Appetite For Destruction was Guns N’ Roses’ first full-length studio album, released on 21 July 1987. The album would eventually explode onto the worldwide music scene, but not right away. It took several strong singles and fast-spreading word of mouth for the curve to start pointing up.
The album is considered a classic for a reason. It is nothing less than an amazing collection of hits and great tracks. The way it seemed to just keep spawning hit after hit was and is impressive, but of equal importance to its legacy is the overall quality of the album tracks – the tracks that are part of making it into an exceptional album from start to finish, even if they weren’t singles that became hits.
My Michelle is one of those strong album tracks.
The song is about Michelle Young, who was a friend of the band. She was initially a friend of Slash, who knew her throughout junior high. Slash was a grade ahead of her, but she was a friend of Slash’s girlfriend and they ended up in the same circle of friends. Eventually they would have an on-and-off relationship of their own.
“There was a group of probably like, ten of us, who were just inseparable,” Young told John Parks at Legendary Rock Interviews in 2014. “We were always together, we did everything together, we’d go to parties, go to the beach and all of that. That whole group of us were just really close friends and we’re still friendly to each other, a lot of us. That was how I got to know Slash and Steven, just in school. […] I really don’t remember Axl’s introduction; I just remember one day going to Slash’s house and Axl was there.”
Young was traveling to a gig with the band when Elton John’s Your Song came on the radio. She remarked how she always wanted to have a song written about her. “We were driving to a show,” said Young, “and that song came on and I was like ‘Oh, that’s such a beautiful song; I wish someone would write a song like that about me.’ And then, lo and behold came ‘my song’, haha!”
Rose took note of her comment and quietly started work on a song. His first attempt was a sweet, almost romantic song, which had nothing to do with the reality of Michelle’s life. He was unhappy with this version. Realizing that the song lacked the honesty and grit that it needed, he re-wrote it, this time seeking to be brutally honest. The new version was certainly no Michelle ma belle-type ballad, instead describing her trainwreck of a life. It included references to her drug addiction, the death of her mother, and her father’s work in the pornography industry, all of which are mentioned within the first verse.
Your daddy works in porno now that mommy’s not around
She used to love her heroin but now she’s underground
So, you stay out late at night and you do your coke for free
Drivin’ your friends crazy with your life’s insanity
Well, well, well, you just can’t tell
Well, well, well, my Michelle
Several members of the band expressed concern over this version of the song, especially Slash, fearing it would upset Young. “I used to go out with her when I was thirteen or fourteen,” Slash said later on. “When Axl first wrote the lyrics to it, some of them were so, so realistic – so upfront and realistic – and so cruel in a way that I thought ‘Oh God, you can’t do it that way. You’re gonna crush this girl.’”
Rose took some of these comments on board and did in fact became hesitant about the song’s approach, eventually deciding to show the song to Young to see what she thought.
“I first heard it when I was at my dad’s house,” Michelle Young told Legendary Rock Interviews. “I was in my bedroom. I remember it was the daytime and the phone rang and the first call was from Slash. He called and said something to the effect of ‘Axl wants to talk to you’ or ‘Axl’s going to call you Michelle.’ I don’t remember if they were together but I remember that Slash called first and said something like ‘Please be honest about this, I’m really scared’ or something like that. Then I remember, Axl called. He would always call me and sing me new songs. He would play this drumbeat on his knee and sing and snap to me on the phone whenever he had a new song, he would call me and sing a little and ask my opinion of it. So, when he called again with that I was just like ‘Okay, go ahead’ so then he sang it and was just like ‘What do you think?’ and you know […] I was so out of it at the time, I was always high back then so when I heard it and heard the lyrics I was like ‘Oh, it’s fine, it’s cool (laughs)…do whatever you want’. To be honest, I didn’t really care. I was like ‘Okay, whatever, you wrote a song about me.’ I didn’t really honestly think that the album was going to be THAT huge or even that that song was gonna be on their album for that matter.”
She gave similar sentiments to Classic Rock Magazine in 2005: “At the time, I didn’t care because I was so fucked up. But what it says is all true: my dad does distribute porno films and my mom did die.”
She would however take issue with some of the wording. She told Legendary Rock Interviews, “The wording is harsher than it should be. It’s true but also not true at the same time. My dad did, in fact, distribute adult films so he wasn’t like John Holmes or ‘in porno’ in that sense. My mom did die of drugs but she died of an accidental overdose of pills, not heroin, even though she was also a heroin addict. So, while there’s definitely truth there, it’s exaggerated or suggested at times. You know what though, it is what it is, can’t take it back and it’s great that people still to this day love it, that makes me happy.”
In the end, Young ended up loving the sincerity of the song, primarily being grateful they did not sugar-coat her life.
Because of the warts-and-all take that the song ended up as, it is easy to forget that the end section retains some of the sweet and gentle aspects of Axl’s initial approach:
Everyone needs love, you know that it’s true
Someday you’ll find someone that’ll fall in love with you
But, oh, the time it takes when you’re all alone
Someday you’ll find someone that you can call your own
But ’til then ya better!
In the next passage, Rose gets somewhat mysterious when he sings “Now you’re clean and so discreet / I won’t say a word.” It also seems very specific, and Young knows exactly what he was referring to when he wrote that line. “I had went to a program and gotten sober and was still in the program, but it was New Year’s Eve and Axl was at a party at [late co-writer/collaborator] Wes Arkeen’s house. I went over there and I started using again and I told Axl, ‘Please don’t tell anyone’ and that’s where the ‘I won’t say a word’ part came from.”
Now you’re clean and so discreet I won’t say a word
But most of all this song is true, case you haven’t heard
So c’mon and stop your cryin’, ’cause we both know money burns
Honey don’t stop tryin’ an’ you’ll get what you deserve
In a more general sense, Rose stated that many of the songs on Appetite For Destruction were written while the band was performing on the Los Angeles club circuit. This meant they had the songs ready, and had performed a lot of them live, when the time came to record their first full-length album.
The band initially considered Paul Stanley of KISS to produce, but he was rejected after he wanted to change Adler’s drum set more than Adler wanted. Robert John “Mutt” Lange was also considered, but the label didn’t want to spend the extra money on a famous producer. Ultimately, Mike Clink (who had produced several Triumph records) was chosen, and the group recorded Shadow of Your Love first with Clink as a test. This was later used as a b-side.
After some weeks of rehearsal, the band entered Daryl Dragon’s Rumbo Recorders in January 1987. Two weeks were spent recording basic tracks, with Clink splicing together the best takes with his razor blade. Clink worked eighteen-hour days for the next month, with Slash overdubbing in the afternoon and evening, and Rose performing vocals.
Slash struggled to find a guitar sound, before coming up with a Gibson Les Paul copy equipped with Seymour Duncan Alnico II pickups and plugged into a modified Marshall amplifier. He would use this setting on every song on the album with the exception of My Michelle. For that song, he swapped to a 1960s Gibson SG because he felt it had a darker sound.
Michelle Young likes the ominous tone that the SG guitar gives in the song intro, setting the tone for the rest of the track. “I really like that,” she said, “and it’s very indicative and reflective of how I was. It’s kind of mysterious and then it just kind of explodes, which is pretty easily relatable to how I was as a person.”
The studio sessions took a while. According to drummer Steven Adler, the percussion was done in just six days. Rose’s vocals took much longer as he insisted on doing them one line at a time with numerous retakes. Rose’s levels of perfectionism drove the rest of the band away from the studio as he kept working well into the night, sometimes not recording a single take deemed satisfactory.
Appetite For Destruction was released onto an unsuspecting world on 21 July 1987. My Michelle would not be one of the numerous singles from the album, but it is widely regarded as a classic album track that contributes to the album’s “all killer no filler” status and overall playability.
LPs and MCs were still the dominant formats at the time, and My Michelle got a prominent placing: the first track on side 2. Or, make that the R side – the band labelled the two sides “G” and “R” rather than the conventional “A” or “B” (or 1 and 2 if you will).
There was a further thought behind it: the six tracks that comprise side G (the “Guns” side) all deal with drugs and hard life in the big city. The tracks on side R (the “Roses” side) all deal with love, sex, and relationships. My Michelle could in fact have fit on either side, depending on how you look at it, and I think it came down to her being a dear friend of the band and how they felt about her.
Michelle Young is thanked in the Appetite for Destruction sleeve notes. She would remain in contact with the band for quite a while after this point, but eventually cleaned up and moved across the country to start a new life.
Apart from not being keen to let her children know of certain aspects of her old life, she does not distance herself from the song or her friendship with the band. If anything, she’s happy that the song continues to be popular among fans, but continually amazed that it ended up as a legendary track on one of the biggest selling albums of all time. “I figured it wouldn’t even be recorded, I had no idea” she told Legendary Rock Interviews. “I also didn’t know it was going to influence my life the way it did. As much as I love watching people love the song when I would go see them in concert, it was a strange thing to have influence my life. It was amazing seeing them play it in a big coliseum and seeing people bust out their lighters for the intro and then rocking out when the verse starts and I’m looking around thinking it’s amazing because I’m watching it and I’m anonymous and no one knows it’s me because I can watch it from a distance. That part of it is really special and cool, seeing people react to it, but at the time when the song came out I can say it was never a blessing, it was always a curse, let’s just say. […] I also had to realize that it didn’t have to be a bad influence in my life; I allowed it to be a bad influence in my life.”
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