My Michelle

LRI: So, the long standing story was that you were in a car with Axl and Elton John, “Your Song” came on and you told him you always wanted someone to write a song for you. Careful what you wish for but is that fairly accurate, is that how you remember that going down?

Michelle: (laughs) Yeah, that’s pretty much how that played out. We were driving to a show I think it was 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” (laughs).

LRI: Axl had written an earlier version of the song and it was felt that it most of it was too sappy and sweet so it was scrapped and the lyrics we all know were written and the song was re-arranged. As everyone knows, there is still that whole sweet and gentle part at the end that remains. Did you ever hear the softer, kinder, earlier version of “My Michelle” before the re-write?

Michelle: (laughs) No, I never heard the 99% sweet version of the song.

LRI: Did you ever even see the original lyrics?

Michelle: No, no, no, I was never given the opportunity to see that version of the song whatsoever.

LRI: Was your first time hearing the song when they debuted it live?

Michelle: No, I heard it when I was at my dad’s house. 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 hate saying this around my son, just a moment….

LRI: No worries….

Michelle: I had to walk away a little because I hate saying this around my son but 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.

LRI: It’s a legendary track on one of the biggest selling albums of all time but who knew then??

Michelle: Exactly. I figured it wouldn’t even be recorded, I had no idea. 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.

LRI: On Wikipedia, which we know is always accurate (laughs) it states that a source said that at the time it was written you were pleased with the honesty of the new lyrics and how it came across, is that accurate?

Michelle: (laughs) I might have been (laughs). Like I said, I honestly don’t remember everything from those days and it was a long time ago. Maybe I was, okay, I probably was…I could see me being pleased with it at the time because like I said, I was under the influence so I was probably like “Yeah, this is cool!!” but at some point it became clear that it had a lot of repercussions in my life, for lack of a better word.

LRI: I was just talking to my wife Michelle about how brutal that first verse lyric is. It might be one of the most unflinching lyrics ever, Mr. Rose….

Michelle: Uhh, yeah. You know, and it’s also true that the wording sounds really a little harsher than it should be in the sense that 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. 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.

LRI: People can talk smack but I can totally understand how it could be a bad influence or easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy for just about anyone, particularly because of just how big that album became. Was it just the way the song portrayed you or was it also how people treated you as a result?

Michelle: It was both. It suddenly became that everyone wanted to be my friend because they wanted to get closer or get to know the band. They thought that by getting tight with me or giving me free drugs that they would get to know the band, because in the song it says I got my drugs for free which again, wasn’t entirely true. I never did my drugs for free; nobody really does anything for free. Then you just get the people that think that since that’s “my song” I should just be that way or act that way that I’m portrayed. People will meet me and I don’t necessarily fit their idea of who they thought I would be in real life. They’ll say “I thought you would have like jet black hair and black lipstick and be all dark or be like tan and blond and wearing pink like Barbie but you’re not”. They’d all be really surprised that I’m just a regular person or that I just looked like an average girl.

LRI: You said you were using when you first heard the song but the later verse says “Now you’re clean and so discrete, I won’t say a word”. What did you attribute that particular line to?

Michelle: Uh yeah, yeah, I know exactly why 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. My favorite part of the song is the very beginning because it’s so reflective of how it was when people met me back in those days, like it’s not clear where it it’s going, it’s a little dark and scary and that’s pretty indicative of how I had no idea I would go from where I was to this totally wild kid just going crazy in Hollywood.

LRI: They used an SG guitar to create an ominous tone in that song and that intro kind of sets the tone.

Michelle: I really like that 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.

LRI: What about the romantic or sweet parts of the song where he speaks to falling in love and finding someone and all of that part of “My Michelle”?? Were you and he or any of the other guys in the band involved at that point or at any point romantically?

Michelle: Yeah, we had a ummm….love affair, I mean I’m trying to make it sound better than what it was (laughs). We had “romantic involvings” (laughs) for many years. It was on and off for many years and it was a tumultuous relationship for sure.

LRI: Wow, for years you said?

Michelle: At least four or five years, possibly six or seven years yeah. Even after “November Rain” and the second and third album came out we were having encounters yeah. It was mostly because we really were such good friends but when I would see him it would be once or twice a year and we would have (laughs) sexual relations (laughs).

LRI: “My Michelle” is one of many songs on Appetite that has almost a high/low, sweet/sour dynamic to it; there are quite a few that are like that and others. Everyone has heard rumors of Axl supposedly being bipolar or at least having some kind of childhood post traumatic stress disorder. Do you think that a lot of Appetite’s up and down nature is just a byproduct of Axl’s personality?

Michelle: Uh yes….very much so reflective of Axl himself, very much so. I do indeed think that but you know that’s true of a lot of artists, not just Axl.

LRI: The GNR “Live Era” version of “My Michelle” somehow manages to crank up the rage even more than the studio version with Axl changing “Party til your connection calls” to “FUCK til your connection calls” and even calling you a “little bitch” during the chorus. What did you think when you heard that version, which I’m thinking was recorded during the Illusion tour?

Michelle: That’s because he was mad at me at the time, again it was always tumultuous even though we really didn’t see each other that much it was always on and off and always tumultuous. He was mad at me at that point, for what I don’t even remember because he would get mad at me all the time for various different things. One minute it would be “Oh, Michelle is such a good friend of mine, I love her so much, the song’s about her” and the next time it would be “Oh that fucking bitch didn’t show up for my concert because she’s doing acid with her friends, I fucking hate her”. That actually happened once. He was getting tickets for my little cousins and I to go to the concert and I was supposed to be there to meet him, I believe it was in Anaheim or something. My younger cousins went and were just shocked and came back and said “Oh my god Michelle, he talked sooo much shit about you” and that was all because I didn’t show up. I told him “I can’t Axl, I’m on acid” which I was (laughs) but I was like “Wow, he didn’t have to tell everybody” (laughs). He would stay with me at my dad’s house a lot, he would sleep over a lot and I would take him all over, to shows and stuff, because he didn’t drive so I would take him to concerts and gigs all around. I would wait for him when he’d get ready to go and put up with his tantrums and hissy fits and all of that shit so no the live version of that song doesn’t surprise me to answer your question.

Jeff Giles wrote:Guns N’ Roses Find Warped Inspiration From Elton John on ‘My Michelle': The Story Behind Every ‘Appetite for Destruction’ Song

Elton John is far from the first artist anyone would think of while listening to Guns N’ Roses‘ Appetite for Destruction, but his classic early hit “Your Song” played a key role in the composition of one of its songs.

John’s romantic ballad offered the early spark for the seventh song on the album, “My Michelle” — something of a surprising connection, given the latter song’s opening lines, “Your daddy works in porno / Now that mommy’s not around / She used to love her heroin / But now she’s underground.” That’s a far cry from the flowery sentiments expressed in Bernie Taupin‘s lyrics for “Your Song,” but frontman Axl Rose didn’t really have John in mind when he penned the lyrics — it’s just that John’s song happened to be on the radio when a female friend of the band told Rose she’d always wanted someone to write a song about her.

“We were driving to a show … 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,'” laughed Michelle Young in a 2014 interview. “And then, lo and behold came ‘My song.'”

As it happens, Rose’s initial draft of the lyrics might have been much closer to Taupin’s sweet tone. He reportedly wrote a version — described as “99 percent sweet” by Young, who said she never heard it or saw the lyrics — that was ultimately abandoned in favor of something that offered a much more honest, albeit exaggerated, picture of her life. Given the somewhat unflattering details and Rose’s blunt approach, there were some concerns among the Gunners who’d known Young for years, particularly guitarist Slash, whom she’d dated when the two were in school.

“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,” Young recalled. “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?'”

Young offered her casual approval, not thinking much of it at the time — partly because she was, as she later put it, “so out of it at the time” and partly because she naturally never expected it to be recorded, let alone end up on one of the biggest hit albums of the era. Given that she ended up sitting for an interview about the song more than 20 years after Appetite for Destruction was released, “My Michelle” obviously ended up being a far bigger part of her life than she could have guessed, and although her connection to the GNR legacy hasn’t always been a happy one, she eventually came to appreciate it.

“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,” admitted Young. “It was amazing seeing them play it in a big coliseum … 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.”

Rose and John became friends later, and even performed together from time to time. They appeared onstage at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert in 1992, performing “Bohemian Rhapsody.” The bond helped Rose overcome his previous homophobic statements he made in public and occasionally in his songs. Later that same year, John joined Guns N’ Roses onstage at the MTV Video Music Awards for “November Rain.” And in 2004, Rose inducted John into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Soulmonster wrote:

You know, Steven, you know, some of the beats that he would start would inspire a riff, you know. And how do you give that credit to a drummer who doesn't have a guitar on? How do you, you know... Axl's like, "You gotta credit him with what's like pushing us to get the riff for Michelle." [...]  it was double time and that original riff for Michelle wasn't the riff it was, it was this fast kind of.

Talk Is Jericho, September 6, 2017

Blackstar wrote:Listening to that part in the Talk Is Jericho interview with Duff, I'm not quite sure if Duff says that Axl said that they should give credit to Steven, or if he's referring to Axl meaning that Axl was the one who pushed them to make the riff faster. The former makes more sense because he was talking about Steven, but from the way Duff says it, it's not completely clear to me. It's at 54:10 minute mark:

https://www.a-4-d.com/t2852-2017-09-06-talk-is-jericho-30-years-of-gnr-with-duff-mckagan

Blackstar wrote:Listening to that part in the Talk Is Jericho interview with Duff, I'm not quite sure if Duff says that Axl said that they should give credit to Steven, or if he's referring to Axl meaning that Axl was the one who pushed them to make the riff faster. The former makes more sense because he was talking about Steven, but from the way Duff says it, it's not completely clear to me. It's at 54:10 minute mark:

https://www.a-4-d.com/t2852-2017-09-06-talk-is-jericho-30-years-of-gnr-with-duff-mckagan