After tallying all the votes, we found that 32.95% of our readers chose "Civil War" as their least favorite Guns N' Roses hit. This may come as a bit of a surprise, as Loud Wire ranked it as the 10th-best GNR song, noting how it allowed Axl Rose to become more "socially progressive" after starting out as someone who had no qualms about writing and singing offensive lyrics. It was described as a song that was more "ambitious and epic" than anything GNR had recorded before that, and to top it all off, it was originally included in the 1990 charity compilation "Nobody's Child: Romanian Angel Appeal" before reappearing as the opening track of 1991's "Use Your Illusion II."
All those signs point to a song that should otherwise be beloved by a band's loyal fans, but not everyone holds that opinion about "Civil War." The Guardian's Marc Burrows wrote that while he ultimately liked the song after finding it too cliched in its first minute, it was still a "wishy-washy peace anthem" and a "self-important plodder from a band losing touch" with rock audiences.
As for the other songs in our survey, "Welcome to the Jungle" came in second with 20.38% of the vote, the gentle acoustic ballad "Patience" was third with 15.95%, and the hard-rocking "Paradise City" placed fourth with 13%. "Sweet Child O'Mine" took fifth place with 9.31%, and rounding things up was the nine-minute epic "November Rain" with 8.71%.
