You Could Be Mine

The harmony runs on the Aeolian framework that underlies most British-lineage hard rock: flat-VII (D) and flat-VI (C) are the load-bearing chords. The one non-Aeolian move is the major V (B), which sharpens the cadential tension — a standard trick borrowed from harmonic minor. Slash's blues phrasing is audible over every bar, though the actual chord vocabulary is straight hard rock. No jazz influence present.

Slash has said the central riff dates back to the band's very first preproduction session for Appetite for Destruction, placing its origins around 1985–86. It remained a fragment until the Use Your Illusion sessions gave the band the time and resources to finish it. The final lyric was credited to Axl Rose and Izzy Stradlin, consistent with their songwriting partnership across both Use Your Illusion albums.

Released June 25, 1991 as the lead single from Use Your Illusion II, 'You Could Be Mine' is Guns N' Roses at their most combustible — nearly six minutes of hard rock anchored by a riff years in the making. Its placement in James Cameron's Terminator 2: Judgment Day made it one of the defining rock songs of the blockbuster era, hitting number one in Finland and Spain and number two on the Eurochart Hot 100. Sam Law of Kerrang! called it 'unchained hard rock,' and the description holds.