Guns N Roses
Paradise City Lyrics

Guns N Roses Paradise City is included on the 1987 album Appetite for Destruction and was released as a single in 1988. It is also the only song on the album to use a synthesizer. The song peaked at number five on the Billboard Hot 100, the third single of the band's to go Top 10.

He states that the band was in the back of the van, drinking and playing acoustic guitars when he came up with the intro. Duff McKagan and Izzy Stradlin started playing along.

Slash started humming a melody when Axl Rose sang, "Take me down to the Paradise City." Slash chimed in with "Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty." Axl sang the first line again, where Slash shouted out "Where the girls are fat and they've got big titties."

Axl finished with "Take . . . me . . . home!" Slash preferred his second line but the rest of the band felt differently.

He was outvoted and they used the first line. The band then expanded upon the rest of the lyrics in rounds. Finally Slash wrapped up by coming up with the heavy riff that drives the song.

Guns N Roses Paradise City is thought by some to be about San Francisco and its corruption at the time. Some believe the song to be written about Axl Rose and Izzy Stradlin's hometown of Lafayette, Indiana and the nearby Purdue University campus.

During a 1988 interview, Rose told Hit Parader magazine that "the verses are more about being in the jungle; the chorus is like being back in the Midwest or somewhere".

Matt Sorum, despite not being in the band when Guns N Roses Paradise City was written, has stated on occasion that the song is written about Ireland.

Guns N Roses Paradise City was often used as the band's show-closing song during the Use Your Illusion Tour and Chinese Democracy Tour.

Guns N Roses Paradise City Lyrics

Take me down
To the paradise city
Where the grass is green
And the girls are pretty
Oh, won't you please take me home

Take me down
To the paradise city
Where the grass is green
And the girls are pretty
Oh, won't you please take me home

Just an urchin living under the street
I'm a hard case that's tough to beat
I'm your charity case
So buy me something to eat
I'll pay you at another time
Take it to the end of the line

Rags to riches or so they say
You got to
keep pushing for the fortune and fame you know
It's all a gamble when it's just a game
You treat it like a capital crime
Everybody's doing their time

Take me down
To the paradise city
Where the grass is green
And the girls are pretty
Oh, won't you please take me home

Take me down
To the paradise city
Where the grass is green
And the girls are pretty
Take me home

Strapped in the chair of the city's gas chamber
Why I'm here I can't quite remember
The surgeon general says it's hazardous to breathe
I'd have another cigarette but I can't see
Tell me who you're going to believe

Take me down
To the paradise city
Where the grass is green
And the girls are pretty
Take me home

Take me down
To the paradise city
Where the grass is green
And the girls are pretty
Oh, won't you please take me home

So far away (4x)

Captain America's been torn apart
Now he's a court jester with a broken heart
He said
Turn me around and take me back to the start
I must be losing my mind
"Are you blind?!"
I've seen it all a million times

Take me down
To the paradise city
Where the grass is green
And the girls are pretty
Take me home

Take me down
To the paradise city
Where the grass is green
And the girls are pretty
Oh, won't you please take me home

I want to go
I want to know
Oh, won't you please take me home

I want to see
Oh, look at me
Oh, won't you please take me home

Take me down
To the paradise city
Where the grass is green
And the girls are pretty
Take me home

Take me down
To the paradise city
Where the grass is green
And the girls are pretty
Oh, won't you please take me home

Take me down
Beat me down
Oh, won't you please take me home

I want to see
Oh, look at me
Oh, won't you please take me home

I want to see
Boy, I'm going to be mean
Oh, oh take me home

Take me down
To the paradise city
Where the grass is green
And the girls are pretty
Oh, won't you please take me home

I want to go
I want to know
Oh, won't you please take me home
Yeah, baby
Yeah

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