Controversy is synonymous with Guns N’ Roses. It accidentally became a crucial ingredient in building their brand during the late 1980s as chaos followed them everywhere they went. During their early days, the rockers were proudly outspoken, but Axl Rose and the band still had a form of filter and applied it during the ‘Paradise City’ writing process.
Considering some of the lyrics that Guns N’ Roses did allow to make the cut on their songs, it’s surprising to discover they have a history of removing lines. Most notably, ‘One In A Million’, from G N’ R Lies, contains homophobic and racist comments, leading to the band omitting the track from the album’s reissue in 2018.
In the song, Axl Rose disturbingly uses “n***er” and “f***ot”. Slash, who is mixed race, later said the track was misinterpreted, and people incorrectly “perceived our personal feelings” from ‘One In A Million’.
Despite not realising how using such despicable language could have led to the public painting a particularly unfavourable image of Guns N’ Roses, they did remove less vulgar lyrics from ‘Paradise City’. Compared with the words Rose spat out in ‘One In A Million’, the lines they deemed unsuitable for the Appetite For Destruction song seem harmless fun.
Looking back upon the album in 2012 with Fuse, Slash revealed: “‘Take me down to the Paradise City where the girls are fat, and they got big titties,’ I think that was my original lyric for it and the other guys changed it. We all thought it was funny but it wasn’t going to make it on the album. I think that’s how it went.”
Instead, Guns N’ Roses opted for the more politically correct lyrics, “Take me down to the paradise city, Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty”.
‘Paradise City’ was picked as the album’s third single, following ‘Welcome To The Jungle’ and ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’. At this stage, they were the most talked about band on the planet, with the song reaching the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100 and charting in several other territories internationally.
Despite the track’s success, Rose did hold a regret about ‘Paradise City’. Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t linked to the lyrics they chopped. At the time of its release, the singer spoke to Steve Harris and explained: “The only thing I would like to do is I wish we would have more time to mix, but we were working on a release date, and there was a couple songs I didn’t feel we had enough time to get just right. ‘Paradise City’ I think, could’ve been a little clearer, but we were mixing two songs a day to make a release date.”
