It's amazing how far you can get with D, C and G (or the I-bVII-IV-I progression), be it Satisfaction (chorus), Gloria, Sympathy for the Devil (verse), Hey Jude (coda), Alright Now (chorus and solo), Woman from Tokyo (coda), Sweet Home Alabama, Fox on the Run, Highway to Hell (chorus), White Wedding (verse, but played as i-bVII-IV-i, i.e. the first chord as a minor) or this!
I always heard that song as William Bruce Rose from Lafayette, Indiana, channeling his inner Americana. Good tune though (and I'm no GnR fan). To my ears he has always sung - dare I write this? - a C&W melody there.
And I always assumed that Slash did not want to solo over the verse progression for the simple fear of sounding all too Southern/Lynyrd Skynyrd, hence the somewhat wanton key change to E minor for his solo (at 03:24 in the above cover). Basically the song is made up of two songs because once they have key-changed to the dark and dramatic E minor mid-song they stay there and do not return to the country-viby D/C/G/D that makes up much of the first part.
It's a nice version alright, but proper tuning of her Taylor guitar wouldn't have harmed the rootsiness. It's the ole conundrum, if you tune your guitar pitch-perfect to D it ain't gonna sound good in E and vice versa. Bitch of a song then.
PS: "I may be in love."
(summoning great empathy) Sigh, is that Gwyneth type still lingering with you, Dave?