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Guns N’ Roses SPENT MILLIONS To Confuse Their Own Fans

Rock N' Roll True Stories | September 18, 2026



The story behind the epic Guns N’ Roses song ‘Don’t Cry’ and the music video.

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In 1991, Guns N’ Roses weren’t content to just release a follow-up to Appetite for Destruction. They released two albums on the same day, debuted at No. 1 and No. 2 on the Billboard 200 simultaneously, and then spent a reported $7 million turning three ballads into a three-part cinematic epic that fans are still arguing about 35 years later. This is the story of where that trilogy actually began.

Long before the helicopters, the rooftop shoots and the shut-down streets of downtown Los Angeles, there was just a song written in about five minutes. Axl Rose and Izzy Stradlin put it together around 1985 after a real goodbye — a woman ending things with Axl outside the Roxy, or on a park bench depending on which telling you believe, and the simple words she offered him that became the hook. The band tracked early demos at Hollywood Sound, the same room where Led Zeppelin cut Led Zeppelin II, and that session ended with a studio owner allegedly pulling a real gun over an unpaid bill. The band grabbed their tapes and left.

The song didn’t make Appetite for Destruction. It circulated on bootlegs for years as a hardcore fan secret before finally arriving in 1991 in two different versions, on two different albums, with two different sets of lyrics — an early sign of how big Axl’s ambitions had become.

Then came the video. Working with director Andy Morahan and writer Del James, Axl built the first chapter of a story loosely drawn from James’ short story “Without You” and from his own collapsed marriage to Erin Everly. What ended up on screen was deeply personal and genuinely unsettling: a struggle over a handgun that Axl later confirmed was pulled straight from real life, a therapy room featuring his actual therapist, a blizzard, a kilt, a drowning sequence shot with four scuba divers that left him in tears in his trailer, and a graveyard scene where the headstone carries his own name and the year 1990 — a year he flatly described as suicidal.

And on the rooftop, a sign reading “Where’s Izzy?” — a public acknowledgement that the co-writer of the song never showed up. Izzy got sober, took one look at the excess and the control, and was gone by November 1991. He’d later call the whole thing a pointless indulgence.

We also break down the drum fill Matt Sorum played across all three videos at Axl’s request, inspired by Nigel Olsson’s work on Elton John’s “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me,” the hidden band tributes to Jane’s Addiction, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Nirvana, the St. Louis Cardinals hat referencing the Riverport riot, Shannon Hoon’s appearance on the roof, and why the babies at the start and end have different coloured eyes.

Masterpiece or peak rock star excess? Even the director shrugged when asked what it all meant. Tell me your interpretation in the comments.

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Comments

This post currently has 49 comments.

  4. @paulj.5542

    September 18, 2026 at 7:40 am

    The news article shown at exactly the 8:00 mark is a review of a Guns 'N Roses concert I attended on December 5th, 1991 in Massachusetts! It was my second concert ever after seeing Queensryche on their Building Empires tour exactly one month earlier.

  6. @God_Help_Us_Please

    September 18, 2026 at 7:40 am

    (SORRY for the ramble everyone). Thank you so much for this mini documentary. You always do a great job. I can't believe it has been 35 years since the release of UYI I&II. It feels like it was an eternity ago yet also feels like it was just a couple of days ago.

    My next comment is 💯 true. The universe was BEZERK stir crazy with the anticipation of the release of those two albums, my friends and I included. We all were 17 years of age with long hair amd saw GNR six weeks earlier at the Great Western Forum, Skid Row opening. The word "magical" is not good enough of a word to describe how good GNR was in concert… Skid Row too.

    My final culmination of thoughts is this. I ask everyone to pray for Axl to someday have the epiphany to start releasing more concert video from both the UYI and AFD tours, especially the UYI era. God knows I have prayed since the very late 80s that GNR would release AFD era videos and it never happened. Then UYI happened and since that summer of 1991 with all the chaos and insatiable demand for GNR during the UYI tour and of course Terminator 2 going on in the background. I started praying again, and continued to for the next 35 years no joke. Yes… they released ONE show from Tokyo 92, the "Making of the Videos" and not that much else. That is less than a drop in the bucket of live concert video sitting in a vault somewhere. So, with that being said, my request is for anyone who is reading this to find it in their hearts to help me in this endeavor and pray to God to convince Axl to do this.

  9. @jayduvde

    September 18, 2026 at 7:40 am

    I'm sitting here in my work van listening/watching this video on my phone and You Could Be Mine came on the radio that was playing in the background in the van at the end of your video!

  14. @110worknonit

    September 18, 2026 at 7:40 am

    Only the ballads on the use your illusion albums were good. The follow up to appetite was delayed several times over almost 2 years and was expected to sell 20 million copies. The lack of great riffs is why the albums didn't sell as expected and their fanbase changed. It was the most disappointing follow up ever to me and felt like 5 great songs stretched into a soulless triple album.

  22. @miriamisback

    September 18, 2026 at 7:40 am

    Loved Don't Cry and November Rain videos. Estranged creeped me out.
    Forgot to add: The 30 year debate I've been having with my brother is finally over and I won. I knew there was an alternate version of Don't Cry. I just sent him this video and he acknowledged his defeat.✌🏽

  27. @mojorisin7371

    September 18, 2026 at 7:40 am

    GnR suffered what most bands that get that big suffer from, Corporate injected policies make decisions that promise them big dividends and when it does it feeds that EGO to always be like “Trust Us” we know better‼️ So the corporate machine keeps going looking for any way to make everyone the most amount of money and for Axl it seemed to work. Even with his decade long absence he’s still worth $200 million 😳 That doesn’t happen without corporate input. Metallica, U2, etc same thing. Their only concern wasn’t to sell out but to sell out every arena they play and every copy of their album and merchandise. That’s why anything after the moment they decided to go corporate is just regurgitating what they already done. The hunger to be original and creative is vastly diminished from a younger, broker and much more ambitious band. It’s very rare when artist can maintain their creativity and put out constant awe inspiring music. Bands like Tool and Evanescence have maintained that passion and continue to produce great music while being rich and successful and doing it for over a couple decades. While there are many bands and artist that do, it’s the big ones like the aforementioned where it’s harder to. Once these artist get it in their heads that it’s all for the best to just cash in, there is no way other than to reject their music to get them to appreciate what they had and move them into a better direction‼️🤘🏼❤️

  28. @charlesgrigson6436

    September 18, 2026 at 7:40 am

    Don't cry tonight, I still love you, baby. Don't you cry tonight, there's a heaven above you, baby! I still love the use your illusion albums. Crazy though how a year later gnr would be almost irrelevant and it was nirvana that was then the biggest band in all the land. Nobody cared about hard rock and metal anymore. It was all about grunge and alternative rock. No wonder axl hated Kurt so much

  29. @rosesnroses_x

    September 18, 2026 at 7:40 am

    Remember when Mike Myers took over MTV for like a day and he made comments about this video. "Drunk in the snow with a gun", "now there are 3 Axls", "now we see his butt"

  31. @jr2904

    September 18, 2026 at 7:40 am

    1991 was a great year for music, I wish I was born earlier to truly experience it. The black album, use your illusion, nevermind, blood sex sugar magic, achtung baby, out of time.

  35. @petram.972

    September 18, 2026 at 7:40 am

    Thank you so much! I was a teenager in the 80s but I was not a fan back then. But during the pandemic, I watched a lot of music videos and became really addicted to GnR. Now I'm a fan! 😂😂

  43. @ImRubb3rUrGlue

    September 18, 2026 at 7:40 am

    Use your illusion is a masterpiece. The whole thing, from beginning to end, is so intensely emotional.. the music videos are gorgeous illustrations of deep pain and the emotional damages that he was singing about. I love it to this day.

Comments are closed.

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