2,305 words on sweet child o' mine

The “bam” of “Sweet Child O’ Mine” is in Slash’s guitar playing. It’s one thing to write an essay bemoaning the de-centering of contemporary humankind in a postmodern society. It’s another thing entirely to play a wailing guitar solo that viscerally embodies that de-centering. Psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan said we are born into a world of pure being, which language cannot fully express, so we are always longing for a Real we can’t describe. Slash’s solo doesn’t describe this Real, but it compassionately describes the longing we feel at having been severed from it. Without the words to properly express our estrangement, what can we do but wail? Paul of Tarsus wrote, “We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.” The guitar solo at the end of “Sweet Child” intercedes with groans that words cannot express.