Axl Rose Reveals What Inspired Izzy Stradlin For ‘You Could Be Mine’

During one of the last concerts of Guns N’ Rosesto be precise the one last April 30th at Hard Rock Live in Hollywood (Florida), Axl Rose told the audience what inspired the guitarist’s lyrics Izzy Stradlin in a 90s hit by Guns N’ Roses.

After running
“You Could Be Mine”
a song taken from the 1991 album
“Use Your Illusion II”
(
read the review here
), the singer of the Californian band remembered where from
Izzy Stradlin
had drawn inspiration for some verses. “It’s always fun to play that song. But every time I sing it, I wonder: Who knows how many of these people actually think I’m that asshole who thinks those things. But the lyrics were written by Izzy and he wasn’t necessarily being an asshole. I know the girl it’s dedicated to. And it was exactly like that: she could have been his if he’d quit the cocaine and all that other bullshit!”

Axl Rose
He said he wrote the central part of the song inspired by his relationship, so the song was ultimately a combination of both of them’s anger at what they had experienced with their respective partners. The rocker then added that Stradlin borrowed the phrase “you could be mine” from

Rolling Stones
as it is a phrase repeated in the title track of their 1980 album,
“Emotional Rescue”
. “It’s really fucking fun to sing,” concluded the Guns N’ Roses frontman.