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Behind The Song: Classic Rock Chronicles
Guns N’ Roses “November Rain,” explained
00:19:20
Unpack the story of Guns N' Roses' classic "November Rain" in this episode of the Behind The Song podcast.
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Janda
97.1 FM the drive presents the behind the Song podcast, taking you deeper into classic rock's most timeless tunes. Here's your host, Janda Are you one.
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Unknown
Of the 2 billion plus YouTube views on Guns N Roses epic November Rain music video? Chances are you've seen it. It's as over the top as they come for a song that Axl Rose started writing on piano almost 10 years earlier, and it was the first video released before YouTube exist to get to a billion views. It's part of a trilogy, all based on a short story by longtime Guns N Roses affiliate Del James, who has now been the band's road manager for decades. Let's get into the story in this episode of the behind the Song podcast and if you like it, give it a thumbs up and hit. Subscribe and let us know in the comments.
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November Rain serves as the centerpiece for Guns N Roses use youe Illusion 1 album, released of course on the same day as its counterpart use youe Illusion 2 on September 17, 1991, and the song rocked to number three on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. At just shy of nine minutes long, it was the longest song to ever reach the top 10 in the US at the time, a distinction that it held until Taylor Swift's long version of All Too well took its place in 2021. It's a doozy of a song inspired by Elton John, specifically Elton John' classic Funeral For a Love Lies bleeding heavy on the piano and the string orchestration. It leans into the softer side of Guns N Roses and it earned them a whole lot of new female fans. But it wasn't something the rest of the band were totally comfortable with recording at first because it was so very different from the hard rockers that they were known for musically. And who could blame them? Their debut, 1987's Appetite for Destruction was a monster hit, multi platinum, a rock and roll riot with the hard edged sound that put the band on the map. Their self titled EP and the 33 minute mini album Gn'r Lies came quickly in 1988 and there was no real departure on either one from the general sound that the rest of the band felt was theirs to own. And there were some nerves in the band as they moved forward. The Use youe Illusion albums were the first with drummer Matt Sorum, who replaced Stephen Adler due to Adler's drug use. Without the bounce that Adler brought to the table as drummer, without that swing, everything already sounded a little different. But Rose had an ace up his sleeve with November Rain and he eventually convinced them to record it. He started writing it back in the early 80s and true to the perfectionism that he's known for, waited and waited and waited until he thought he had the right moment to record it and release it. He mentioned November Rain to Rolling stone magazine in 1988, saying that if it wasn't recorded right, he would quit the business. Former GNR guitarist Tracy Guns has said that he remembers Rose always playing the song on piano as far back as 1983, saying that someday this song is gonna be really cool. There was a 10 minute demo of it recorded on piano during the sessions for Appetite for Destruction, and according to Slash, There was an 18 minute version recorded in 1986, but Rose kept putting it off, driven to make it perfect. It's fair to note here that Axl Rose's appreciation of Elton John and Bernie Taupin's music is pretty well documented. Rose did the honor of inducting Elton John into the Rock and Roll hall of fame in 1994, saying that Benny and the jets was the reason he thought that he could be a performer. So it's no wonder that he felt he had to get everything just right for a song sonically inspired by the sound of mid-70s Elton John. In regard to compiling all the songs that would end up on both Use youe Illusion albums, well, that was a process. Axl Rose and Slash were still going back and forth over which songs to include when it was time to rehearse for their world tour to do that at the urging of their manager, in an effort to leave behind the temptations they all were susceptible to in Los Angeles, the band left and spent two months in Chicago in the summer of 1989. Big city with everything you need to make an album, but without the distractions of their usual scene. They used the fourth floor of the Metro on Clark street to rehearse a venue any rocker in the Midwest knows and generally raised hell the entire time. They rented condos down the street from the venue in the heart of Wrigleyville, with no shortage of bars in between, filled with people going to see Cubs games in the middle of summer in a party mood. Slash has said that at the time he was drinking a half a gallon of vodka every day with Duff McKagan hanging right there with him. Plus drugs were excited, still being copiously consumed by everybody. Axl Rose didn't even show up for weeks, and when he did he reportedly hated everything the band had been half heartedly working on in between partying. He only wanted to work on November Rain. Needless to say, the attempt to divert the band's appetites in a new city didn't really work. The songs for use youe Illusion 1 and 2 were finally recorded between 1990 and shortly before release in 1991 in several studios in Los Angeles and in Canada. Finally, after nearly a decade, Rose was satisfied enough with the recording of November Rain to release it in the early 90s. MTV was still very much a vehicle for music videos, and the thinking was to go very big with the videos made for use youe Illusion 1 and 2. The band chose Andy Morahan to direct the November Rain video, part of a trilogy that he directed from the Use youe Illusion albums, which included Estranged and Don't Cry. Morahan had made a name for himself with making cinematic videos like Father Figure for George Michael, which caught Axl Rose's eye and once hired, he proceeded to make the most expensive video ever at that time. November rain cost $1.5 million to create this is where Del James comes in. James is a writer and musician from New York State who met the cast of characters in Guns N Roses when he moved to Los Angeles in 19. In essence, he's always been with the band. James has now been the band's road manager for many years and is a loyal and trusted friend to Axl Rose in particular contributing lyrics to several songs. He also worked as senior editor for Heavy Metal magazine RIP and at one point he wrote a collection of short horror stories called the Language of Fear, which included the story without you, without yout is centered around a rock star named Main man who closely resembles Axl Rose. In the story, he basically falls apart after his repeated infidelities led to his ex girlfriend's suicide by gunshot. At the end of the story, Maines sits alone playing without yout, the song he wrote about their breakup on piano, oblivious to the fire that's raging all around him as his apartment burns to the ground. When the Language of Fear was reissued in the 2000s after being out of print. The new version has an intro by Axl Rose, who said Del James has a personal knowledge of most of the situations he writes about and has a love of the gutter from having been there. The short story without yout was the basis for all three GnR videos in the trilogy, November Rain, Estranged and Don't Cry, which director Andy Morahan brought to stunning visual life. Two of those videos star supermodel Stephanie Seymour, November Rain and Don't Cry. The infidelity on the part of the main man character from Del James story is touched on in the video for Don't Cry, in which Stephanie Seymour catches Rose with a girl at a party and proceeds to beat the girl up. As for the real life romance, it was pretty rocky. Rose met Seymour on set making these videos and the two started a two year love affair in 1991. They broke up after allegations of Seymour assaulting Rose and rumors that she cheated with Charlie Sheen. That's why Seymour isn't in the third video in the trilogy, 1993's Estranged. She was out of the picture by that point. Watching November Rain is really like watching hard Rock Time capsule, and there are more questions than answers in the video. Really. It ends on the bride's funeral. But what happened to her? Why did she die? The video never shows that, or why her face is covered up in the coffin. We can assume that because she and Rose were fighting over a gun in the Don't Cry video that she shot herself in the head, true to the without you short story. But as director Morahan said, that was a part of the story that people had to figure out. So who did Axl Rose actually write November Rain about? All signs about the lyrics of the song point to Erin Everly, daughter of Don Everly of the Everly Brothers. The two had a tumultuous relationship filled with ups and downs, culminating in a 1990 Vegas marriage that lasted for one month before Rose filed for divorce. Everly also suffered a miscarriage later that year, which devastated Rose. She was the only woman Axl Rose ever actually married. She's also the person for whom he wrote Guns N Roses biggest hit, the classic Sweet Child of Mine. The lyrics of November Rain go like When I look into your eyes I can see a love restrained but darlin when I hold you don't you know I feel the same Nothing lasts forever and we both know hearts can change and it's hard to hold a candle in the cold November rain. Even though Rose had the title of the song in his head for years, it's interesting that it was in the month of November that Aaron Everly left him for good after the miscarriage that effectively ended their years long relationship. And the song goes on We've been through this such a long, long time Just trying to kill the pain Love is always coming, love is always going no one's really sure who's letting go today Walking away if we could take the time to lay it on the line I could rest my head just knowing that you were mine so if you want to love me then darlin'don't refrain Or I'll just end up walking in the cold November rain Even rockers at the top of the world get the blues When a love story ends. Part of what makes this song so appealing is that you are seeing the vulnerable side of someone with a legendary mercurial temperament. All the wild stories about Axl Rose and the legendary exploits of Guns N Roses get some real humanizing context in the lavish arrangement and the poignant lyrics of this song. And it goes on with the lyrics asking if you need some time on your own and saying everybody needs some time all alone. And then the next verse goes like this. I know it's hard to keep an open heart when even friends seem out to harm you but if you could heal a broken heart Wouldn't time be out to charm you? Those lines sound like they'd be right in step with the lyrics of the song that inspired it. Love lies Bleeding, especially the part in the Elton John song that wonders if those changes have left a scar on you. There's hope to come as the song winds towards its end when Rose sings and when your fears subside and shadows still remain I know that you can love me when there's no one left to blame so never mind the darkness we can still find a way because nothing lasts forever Even cold November rain in the beginning of the song, nothing lasts forever, including their love affair. And in the end, the cold November rain is the thing that will pass while the love affair remains. So in the song, there's hope for resolution, even though love is so uncertain and complex, it's a universal theme, one of the reasons that November Rain became a Top five hit. What did Elton John think of it? Well, he played the piano part when the band performed it at the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards, all nine grandiose minutes of it. To close out the show that year, Axl Rose finally found the sound he'd been working on so painstakingly. When this recording finally came together and with the November Rain video released at a time just before the minimalism of grunge music would take over the rock world, Guns N Roses reinvented themselves cinematically. They went from being a band that could rock harder and live harder than anyone to being the band that could produce emotionally vulnerable ballads and do that in a big way. The video got to the billion views mark on YouTube in 2018, over 25 years after it was released, and by 2023 it blew past 2 billion. That's a real accomplishment for a nine minute song in a modern world where the attention spans are decidedly short and getting shorter. A song about a lost love, starring a new love, dramatic on screen and off, based on a story written by a friend. It kind of had to work. And luckily for Gn'r fans, the song that Axl Rose said he would quit the music business over if it wasn't recorded right did more than work. It became part of the pop culture in ways that really couldn't have been imagined back in the 90s. It signaled the end of an era when rock bands made huge, expensive videos to go along with their double album releases. Big stories for larger than life rock stars. So what other hard rock bands in the late 80s and early 90s hooked you with a ballad? Let me know in the comments. I'm Janda and this has been behind the song. If you liked this episode, give it a like and subscribe to the channel. And check it out on TikTok too. Special thanks as always to Christian Lane for the music you hear on these podcast episodes. You can find me on the air at 97.1fm the drive in Chicago and at wdrv.com on the way. Much more classic rock and roll.