 18th, 2014 71 Comments

Thanks to the efforts of Scott Bradlee’s Post­mod­ern Juke­box and singer Miche Braden, the world now knows how heavy met­al rock­ers, Guns N’ Ros­es sound with their knees rouged up and their stock­ings down.

Their New Orleans jazz take on 1987’s “Sweet Child O’ Mine” replaces the preen­ing rock god sen­si­tiv­i­ty of the orig­i­nal with a sort of mature, female swag­ger harken­ing all the way back Bessie Smith. (Braden’s stage cred­its include turns as Bil­lie Hol­i­day, Valai­da Snow, and Ma Rainey.)

The back­up musi­cians get in on the fun, too, retool­ing Slash’s gui­tar solo as a horn-dri­ven cake­walk. I know which par­ty I’d rather hit!

Over the years, “Sweet Child O’ Mine” has proved a remark­ably study work­horse, with­stand­ing attempts to make it over as elec­tron­i­ca, a Gre­go­ri­an Chant and Brazil­ian prog rock. Or how about this ver­sion played on the Guzheng, an ancient Chi­nese instru­ment. Post­mod­ern Juke­box’s entry into this stakes is not with­out gim­mick, but it’s a win­ning one.

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Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Radiohead’s “Creep” Per­formed in a Vin­tage Jazz-Age Style

Enjoy a Blue­grass Per­for­mance of Elton John’s 1972 Hit, “Rock­et Man”

Pak­istani Musi­cians Play Amaz­ing Ver­sion of Dave Brubeck’s Jazz Clas­sic, “Take Five”

A Mid­dle-East­ern Ver­sion of Radiohead’s 1997 Hit “Kar­ma Police”

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the long run­ning zine, The East Vil­lage Inky. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday


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