In honor of the decade-long anticipated release of Chinese Democracy this weekend, our Flashback video takes us back to a time when Axl Rose made trailer trash chic (Kid Rock owes you his career), Democracy wasn’t even a concept yet and this 9-minute epic video was the most iconic of its era.
Written by lead singer Axl Rose and released in June of 1992, the music video for “November Rain” — also released in 1992 — quickly became the most requested video on MTV and won an MTV Video Music Award for Best Cinematography. Appearing on Guns N’ Roses’ album Use Your Illusion I, the song features a sweeping synthesized string arrangement, played by Axl Rose infamously along side Elton John at the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards.
Apparently “November Rain” was a song Axl had been working on since at least 1983 (seems like Axl is used to waiting for 10 years to release his grandest works) and, according to Wikipedia, during the 2006 leg of the Chinese Democracy tour, none of the other band members had wanted to partake in the production of this song (or the other notable ballad “Estranged”). Slash and Duff McKagan were particularly opposed to the drift to symphonic ballads, and felt their choice of more direct rock songs were being overlooked by Rose. However, Axl apparently talked them into it while they were recording.
So in honor of Axl Rose’s patience and ginger’s everywhere, here are both the official video for “November Rain” and the live performance from the MTV Video Music Awards.
Official video for “November Rain”
“November Rain” with Elton John live at the MTV Video Music Awards
